pasting a portion of mp3 music file takes long time

Wud appreciate comments to the following:

I use Audacity v3.2.1 on Windows 10, 64 bit

My original music file contains several music and file size is 329mb.

I can understand opening a 329mb mp3 music file into Audacity can take some time.

However when I copy and paste a portion (approx 4mb) of above music file into Audacity, it takes about 30 seconds or more. When I almost gave up, the pasting was completed. With the previous version of Audacity, the pasting process was almost immediate.

The steps I took are:

  1. open audacity

  2. File | open and select the 329mb music file from my local folder

  3. select portion of above music file (approx 4mb), copy

  4. File | new and paste #3 above. This takes long time 30 seconds or more.

Is there a faster way to paste portion of small music file?

Am I doing something wrong?

snoma01

No. You are not doing anything wrong. And yes, there is a faster way to paste a small portion of a larger music track.

Insert Step 3A:

3A) Add a new track in the original project and paste #3, above onto that new track. Then Tracks > Mix And Render this new track. Select this clip here to be pasted in step 4.

Why?

So in 3.2.0 and even more so in 3.2.1, the developers decided to grace us with a pointer to all of the original audio when copying only a portion of a clip. They call these “smart clips” - if you drag out the ends, you can recover the original audio information. As long as the original clip remains unchanged there is minimal overhead. However, if the original audio is changed or deleted, or if you copy a “smart clip” to a new project, all of this unused and unseen audio information can cause serious project bloat.

A Mix and Render will convert a “smart clip” into a “dump clip”, and make it safe to copy.

For basic cutting & pasting, you might try [u]mp3Directcut[/u]. It works without decompressing and re-compressing the MP3 which means you save the time of those steps, and since the data is compressed you’re working with less “data” and the processing is much faster.

And since it’s never decompressed, you don’t have to go through the additional lossy compression cycle when you make the new MP3 and the quality isn’t degraded.

…I’ve only used mp3DirectCut a few times and it seems awkward, and the display is “weird” since the data isn’t decoded to show a proper waveform, but I assume it gets easier as you learn it.

hello jademan

thank u for your suggestion. I followed your advice and I was able to copy and paste portion of the original music file with much less time.

snoma01

hello DVDdoug

thank u for your suggestion.

snoma01

You are welcome! Thanks for the feedback. :smiley:

Hello

"if you drag out the ends, you can recover the original audio information. As long as the original clip remains unchanged there is minimal overhead. "

Which part of the above steps shud I drag out the ends to see the original info?

I tried dragging out the ends with the final mp3 clip after doing “Mix And Render this new track. Select this clip here to be pasted in step 4” but nothing was visible.

snoma01

See: Audacity 3.1 - A Significant Audio Editing Improvement

“mix & render” deletes the hidden audio: goodbye smart-clip.