I have a large FLAC file which contains 6 tracks for 5.1 surround for home theater. When I import this to Audacity it displays all the tracks. My desire is to cut sections of this large file and save them as individual named files. When I select a segment containing all 6 tracks, I find Audacity will only allow me to save as stereo or mono, which of course defeats the 5.1 format.
I’ve tried to find a way to do this but came up empty. If Audacity can save all six tracks & keep everything in sync, I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
If Audacity can’t do this, what would be a convenient option?
If you are exporting as FLAC, ensure that you keep the tracks in the same order.
If you export in a different format, you may need to rearrange the order of the exported channels. Some common channel maps are given in this Wikipedia article: Surround sound - Wikipedia
A couple of notes in case you don’t know these things -
If you want AC3 (Dolby digital) you’ll need to install [u]FFmpeg[/u].
There is a 4GB file-size limit for WAV files and “movie length” multi-channel files can exceed that.
MP3 only supports mono & stereo.
Audacity will give you an audio-only file so if there is video you’ll need additional software to re-combine (multiplex) with the video. You’ll also need additional software if you want to make a “standard” audio-only DVD that plays on all DVD players. (Many DVD & Blu-ray players will play other formats and of course your computer will play almost anything.)