Audacity Forum

I want to convert several (now 8) projects into mp3s in an automated process.
They're kind of big projects, so I don't think I can combine them into one project and use multiple export, and even if I could it would really slow down my machine.

I got the 1.3 Beta of audacity and hoped I could use the Chain function, but it won't let you chain-convert AUP files (which kind of makes sense).

The best I've come up with so far is to run a loop that:
1 starts audacity with the project on the command line
2 uses AutoHotkey to do start off the conversion and the exit audacity
3 goto 1 for next project

Any better ideas ?

Audacity Projects are not sound files so there are no other programs that can help you out here. Projects are designed to be a working environment for your audio production. They are not designed for long term storage. The idea is that you do your recording, process, edit and export your finished work as an audio file.

Those of us that work on a lot of projects would add in another couple of steps: Record > Export backup WAV file > process/edit > Export WAV format backup > Export MP3.

It is rather risky to keep Audacity projects lying around for long. Not only are they very large, it is very easy to completely destroy them. If you move an AUP file away from it's associated data folder, the project is gone. You should definitely get into the habit of exporting your finished audio files straight away.

How I would deal with 8 large projects - Open the project in Audacity > start exporting and go and have a cup of tea. Come back > close Audacity > open the next project > start exporting > do the washing. Close Audacity > open the next project > start Exporting > have a shower..... I don't think there are any short-cuts.

What I'm doing is converting tapes to mp3. I have this nice old 'dubbing' cassette player that lets me play both sides of two tapes, so I use this to make a big audacity project - this can be done unattended.
Then, I split it up into 4 projects with one side of a tape in each project.
Then, I go into each project and trim off the silence at the start and end.
All this pretty much requires my interaction (though I suppose a nyquist script could do it).
Then, I'd like to just kick of a script to do the conversion to mp3.

I think if there were :

1 - a command-line option to automatically run a chain after opening the project
2 - a chainable command to exit Audacity

I could do this a lot easier.

Thanks, that gives me a better idea of the task, and I think I can suggest a pretty efficient work-flow.
Just a couple of details I'm unclear about

tlhall93 wrote:I have this nice old 'dubbing' cassette player that lets me play both sides of two tapes,

I presume you mean that it plays side1 (left and right), then side2 (left and right)?
Have you got 4 mono shows on the tape or 2 stereo shows on the tape?

tlhall93 wrote:Then, I'd like to just kick of a script to do the conversion to mp3.

You want to end up with a bunch of MP3s to put on an MP3 player?
Do you want the recordings splitting into "songs"?

This whole task can be done in one Audacity project, which will save time and effort. The basic method is described in detail here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Trans ... uter_or_CD but if you can clarify the above points I can give a more step-by-step description if that will help.

There's also an article about splitting tracks into songs and exporting as individual files, here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Split ... ate_tracks