Splitting a large MP3 file into tracks

[drad dog]

What is the easiest way to do this on audacity? Can you automate this so that you can name the tracks afterward?

[kozikowski]

Which three-number Audacity version do you have?

Where did you get the MP3 from? What's the show? Are you transferring your vinyl collection?

Koz

[drad dog]

Which three-number Audacity version do you have?

Where did you get the MP3 from? What's the show? Are you transferring your vinyl collection?

Koz

It's 2.1.2 the last version.

I'm editing my own cassette tapes converted to MP3. Audio diary and music. I might have 100 cuts to make on a tape.

[steve]

It's 2.1.2 the last version.

The current version of Audacity is 2.1.3. It is available from the official Audacity website: http://www.audacityteam.org/download/

[Gale Andrews]

I'm editing my own cassette tapes converted to MP3. Audio diary and music. I might have 100 cuts to make on a tape.

Use mp3DirectCut. That way you won't lose quality rewriting the MP3s as you will with Audacity.


Gale

[DVDdoug]

For me the "easiest way" is to select/highlight the song (or "chapter", etc.) and then File -> Export Selected Audio. Depending on what I'm doing, I might make a note of each track's starting time. I'll usually end-up trimming (and/or fading-in/fading-out, etc.) the individual tracks after separating them.

Can you automate this so that you can name the tracks afterward?

Or, there is a tutorial about how to do it using labels. With labels, you re naming the tracks in advance and the splitting is automated after you've done the "work" in advance.

I'm editing my own cassette tapes converted to MP3.

It's best to avoid MP3 for audio production. If you want MP3s, compress to MP3 ONCE as the last step. As you may know, MP3 is lossy compression. When you open an MP3 in a "normal" audio editor it gets decompressed. If you re-export to MP3, it's going through a 2nd generation of lossy compression. (mp3DrectCut works without decompressing the MP3.)

[drad dog]

I'm editing my own cassette tapes converted to MP3. Audio diary and music. I might have 100 cuts to make on a tape.

Use mp3DirectCut. That way you won't lose quality rewriting the MP3s as you will with Audacity.


Gale

When I'm installing and I get to extraction path I get access denied (invalid characters) when I try to DL MP3cut. Any idea?

[drad dog]

For me the "easiest way" is to select/highlight the song (or "chapter", etc.) and then File -> Export Selected Audio. Depending on what I'm doing, I might make a note of each track's starting time. I'll usually end-up trimming (and/or fading-in/fading-out, etc.) the individual tracks after separating them.

Can you automate this so that you can name the tracks afterward?

Or, there is a tutorial about how to do it using labels. With labels, you re naming the tracks in advance and the splitting is automated after you've done the "work" in advance.

I'm editing my own cassette tapes converted to MP3.

It's best to avoid MP3 for audio production. If you want MP3s, compress to MP3 ONCE as the last step. As you may know, MP3 is lossy compression. When you open an MP3 in a "normal" audio editor it gets decompressed. If you re-export to MP3, it's going through a 2nd generation of lossy compression. (mp3DrectCut works without decompressing the MP3.)

I'm using cassette recorders for my audio diary. Can I convert these to something other than MP3, less lossy, using audacity? Some other program?

When I import an MP3 file into audacity to edit are you saying this step is losing information? So MP3directcut would be better?

I might have 100 tracks on a tape so I'm trying to get the tracks to separate in one step automated, so I can name them after. Is this possible in audacity? or an other program? It would save a lot of time.

[drad dog]

WavePad seems to be able to split by detected silence. Does importing and editing in this way lose information?

[steve]

Encoding as MP3 loses information.

Most editors need to decode MP3s before they can be edited, so if you edit an MP3, then save or export as MP3, the audio has to be encoded again, which loses some sound quality. The lost quality cannot be recovered.

MP3directCut and MP3split are unusual in that they are able to perform simple edits of MP3 files without decoding the MP3s, so there is no re-encoding, so no additional sound quality loss. (Note that the Windows installer version of MP3split may contain adware).

WAV, FLAC and AIFF are "lossless" formats, which means that if you export in these formats after editing, there is no additional sound quality loss.

Audacity is able to analyze tracks to find silences and mark the silences with labels (see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/sile ... ml#silence).
When the gaps in the track have been labelled, you can then export each labelled section using the "Export Multiple" feature: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/export_multiple.html

See also: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/spli ... racks.html