Track Markers in wave files

Windows 7 Pro sp1 32bit
I have a long recording done in Creative Wave Studio 7 that I added markers to so I can skip to the next track on an audio cd or on my phone/player, etc. Can Audacity read these makers when opening the wave file? Supposedly they are saved in the metadata but I’m not sure if it is a standard among different wave editors.

My original intent was to mark the tracks and make a cue sheet to import into CDBurnerXP to make an audio cd but it’s too large for one cd. I read that Audacity can split wave files so I downloaded it thinking it might be easier to put markers in the file for the tracks and then split them. This way I could burn cds or import to a phone or player only the tracks i want hopefully with track names derived from the markers.

I searched the faq and help for markers but didn’t find anything related to tracks.

You can use markers ([u]labels[/u]) in an “Audacity Project” but as far as I know they are not compatible with anything else. And, they are not included in your exported audio file(s).

I added markers to so I can skip to the next track on an audio cd or on my phone/player, etc.

As you know CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray’s all support tracks/chapters. But “computer file formats” either don’t support tracks/chapters and/or most player software doesn’t support them. There may be work-arounds with a player that supports cue sheets or Matroska MKA files might support tracks but these solutions are non-standard.

Another issue is that a file can have only one title-tag.

If you buy an MP3 album from Amazon or an AAC album from iTunes you get a separate file for each song. Your player software can play the songs from an album in track-number order or in random order, etc. And most player software supports playlists if you just want to play some of the songs and/or a mix of songs from different albums, etc.

Players use the metadata tags to make a database so you can do almost anything as far as selecting & sorting tracks.

Supposedly they are saved in the metadata but I’m not sure if it is a standard among different wave editors.

I don’t know anything about Creative Wave Studio. Audacity has a metadata editor but it “gets complicated” because different audio formats use different metadata formats. And, Audacity’s metadata editor doesn’t support album artwork.

WAV files can be a problem because metadata is not well-standardized or well-supported for WAV. Most other formats are better (for metadata) and if you want lossless FLAC (which uses Vorbis tags) is usually a better option. Plus, your files will be about half the size.

For general-purpose metadata editing I use [u]MP3Tag[/u]. It supports all of the standard file formats… It’s not just for MP3/ID3.

Will an ‘Audacity Project’ be an index of the original wave file kind of like when you use Adobe Premier for a video project it doesn’t contain a copy of the original data, just a pointer to it or does an Audacity Project save it as a second wave file leaving the original wave recording intact?

It sounds like the labels will accomplish what I need to do to prepare for splitting into sequential songs. I’m just a little confused about how the first track gets named when you place the labels between songs. Whether I export to a format to burn an audio CD or separate MP3 files for a player I’d like it to play sequentially without gaps between the tracks.

Thanks for the help.

An [u]Auldacity Project[/u] has it’s own copy of the audio in many-many small files. It’s only useful within Audacity. Your original files are not touched unless export and overwrite them.
BTW - If you are recording (so you don’t have an “original” copy) it’s a good idea to export to WAV so you’ll have an “original”, whether you make a project or not. Because a project contains many small files it’s more easily messed-up, especially if you move or share the project.

If you’re making a CD you can make one big WAV file and set the track markers with a cue sheet. I’ve done that several times with “live” recordings and a few times with crossfaded tracks. Getting gapless playback with MP3s can be “iffy”. I think most other formats are OK.


. I’m just a little confused about how the first track gets named when you place the labels between songs.

You can put a label at time-zero.

I use Sound Forge for more than 20 years, and I use Adobe Audition for about 15 years. Now I teach Audacity to my students. Listen carefully, because this blows my mind. It’s unbelievable, but it’s true. Audacity CANNOT save markers in a waveform file as metadata. IT CAN’T! It doesn’t have MARKERS, it doesn’t have REGIONS, it doesn’t have a PLAYLIST window!!! These things are the BASIC MUST HAVEs of ANY… at least half-professional sound editor.

So if you open a sound file in Audacity which already has markers saved in it, then you cannot see these markers, and if you save this file (export), then you will LOSE these markers. Or regions. So if after export you open this new file in e.g. Sound Forge, then you will see markers NO MORE. OR regions.
I told you. It is unbelievable.

Audacity is a good software with a long history by now. The fact that these things are STILL missing, after SO MANY YEARS, that should’ve been there from the very beginning, makes it still a pathetically amateur program.

There are other things, like the lack of vertical zooming on the keyboard, the lack of a decent graphic fade window and effect, the dB meter on the left is stupid, as it doesn’t reflect the nature of the dB standard, so you have to see the 0 dB and the MINUS 20 dB just a centimeter away from each other (!!!) … But these are tiny things, compared to what I have just described above. Because that is BY FAR the weakest point of Audacity.

This is a promising software. I like it! And it can do multitrack editing too! It could be GREAT, indeed! But… It’s just a shame that seemingly, the developers have given it up. :frowning:

Cheers.
Chris

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