Using Audacity to make podcasts

[KenZakreski]

Hi,

Like most other Canadian Community Radio Stations we support audacity for building radio shows. I use Audacity to build prerecorded radio shows for broadcast.

Not sure if this feature is available but not documented or just not available so I thought I should ask here.

When I build my radio show I drag the audio tracks into Audacity, the meta data seems to come with it. The name of the song goes to the track title in Audacity.

I would like the meta data from each song to stay in the final audio file for all the songs included. This would serve two purposes, when my show is podcasted the listener would see the song names and not just the show names. Also, we could log the songs played in a automation service so I wouldn't have to type in the songs played again.

Not sure if this is called 'chapters' like Garage Band uses or Label Track in the Audacity manual.

Ken
CKGI.ca 98.7fm

[billw58]

Ken:
Audacity can't do what you're asking. The tracks may be titled according to the file name imported, but in terms of metadata only the metadata from the most recently imported file is stored in Audacity's metadata, and written out to the final mix (AIF, MP3 or WAV, etc), unless you edit it first.
See:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Metadata_Editor - the metadata editor
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Label_Tracks - how label tracks work
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Spli ... ate_tracks - using label track to export multiple files from one project

-- Bill

[Gale Andrews]

Like most other Canadian Community Radio Stations we support audacity for building radio shows.

Thanks for your support, Ken.

When I build my radio show I drag the audio tracks into Audacity, the meta data seems to come with it. The name of the song goes to the track title in Audacity.

I would like the meta data from each song to stay in the final audio file for all the songs included. This would serve two purposes, when my show is podcasted the listener would see the song names and not just the show names. Also, we could log the songs played in a automation service so I wouldn't have to type in the songs played again.

Not sure if this is called 'chapters' like Garage Band uses or Label Track in the Audacity manual.

I am not sure what you mean by "meta data". Have you enabled "Show Metadata Editor prior to export step" in Import / Export Preferences ? Here is the page about Metadata Editor: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/me ... ditor.html .

If you are importing multiple songs into separate Audacity tracks, then only the metadata (in the sense above) for the last imported song is retained. In any case, if you make all those songs into one Audacity track and export it as one audio file, you can't make separate sections within the one file with metadata for each song.

Have you tried Splitting a recording into separate tracks - labelling each song, then using File > Export Multiple to export a file for each song? Then you can give each file its own metadata and you can make a playlist comprising the file for each song. This will work fine if you are streaming, but not if you want to give the listeners a single file to download from a web site.

Again, if you mean metadata like genre and artist name, you will have to type it for each song, because Audacity only retains the metadata for the last file.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

Merged the duplicate topics and deleted the duplicate post. Please only post once.

If this is a feature request, what is it for? That projects should store metadata per track? In your case, when you want to make a single exported file, is the request also that the label should store the metadata - that you should be able to link the metadata that came with the file to a label? Both those were proposed on audacity-devel a few years ago, but there is no patch for it.

Or is getting the name of the imported file into the label name all that concerns you?


Gale

[KenZakreski]

Ken:
Audacity can't do what you're asking. The tracks may be titled according to the file name imported, but in terms of metadata only the metadata from the most recently imported file is stored in Audacity's metadata, and written out to the final mix (AIF, MP3 or WAV, etc), unless you edit it first.
See:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Metadata_Editor - the metadata editor
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Label_Tracks - how label tracks work
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Spli ... ate_tracks - using label track to export multiple files from one project

-- Bill

I have read the relevant sections from the links you provided. I agree, Audacity can't do what I'm asking.

I note AAC is the format Apple uses to provide chapters, which might allow the display of songs titles and artist names , as they are being played, on regular players, which might work to allow song logging for a computerized logging system.

Ken

[steve]

I note AAC is the format Apple uses to provide chapters, which might allow the display of songs titles and artist names , as they are being played, on regular players, which might work to allow song logging for a computerized logging system.

That might work on some iPods, but there is no guarantee that it will work on other brands, or even on all iPods. This is an inherent problem of non-standard formats.

[KenZakreski]

I note AAC is the format Apple uses to provide chapters, which might allow the display of songs titles and artist names , as they are being played, on regular players, which might work to allow song logging for a computerized logging system.

That might work on some iPods, but there is no guarantee that it will work on other brands, or even on all iPods. This is an inherent problem of non-standard formats.

Remember this is a feature primarily for use inside the studio on our computer to log songs broadcast from our pre recorded shows. If it works on our podcasts that is an innovation we would love to promote.

[Gale Andrews]

I note AAC is the format Apple uses to provide chapters, which might allow the display of songs titles and artist names , as they are being played, on regular players, which might work to allow song logging for a computerized logging system.

That might work on some iPods, but there is no guarantee that it will work on other brands, or even on all iPods. This is an inherent problem of non-standard formats.

This seems to be the feature:
http://coverville.com/archives/interest ... eband-mac/

This is definitely a feature for AAC files only.

Although that article implies this feature is only for iPod/iPhone/iPad, I suspect chapters may be visible in iTunes, or at least you can navigate to them. Can you see GarageBand chapters on iTunes in OS X, Ken?

AAC officially supports "bookmarks" (resuming where you left off) as well as "chapters" in metadata where the encoder/decoder does so. I think the Apple implementation of chapters is not the official ISO implementation that you can use by encoding in the Neroaac encoder, but may be more full-featured. I know Neroaac can take multiple files and write a single MP4 with chapter marks at the divisions between the input files: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=NeroAAC .

Audacity would still need to support metadata per track (or at least take file name and track number from all imported files) for passing to a single export. And it would have to support either the Apple or ISO implementation of chapters.


Gale

[steve]

I would like the meta data from each song to stay in the final audio file for all the songs included. This would serve two purposes, when my show is podcasted the listener would see the song names and not just the show names. Also, we could log the songs played in a automation service so I wouldn't have to type in the songs played again.

There is one way of doing something like that which is widely supported by many players, and that is to use a playlist for the show. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playlist#O ... e_Internet)

The way it works is that each track is a separate file, (with its own metadata). The files are organised into a sequence by a special text file (such as an "M3U" file: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.m3u). The audience download the playlist and their media player then drags in each of the songs, jingles, introductions, etc. in sequence.

There are several benefits to this method:
It is widely supported by many media players.
It is extremely easy to change the program at short notice if necessary (just edit the playlist file).
Most players are able to start playing almost instantly after the (very small) playlist file has been downloaded.
Song information can be written directly into the playlist, so the song titles will usually appear even if the media player does not support the metadata format.
No need to handle huge files - each track is just normal song size.
Easy to make an audio CD of the show because each "track" is a separate file.
Playlist creation can be integrated into a database application.
Supports multiple file formats so can reduce the time spent transcoding files.

[Gale Andrews]

I would like the meta data from each song to stay in the final audio file for all the songs included. This would serve two purposes, when my show is podcasted the listener would see the song names and not just the show names. Also, we could log the songs played in a automation service so I wouldn't have to type in the songs played again.

There is one way of doing something like that which is widely supported by many players, and that is to use a playlist for the show. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playlist#O ... e_Internet)

The way it works is that each track is a separate file, (with its own metadata). The files are organised into a sequence by a special text file (such as an "M3U" file: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.m3u). The audience download the playlist and their media player then drags in each of the songs, jingles, introductions, etc. in sequence.

I agree - as per my first answer - some players like VLC can save streams to disk that contain the individual metadata for each song in the playlist. The users could retain the files that way.

Unless you want to give the users a download for a single file, a playlist seems a good answer.


Gale