Audacity Forum

I've made some recordings that have music and voice with several pauses throughout the voice part. When I export to MP3 I get a billion files---audacity is reading each part between pauses as a discreet file. How can I set it to ignore silent pauses? I'm using Audacity 1.2.6 on WinXP Pro

many thanks!

Do you have your Windows set to allow you to see file extensions whether they're registered or not? Like if I sent you two files mywork.doc and mywork.wav, would you see them as mywork and mywork with two different icons?

You used all the right English words in the question, but I strongly suspect you Saved instead of Exported and you're looking at the hundreds of AU files in the _data folder. Straight Export To MP3 will not automatically break your timeline up into individual files.

Let's see what's what.

Koz

I can't see the extension on file names...although if I view as Details, I can see they are AU files.

I saved the project when I was done editing, and then I selected Export as MP3. That's when I got the billions of files. My project file is intact as a single file.

You project is not intact as a single file:

When you save an Audacity project as <project_name> it creates a number of things

1. a top level master project file called <project_name>.aup
2. a folder at the same filing level called <project_name>_data
3. and within the folder a sub-folder structure with lots of little .au files - segments of the recording (mainly audio clips - but a couple of then are graphics files)

When you re-open a project with Audacity you should always open the <project_name>.aup top level file. This tells Audacity how to thread together all the little .au files. It is deliberately designed this way so that Audacity doesn't have to open and work with a single humungously large file, which would hamper performance. You should not be attempting to open or manipulate any individual .au files.

When you have finished editing your Audacity project you can Export it from Audacity as a WAV file or MP3 file depending what sound quality you wish to achieve. WAV files are around ten times larger than the equivalent MP3 files but are uncompressed and thus the audio quality is higher.

WC

Thanks, Waxy,

this is enlightening and helps me to understand what is happening. After a bit of hunting, I've located the MP3s. **somehow** they got into a different folder (okay, DUH)

so if I want to upload these to a website...I can just upload the MP3 and then most everyone on different platforms will be happy, right?

many thanks--

<<<**somehow** they got into a different folder (okay, DUH)>>>

That tree jumped right in front of my car.

<<<so if I want to upload these to a website...I can just upload the MP3 and then most everyone on different platforms will be happy, right?>>>

That's the idea, yes. MP3 sound files are pretty universally accepted. They are the audio version of JPEG pictures. Did you see that tag dialog box when you exported your sound files? Tags, or information about the music, can be brief and give you universal sound files, or more extensive and the files will not be quite so universally accepted. I usually pick brief and compatible

Koz

kozikowski wrote:<<<**somehow** they got into a different folder (okay, DUH)>>>

That tree jumped right in front of my car.

What Koz is alluding to in his circumlocutory way - is that when you Export your MP3s Audacity invires you yo place the files exactly where you want them to be - by way of a drop-down selection box in the export dialog ...

WC