Audacity Forum

Hi there:

First, thank you so much for creating this tool, I've had lots of success with it.

Now, my problem. I *think* this should be easy and I'm just missing something...

I have a live performance DVD and I want to transfer the audio portion of this to an iPod.
I have ripped the audio off the DVD and am now splitting into separate tracks
(I have done this a few times so I'm quite confident with the process).

On one track for some reason I have clipped a few seconds off the end of it. Now I have a break when this track ends and the next one begins.

I know I can fix this by going back and splitting the WAV file into separate tracks again, but that's a lot of work for just one bad track.

I have all the MP3 files so I figured I would do this:

1) create an Audacity project;
2) read in the WAV file;
3) import the 1st MP3;
4) align the end of the MP3 to the same place in the WAV file, and cut out the time of the MP3 from the WAV file. E.G. if the MP3 ends at time 03:15.8856273, cut (in the WAV) from 0:0.0 to that time. Of course I don't want to know the time (unless I can type it in from a display), I want Audacity to automatically synchronize everything, so I know it's right);
5) repeat until I get to the track I want;
6) import the last MP3 and align its *start* to the same place in the WAV, and cut that out (that is, from the end of the WAV back to the start-time of the MP3);
7) repeat until all that's left is the track I want;
8) export that to an MP3 and I'm done!

*But*... I simply can not work out how to align the end of an import to the main track except by doing this by hand and eye, which is going to give me a bad result (I have a good sense of rhythm and can sense a few milliseconds of dropped or added audio).

What I want to do is this: assuming that the two tracks start at the same place (they do); select the *end* of the imported track, then somehow transfer that time-point over to the WAV file, then cut from there back to time-zero. Does that make sense? Then I'll want to do the complementary action by aligning the endsof the WAV and MP3 files, then selecting the start of the MP3, transferring that time-point to the WAV, and cutting from there to the end.

Is this possible? None of the 'align' options seem to do what I want (not that I really understand what any of them actually do).

Thanks for any assistance!

Jonathan

This is easier to do in 1.3 than in 1.2 - as in 1.3 you get a little yellow vertical alignment bar on the track when the track boundaries are moved close togetther - plus you get a snap-to effect which helps too.

In 1.2 you could try zooming in (a lot) to make the alignment easier.

WC

I got a bit lost on what you were doing with which audio clip, but a couple of little editing tips that you may find useful (these apply to Audacity 1.3.x).

Selecting the same point on multiple tracks.
Click on a track to position the cursor/play position, then use the down (or up) cursor to move to another track and press Enter. The same position will now be selected on that track. This can be repeated on multiple tracks. The Enter button will toggle the selection on and off. Using the "Split" function will enable you split the selected tracks at exactly the same point. This is handy for trimming audio so that one track starts at the exact moment (the next sample position) that another track stops.

This also works with selected regions and is useful for making "drop in edits".

Zooming with the mouse wheel
Editing often requires precise positioning of audio clips. Holding down the Ctrl key and spinning the mouse wheel is a handy way to zoom in and out. To avoid having "clicks" at edit boundaries, you can now easily zoom in close enough to see where the wave form crosses the central horizontal line. These is known as "zero crossing point" edits and making edits at zero editing points will usually provide clean edit boundaries that do not click. The completed edit should then be a smooth transition from one audio clip to the next without any sudden amplitude jumps in the waveform.

Thanks for the help.

I upgraded to 1.3.6 and after some playing around I followed the 'hit up arrow then Enter' and it did help me with half the problem.

Side note #1: it seemed like this wasn't quite accurate (it seemed to cut off a bit more than I had specified, but perhaps that's just me).

Side note #2: ctrl+shift+I didn't work for me at all, I had to use the import command from the drop-down menu. This is XP Pro SP3.

Side question: the only way I could find to select the end of the track was to click in it, then hit shift-J and shift-K to select the whole track, then hit up-arrow and enter to mark the same time period in the WAV file. Is there an easier way?

However, I still couldn't work out how to do the other half.

Let me try to explain again what I'm trying to do.

I have a WAV file from a live concert. It contains three tracks, A, B and C. (I am simplifying, there are 20 or so tracks in the real WAV file).

Previously, I had split the WAV file into the three tracks. Alas, I must have made a mistake when I did the original split because track B is a few seconds short. I want everything to join up properly when I play the concert so I didn't want to eyeball things, I wanted Audacity to do things for me (it's probably smarter than I am and certainly has better time-keeping capabilities). So my thought was to:

1) import the WAV file;
2) import track A;
3) align the start of track A and the start of the WAV file;
4) mark the end of track A in the WAV file;
5) cut from time:0 to the mark (i.e. the length of track A) off the front of the WAV file.

The advice given enabled me to do this. However, the next part I still can't work out. I planned to:

6) import track C;
7) align the *end* of track C with the *end* of the WAV file;
8) mark the *beginning* of track C in the WAV file;
9) cut from the mark to time:end (i.e. the length of track C) off the *back* of the WAV file.

So basically I end up chopping off from front and back until what's left is the track I want. Because everything is aligned, I know that the entire concert will play without break or overlap (which I can't really guarantee if I try to do the cutting by hand).

Alas, I can not work out how to align the *ends* of the two tracks. I would have thought that the 'Align End with Selection End' would have done the trick, but it doesn't seem to do that (also I can't work out what it is doing, which might have given me a clue).

Hopefully this explains what I'm attempting a bit more clearly.

Is there any way to do what I want?

Thanks again for the help so far.

Jonathan

OK, I think I'm with you now.

jhc wrote:6) import track C;
7) align the *end* of track C with the *end* of the WAV file;
8) mark the *beginning* of track C in the WAV file;
9) cut from the mark to time:end (i.e. the length of track C) off the *back* of the WAV file.

The "WAV" file was the full original recording, but it now has the first part (equivalent length to track A) cut off.
Is that correct?

Lets say that the WAV track is track number 1, and "track C" is below it, and I'll refer to it as track 2.
Track 2 is shorter than track 1, and you want to delete the exact length of track 2 from track 1.

• Press F5 to select the "Time Shift" tool.
• Click onto track 2 and while holding down the left mouse button, drag the audio in track 2 until the end of the track lines up with the end of track 1. You will now when it is exactly in position, because you will see a yellow vertical line appear at the end of both tracks.
• Click F1 to return to the usual "Selection Tool"
• Click on the left hand end of track 2, below the track name, in the region where it has the sample rate and bit depth listed. This will select the audio in track 2
• Press the "Enter" key - this will deselect track 2, but the selected region will still be indicated on the time ruler.
• Press the "Up" cursor key and press the Enter key - you now have the part of track 1 selected ready for deleting.
• Press the "Del" key (or Ctrl + K)