I just finished creating multiple tracks for a long concert so that I can have mp3’s to burn to a CD. I didn’t write the label names as I went, but when I went to export multiple files I get the box where I can enter the names of the files, which I’d like to do.
Is there an easy way to see the names of all the tracks I created?
I use version 2.0.0. and Linux Mint, and this is my first audacity project, so I’m kind of flying in the dark here.
Thanks.
Have you read the Manual:
Audacity Manual ?
I am not clear what you are trying to do.
If you have one long Audacity track, then you split it into separate tracks for file export using labels.
The labels determine the file name. If you have decided to have empty labels then the “Edit Metadata” window will say “untitled” for the Track Title of each file. If you do not change that then the exported files will be named as “untitled.wav”, “untitled-2.wav”, “untitled-3.wav” and so on.
Audacity has no way to look up metadata like artist and genre, if the songs are recorded off a tape, LP or broadcast.
Once you have exported the files then you can select and copy the list of successfully exported files.
If you want to play this CD in your car or standalone CD player, export multiple as WAV, not MP3 then burn an “audio CD”, not a “data CD”:
Audacity Manual .
If you want a CD containing quality-degraded but small-sized MP3 files (that will only play on your computer, MP3 player or some DVD players), you will have to add LAME to your computer:
Audacity Manual .
Gale
What I was trying to say is that as I am exporting the multiple tracks, I want to type the correct label for each track as the dialogue box pops up for track 1, track 2, etc. I didn’t note the labels as I created them, so I am looking for a way to access the names of the tracks so that I can type the names correctly into the dialogue box. When I hit “sort tracks by start time” or “by name” nothing happens. I’m just hoping there is a way to look at the names I’ve given the tracks so that I can label them correctly when I export them.
If you know the names of the song tracks, I recommend typing the name in the label at the time you create it.
As explained, Audacity has no metadata look-up. It does not know what the songs are called if you don’t know.
If I understand it, you have only one Audacity track (that has Mute / Solo buttons) and this is divided by labels into different song tracks. Is that correct? Tracks > Sort Tracks is only for Audacity tracks, so does nothing if you only have one Audacity track.
In your first post you said:
I didn’t write the label names as I went
As previously explained, if you did not type in the labels, then Metadata Editor will say “untitled” for “Track Title”. If you did type in the labels, then that “Track Title” field will show what you typed in each label as you go through each window in Metadata Editor.
If you are concerned, press “Cancel” in “Edit Metadata” to quit the export. Then you can choose View > Fit in Window to look at the whole track in the window and inspect the labels.
You can also look at the names of any labels you created or typed in by choosing Tracks > Edit Labels. You can type label names there for any labels you did not type in.
If you leave labels with no typing in them, you must click Cancel (not OK) in Edit Labels because it will remove empty labels that you did not put a name in.
Gale
As I went through the song, I stopped the recording at the beginning of each new song and “entered label at playback,” typing in the name of the next song as its “label.” Just now, after reading your post, I went to “tracks” “edit tracks,” and I see that the name of the final track is listed as the track title for ALL of the tracks that I labelled.
I’m sorry to be so dense, but what did I do wrong (and what can I do correctly) to divide this 2 hr concert into all of its many songs as separate tracks with their proper names so that I can export them all and burn them onto a CD.
I appreciate all your help.
Karen
OK, if you did CTRL + B (Tracks > Add Label At Selection) then whatever you typed in the label that appeared is the name of the file that will be exported. If you typed “You belong to me” and you export multiple as WAV then that label produces a file called You belong to me.wav.
But see below.
Do you mean Tracks > Edit Labels?
Audacity supplied by us does not have Tracks > Edit Tracks. If Linux Mint have changed the Audacity menus you will need to ask on the Linux Mint forums for how to use their version of Audacity.
Are you quite sure as I asked you already that you only have one Audacity audio track containing Mute / Solo buttons? If when you say
As I went through the song, I stopped the recording at the beginning of each new song
you were recording one song, stopped, labelled it, pressed the red Record button again and so on, then you will have one Audacity track on top of each other for each separate recording.
Then when you File > Export Multiple if you chose “Split files based on tracks”, you would see in Track Title in the metadata windows not what you typed in the labels, but whatever is in the name of each Audacity track. Here is what the name of the Audacity track looks like
.
If you need to see the content of each label you have typed, another way is to do File > Export Labels… then look at the contents of the exported text file.
I can only suggest again reading the Manual Audacity Manual for how this process should work.
Gale
You’re right, it was “track” “edit labels” not “edit tracks.” And after rereading the tutorial, I see what went wrong but not how to fix it. And, yes, I do have the one track with mute/solo buttons. And I wasn’t recording anything; I’d extracted audio from a DVD and opened it with Audacity.
When I stopped a song and hit “add label at playback,” I got the line that indicated the dividing of the music, but no label space at the bottom of the line. There was just a very small rectangle, and when I clicked on it (right and left clicks), nothing happened, so I thought I was supposed to go over to the label space on the left, with the small arrow. When I clicked on that, it asked whether I wanted to enter a label name, which I did, and saved it. Obviously, I was not labeling each song with its own name, but renaming each track/song with the same one.
I just entered a name in the correct label location, so I will have to go through the songs again, but I THINK I’ve got it.
Thanks again.
Perhaps it is not as obvious as it might be that you are intended to type in that small rectangle.
It might be preferable that an empty label that is open for editing would have a flashing cursor as per standard practice with a text box (though I do recall something about labels not being implemented as pure text boxes).
If I understand you, you named the label track itself which contains the labels. This does not affect the labels or the metadata of the exported files.
If you had labelled the track but left all the labels empty, then the behaviour of the Metadata Editor is different according to how you access it. If you access it from File > Open Metadata Editor, the “Track Title” field will be filled from the imported file’s track title metadata (if it exists). If the imported file has no metadata at all, then Metadata Editor opened from File menu will be empty, and naming the label track or audio track won’t change that.
But if you access Metadata Editor after pressing “Export” in “Export Multiple” then “Track Title” will be read from the labels and will say “untitled” in all the windows if the labels are empty because export multiple by labels forces the Track Title metadata to the name in the label.
Don’t forget when you Export Multiple that there is a metadata editor window for each song label. But “Track Title” in each window should be different for each label if you type different text in each label.
Gale