combining multiple audio tracks into one track

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Sparkwrite
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combining multiple audio tracks into one track

Post by Sparkwrite » Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:27 am

HI All: I'm new here, first post. I have a bunch of books on tape which I purchased 25 years ago, like The African Queen, which I want to put onto my computer before they get so bad that I can't be able to listen to them on the cassettes. I have no problem recording them onto my Panasonic CF-30 Toughbook with my old Sony TCM-5000EV cassette player/recorder. The problem is that there are two tapes and four tracks. What I would like to do is to put all four tracks on one track so I can play the complete story without having to select each 45 minute track. I have searched for an hour and cannot find anything relevant. Can anyone give me a hand on this? Thanks. Spark

PS: My email is <xxx.com> if you would like to contact me direct.
Last edited by Sparkwrite on Fri Apr 24, 2015 4:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Delete Email

kozikowski
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Re: combining multiple audio tracks into one track

Post by kozikowski » Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:49 am

We won't be emailing you, but the thousands of spambots we get will.

You can press Record repeatedly and capture each of the passes of the show. Audacity will stack them up one above the other and try to play them all at once. This is normal. Select pass two by clicking just above the Mute button on that track. Copy it, and Paste it onto the end of Pass One. Repeat with the other tracks as needed. You can SOLO that track with the tools on the left so it plays by itself to hear what you're doing. Trim and clean up the transition points and when you're finished, select the whole Pass One by clicking just above the MUTE button and File > Export Selection.

There is another way to do that with the track alignment tools, but I've never done that.

I personally would export as a very high quality WAV file (Audacity default) first and lock that up in the closet as the "Master." Then you can Export it again as MP3 for your Personal Music Player. You can't edit MP3 into another MP3, but you can edit a WAV into anything else.

Koz

Gale Andrews
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Re: combining multiple audio tracks into one track

Post by Gale Andrews » Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:52 am

Not a feature request, if I understand correctly.

See http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... .html#join . Or press F5 and drag the tracks to follow each other. F1 to go back to Selection Tool.

Or Edit > Select > All then Tracks > Align Tracks > Align End to End.


Gale
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kozikowski
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Re: combining multiple audio tracks into one track

Post by kozikowski » Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:55 am

Here it is. Stack up all your passes top to bottom as before.
Tracks > Align > End To End. It should push your show into something like my test — attached.

Those will play one right after the other. Touch up the transitions and File > Export. Audacity will smash them all together into one show when it exports. Again, one WAV as the master safety and then MP3 if you need it.

Koz
Attachments
Screen Shot 2014-09-25 at 19.51.47.png
Screen Shot 2014-09-25 at 19.51.47.png (67.96 KiB) Viewed 1801 times

kozikowski
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Re: combining multiple audio tracks into one track

Post by kozikowski » Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:56 am

Missed a step. You have to select all the tracks you want to shift around like that. Shift-Click just above the mute button, and I'm sure there are other ways.

Koz

Sparkwrite
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Re: combining multiple audio tracks into one track

Post by Sparkwrite » Sat Sep 27, 2014 3:28 am

Thanks to all who posted in reply to my question. I will work on this over the next days and see if I can put your good advise into action. I'm sure I will have more questions. Thanks again. Spark

Gale Andrews
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Re: combining multiple audio tracks into one track

Post by Gale Andrews » Sat Sep 27, 2014 9:37 pm

Sparkwrite wrote:Thanks to all who posted in reply to my question. I will work on this over the next days and see if I can put your good advise into action. I'm sure I will have more questions. Thanks again. Spark
You're welcome. If your questions are about other than joining up tracks, please post a new topic in the Audacity Help Forum .

I'm moving this to "Audio Processing" as this is not a feature request.

Gale
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