Splitting a recording into separate tracks

Peter 1Feb10: I have used Bill's simplified and modified version of this tutorial rather than the original text that was in the consolidated tutorial. Bill did the simplifications following user feedback to Gale that the previous version was too complex.

Introduction

The following tutorial demonstrates one method for dividing a recording into separate songs for export in preparation for burning those tracks to an audio CD. Others may recommend slightly different methods. It is worth going through this tutorial as it introduces the basic concepts of identifying and marking the boundaries between songs, and using labels to identify songs in support of the Export Multiple command.

Live recordings versus studio recordings

Sometimes songs on live recordings flow together. If you want to split a live recording into songs but want to maintain an uninterrupted flow from song to song on the CD you need to have burning software that is capable of burning a CD in "disk-at-once" (DAO) mode, and is capable of setting the "gap" or "pause" between tracks to 0 seconds.

Step 1 - Remove unwanted audio from the recording

1. Set Snap To: Off in the Selection Toolbar
2. Click the Skip to Start button
3. Zoom in until you can see from the start of the track to the start of the music
4. Click and drag from the start of the music to the start of the track
5. Click on Edit > Delete

Similarly, remove unwanted audio from the end of the recording and from the middle (between sides 1 and 2 of the LP or cassette). Note that later in this tutorial we will be using the Analyse > Find Silences command to identify spaces between the songs, so when you are editing the transition between side 1 and side 2 be sure to leave 2 or 3 seconds of silence, similar to what you would find between songs.

Save your work! Click on File > Save Project

Step 2 - Label the Songs

Mark the first song

1. Click the Skip to Start button
2. Click on Tracks > Add Label at Selection or use shortcut CTRL + B

   A new label is created in a new label track underneath the audio track. The contents of the label are selected and ready for editing. If you need to play the track to decide where to place the split points, you can use "Add Label at Playback Position" instead (directly underneath "Add Label at Selection", or use shortcut CTRL + M).

3. Type the title of the first song

When typing the label, you can't use characters which are reserved by the operating system. For example on Windows, the following characters cannot be used:   \   /   :   *   ?   "   <   >   |

Mark the rest of the songs

1. Using the selection tool, click near the beginning of the second song
2. Repeatedly click the Zoom In button until you can see just the first few seconds of the song
3. Click as closely as possible to the start of the song
4. Click on Tracks > Add Label at Selection
5. Type the name of the song into the label

   

6. Repeatedly click the Zoom Out button until you can see the start of the third song
7. Continue in this manner adding a label to mark the start of each song

You can save time by using Analyze > Silence Finder to automatically add labels in the silences, or Analyze > Sound Finder to label the regions to be exported for the songs. The Sound Finder method thus lets you exclude some or all of the areas between songs.

Both these effects depend on correctly detecting the "silences" between tracks and this depends on setting their parameters appropriately for your track. See this example of adjusting Silence Finder parameters in order to place labels correctly between the songs.

Step 3 - Maximize the volume of the recording

If you did the original recording properly and avoided clipping, the recording is probably not at the maximum possible volume. In order for the CD you burn to be at maximum volume and thus match other CDs in your collection we need to fix this.

1. Click on Edit > Select > All
2. Click on Effect > Amplify
3. The default choice in this dialog is to amplify to a "New Peak Amplitude" of 0 dB (the maximum possible). However as some players could have playback problems with audio at 0 dB, it is recommended to set a maximum of -2.0 dB to provide some extra headroom.

Gale 05May11: Is the above recommendation for portable players?

