Remove blank space within track

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Hello,

I have an Audacity file containing a single track with multiple clips, which are separated by blank space. (Note - they are not separated by silence within a clip. They are separate clips, and there is nothing in the audio track in between them.)

I’m looking for a way to automatically remove that blank space, so that those clips are immediately joined end to end. So far what I’ve been doing is looking at the time signatures of when the first clip ends and the second clip starts, highlighting the space in between, and deleting. I’ve also played with highlighting a random section in between, and stretching the double-headed arrow. This would work, but it doesn’t always lock to the beginning/end of the adjacent clips.

It seems like there must be a better way to do this. Does anyone know of a way?

Thanks.

2

I thought one of the serious shortcomings of Audacity 2.1.2 was the inability to translate “nothing” segments of the timeline to time. That is, when you exported the show, all the nothings would vanish and smash all the clips into each other. Have you tried that?

Koz

3

Try Truncate Silence, setting “Truncate to” to 0 seconds.


Gale

4

Export only removes the white space before the track starts.


Gale

5

Thanks for the replies.

Try Truncate Silence, setting “Truncate to” to 0 seconds.

It looks like this does the trick, thanks!

6

Is there a way to do this without losing the clip divisions? I just want to snap all the clips together without losing my painstaking splits.

7

Gale Andrews is unlikely to reply as he died on 10th August 2017.
I’d suggest that you try the solution that he gave three posts before yours.

8

I’m sorry to hear that. But I made my post precisely because that solution doesn’t work for me. It removes the borders on the clips. That is what I’m trying to preserve.

9

Which version of Audacity?

10

Also see this github enhancement request: Remove space between clips · Issue #3924 · audacity/audacity · GitHub

11

SteveDaulton commented on Dec 22, 2023 on GitHub that there’s a Nyquist macro plug-in that does exactly this. I’ve confirmed that it works correctly.

https://audionyq.com/remove-space-between-clips/

Good skill. Good luck, of course, but more importantly, good skill!

12

I had the same problem. When my hard drive died and I replaced it, all of a sudden I was having this blank space problem when I recorded multiple clips one after the other. So this (found when I also searched how to remove a problem with pasting clips when editing) this WORKED for that problem and simultaneously for the blank space problem. Go to: Edit menu > Preferences > Track behaviors > Editing a clip can move other clips . That did it for me. I was delighted - I hope it helps you or anyone else suffering similar frustrations.