Audacity Forum

Hi - I've scoured the Wiki page, and don't see my issue addressed, and I apologize in advance if I've just blatantly missed it. I'm a big fan of club music, and in my ongoing effort to go green (and for instant gratification!) I've been downloading .mp3 versions of continuous mix CDs from Amazon when the option is available, as opposed to getting it shipped in the mail, only to be ripped to one track (as it was designed) when I receive it. My issue is that they're broken up into 12-14 tracks and I can't find a way to "join" them in Audacity. If I purchase the physical CD, iTunes will allow me to "Join CD Tracks", which works perfectly, but I'd really rather just pay to get the CD immediately and join the tracks myself (not to mention saving the time and resources of getting a physical CD to me in the mail.) Is there a way to accomplish this (seemingly) simple in Audacity? Thanks in advance for any/all guidance or instruction.

Yes you can do that in Audacity, but be aware that if you want the final file as an MP3 there will be some loss of sound quality. If you want to burn the final "mix" to CD, then you can avoid the loss of sound quality issue.

The loss of sound quality is because MP3 is a "lossy" format. In order to make the file size small, some of the audio data is thrown away and the remaining data is squashed up together as tight as possible. It's the throwing away of (unimportant) audio data that reduces the sound quality, and it occurs each time the data is encoded. So the MP3 that you download will be slightly lower quality than the original CD (probably not noticeable). When you import the MP3s into Audacity they are decoded (Audacity can only work with uncompressed data), then if you Export the final mix as an MP3 the data has to be re-encoded, which means that a little bit more data is thrown away. If you repeat the process of decoding/re-encoding often enough the sound quality will become trash. To avoid the problem, export in a "lossless" format (such as WAV).

I'd suggest that you use Audacity 1.3 rather than the old 1.2.6 version. You can get it here: http://audacityteam.org/download/

Import the MP3s into Audacity (File menu > Import > Audio)
Zoom out using the zoom (magnifying glass) buttons
Use the Time Shift tool to drag the audio so that they line up like this: Note also that MP3s usually have a small amount of silence at the very beginning of the track, so if you want to create a gap-less join may need to zoom in close and make a small overlap like this:

Thanks Steve! I had stumbled across what you've outlined above (although you shared some great insights I hadn't thought of), but I was hoping for the software to automatically join the tracks, because I can just see me OCD kicking in and spending 2 hours making sure each edit is "perfect" as far as the gapless transitions. But that's my issue! I'll give this a shot, and thanks again for the quick reply to my post.

"Editing" is a ten to one affair. Ten hours, on average, to produce a one hour show -- and that's if everything goes OK. Everybody who seeks to violate this rule falls into the same situation you suggest:

"You know? I bet I can tighten up that third edit a little."

Of course, that never happens to me.

Koz

Mixless In MN wrote:I can just see me OCD kicking in and spending 2 hours making sure each edit is "perfect" as far as the gapless transitions.

A bit of OCD is required if you want a smooth transition* between tracks ... http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 78#p129278

[* a.k.a. "continuous mix ", "beatmatching"]

If you're not bothered about the tiny gap between tracks, just shove them up end-to end all on one track then export. There's some keyboard shortcuts that make this method really quick:

1. Import all of the files, they will appear one below the other.
2. Ctrl+3 to zoom out a bit (can also use Ctrl+Mouse Wheel to zoom in/out)
3. Double click on the second track to select it
4. Ctrl_X to cut the selected track
5. Click on the [X] in the top left corner of the (now empty) track to delete the track *
6. Use the "Up" cursor key to move focus to the top track
7. Ctrl+K to go to the end of the track
8. Ctrl+V to paste the copied track to the end of the first track
9. Double click on the next track and repeat steps 4 to 8

* to save having to switch between keyboard and mouse, you can make a keyboard shortcut to delete the selected track.
I've written this out in detail here: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 26&t=55241