Exporting loop points to WAV

[jwatte]

How do I export a loop point into a WAV? I'd like to have an attack, a sustain/loop section, and a release. In Audacity, the only way I can find to label sections is to use a marker, but this marker doesn't get exported when exporting to WAV.
I want to load this into Microsoft XACT, which recognizes sound file loop points. I suppose what I want to have written is a 'cue ' chunk?

[jwatte]

I can't believe nobody else is interested in this?

[Locopomo]

I can't believe nobody else is interested in this?

A little patience may be in order - this forum doesn't have a huge user base, so it may take a little longer than a day before someone answers.

Audacity markers are internal to Audacity projects and so as you say are not exported in WAVs. I may be wrong, but I don't think Audacity deals with embedded loop points (I usually define loop points in whatever soft-sampler I'm using, so it's never been an issue for me). Have you tried the other free audio editor Wavosaur? A quick Google suggests that it handles loop points.

[steve]

Audacity does not at present support loop points. Even if it did, that would not be enough. People would then want Audacity to play loops. They would want to be able to see both ends of a loop simultaneously. They would want automated loop point detection. They would want beat slicing, audio scrub, and a host of other things to help with loop creation. There are other programs that do this, but Audacity doe not.

At some point, the developers need to set out what functionality they want to include, and what is outside of their intentions - without some sort of bounds Audacity wouldn't be a multi-track audio editor, it would be an operating system.

[waxcylinder]

At some point, the developers need to set out what functionality they want to include, and what is outside of their intentions - without some sort of bounds Audacity wouldn't be a multi-track audio editor, it would be an operating system.

The Wiki carries a Roadmap for future developments: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Roadmap

and a short-term roadmap in the release llist: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... _Checklist

WC

[JuicyPork]

It's because of this lack of feature I switched to Wavosaur

[jan.kolar]

How do I export a loop point into a WAV? I'd like to have an attack, a sustain/loop section, and a release. In Audacity, the only way I can find to label sections is to use a marker, but this marker doesn't get exported when exporting to WAV.
I want to load this into Microsoft XACT, which recognizes sound file loop points. I suppose what I want to have written is a 'cue ' chunk?

I think chunks would not be what you want. If eventually what you want would be implemented, I think that would be via labels (Is that what you call marker?).
You can create label track by Tracks->Addnew->Label Track, or directly by creating first label (Ctrl+B if you have placed cursors somewhere for 'normal' label, or for 'selection' label if you made a selection).

I don't think labels are curently exported to wav, but if wav files support some labels/marks, you could make a 'feature request' to export them.

However, labels can be exported in a simple plain text format and perhaps used by another program to include in wav. (does perhaps XACT itself have any text import of markers?)

Also when your labels are created, you can use File>Export Multiple to split it to multiple files.
Or, perhaps more interestingly: if there is any command line utility manipulating the loop marks in wave,
the Export Labels or Export Mulitple command could be used together with the utility to get the goal.

<<Wavosaur>>
The support of ACIDized waves was not intruduced in it more than one year ago: http://www.wavosaur.com/forum/fr-acidiz ... -t340.html

[steve]

Another potential problem with loop point support, is that it would really need to be in one of the common formats, such as "Acidized", "Groove Clips" or "Audio Warp". If it was not compatible with any of these, then it would be of limited usefulness to anyone. Unfortunately, these are all proprietary formats and would probably not allow Audacity to be distributed as open-source software. It's the same old problem as with ASIO and VST. This is not a problem for programs such as Wavosaur as it is not open source.

For anyone interested in the open source alternatives, there's a good selection (at various stages of development) that include GDAM, Ardour, Freecycle, Freewheeling and SooperLooper. Audacity makes a great companion to these programs, taking care of all the editing need, while they get on and do what they are best at. I think all of these programs are Linux only, so Windows users may need to consider upgrading their operating system if they want to use them.