Splitting into Tracks from DAT tape

[hjett]

We've just recorded a ten song collection from a DAT tape to Audacity as one track. Then we followed the instructions about splitting into tracks, but it doesn't work. What could we be doing wrong? Thanks!

[kozikowski]

<<<DAT tape>>>

Actually, there's usually a DAT machine in the middle and they're notoriously difficult to use unless you have a full-on television production facility. Do you? If not, you probably did what most people do and take the headphone output into your computer, right?

I'm getting silly about this because those two processes produce very, very different sound tracks and can have different problems.

Koz

[hjett]

hi, koz.

thanks for your response.

we recently discovered audacity and want to continue to use the sony/dat for recording but make a cd on
the pc using audacity to make the audio transfer then burn a cd with windows media player.

to clarify, we took an existing dat recording (ten songs) from our sony dat to our pc/audacity. the result was
good re the sound transfer of the ten tunes on one track. later we tried to split the recording in audacity
into ten tracks from one and have not been able to get that result. we followed aud's instructions re "add label at selection' and finally, "export multiple".

any ideas?

h

[kozikowski]

So you ran a cable from the DAT machine headphone connection to the Line-In of your computer. You'd be shocked how much professional sound is transferred that way.

Did you Export As WAV to get a sound file backup of your work? If you leave it in Audacity Project form, the show is really easy to damage by accident. Audacity doesn't "Save" sound files. You have to Export.

OK, so now you have your stable, high quality WAV sound file. Click-Select some place in the performance and press Control-B. Does a new label track pop up underneath the main performance? What happens if instead of pressing Control-B, you select/click Project > Add Label...

If one method works without the other, your keyboard shortcuts may be scrambled and you can use the mouse selector instead of the hot keys to get your show out the door. The official instruction is to put a label at the beginning of each song you want exported.

Let me know.

Koz