Peter 6May11:It's based on the general consensus on the forum over the years from elves and other heavyweight contributors. My own personal experience is only with iTunes and iPods. Both had no problem in the past with tracks that I amplified up to 0dB and then exported as an MP3 with LAME from Audacity - or with exported WAVS (from max. 0dB projects) loaded into iTunes and there converted into AAC. These days I only amplify up to the -2dB just for safety for potential future use on non-Apple platforms. Steve always recommends leaving a little headroom, and it was a discussion thread with Bruno that set me off on the -2B datum. I don't know what experience or knowledge that they have to back that up. But I find that -2dB Amplify gives a plenty loud enough file. Gale 06May11: Hmm well I think some people will question this especially as our defaults are 0.0 dB. It's news to me that players would distort at 0 dB. Of course if you are going to apply DSP effects in the player it makes sense not to maximise.
Peter 6May11: Hmm indeed - actually it's only for Amplify that our default is 0dB. With Normalize, in 1.3.x, the original default may well be 0dB but thereafter the Normalize dialog box defaults to a maximum amplification level "remembered" from the last use of Normalize. I prefer the Normalize behaviour in this respect and have added a piece on the FR page on the Wiki under Effects>Amplify for this. I also note that in 1.2.x (tested on 1.2.4b and 1.2.6) Dominic did not offer a variable maximum amplitude level, but rather had it "hard-wired" to -3dB (presumably because he may have been aware of headroom issues. Personally I would like to see our "defaults" set to -2.0dB to provide headroom. Do we need to start a Proposal page to sort out Amplify/Normalice/DC-offset removal?

• Gale 08May11: Certainly a Proposal page would be a good idea. Normalize does not work independently on multiple tracks in many other apps. If we still have two separate tools for volume changing, there are some possible enhancements for Amplify too.
  • Peter 8May11: ok Gale, I'll try to make a start on a draft proposal this week. I'll start it off on my user pages in the Wiki first, to get some editorial review and approval prior to publication. Interestingly, I did run into a use-case on the forum this morning where the current behavior of Normalize was just what the poster needed: a mono recording in a stereo pair which was unbalanced L-R. I did learn from reading Carla Schroder's new book on Audacity that if you have multiple tracks selected then Normalize treats each of those tracks independently unlike Amplify which treats them as whole. I assume we would want to retain this behaviour, but maybe make it switchable? I'm guessing too that it may be worth making a case in the proposal for merging Normalize and Amplify. Any thoughts before I start writing?
• Gale: Normalize is actually a good choice for many people recording stereo tapes and LPs on USB or cheap equipment because those recordings will often be unbalanced. Many apps don't even have independent amplification so we don't want to throw the feature away. The problem is that the expectation of "Normalize" to more experienced users is that it only calculates for the loudest track so they get a shock when it changes balance between tracks/channels. Anything is on the table - switch the names of Amplify and Normalize, make them one tool, add more features to both. Thanks. When you don't need this div any more, please delete it.

Note that Amplify retains any volume differences between channels of a stereo track. In practice however, consumer-level turntables, tape decks and/or amplifiers may well record stereo channels with a stronger signal in one channel than the other, which you will probably want to correct. In that case, use Effect > Normalize instead.

One problem when copying records is that a loud click in one channel can cause Normalize to create an unwanted change in the stereo balance. In that case you should consider removing the click before the Normalize step, using Click Removal. For more information about the difference between the Amplify and Normalize effects see this page on the wiki.

Step 4 - Export

Congratulations, you are now ready to export the tracks.

1. Click on File > Export Multiple
2. Choose the Export Format from the pop-up menu:
   • for CD burning choose 16-bit AIFF if you're using a Mac, or 16-bit WAV if your using Windows or Linux
   • for loading into an MP3 player, choose MP3
   • for loading into iTunes/iPod you can export as WAV and use iTunes to convert the WAVs to AACs or MP3s
3. Click the Choose... button and pick the place where your exported tracks will be saved.
4. Under Split Files Based On:
   • Labels should be checked
   • Include audio before first label should be unchecked, as there is no audio before the first label
   • Under Name Files, Using Label/Track Name should be checked
5. Click the Export button
6. Metadata Editor will open, where if you wish you can enter information which is common to all the tracks to be exported (for example, Artist Name and Album Title)
7. Click the "OK" button in the Metatdata Editor, not the "Save" button

Metadata in this context refers to information stored in the audio file such as Artist, Album and Song Title. While this is widely used with MP3 files, it is less useful for AIFF and WAV files. To avoid having the Metadata Editor pop up for each track you are about to export, click on Preferences, click on the Import / Export tab, and uncheck Show Metatdata Editor prior to export step.

A progress dialog might appear if the process takes more than a second or two. When the process is finished a confirmation dialog will appear listing the files that were created.

The tracks are now ready to import into the CD burning software of your choice.

If you burn a CD with a gap of zero seconds between tracks (if your burning software supports this), you will end up with an exact replica of the LP or cassette. If, when burning the CD, you add the standard 2-second gap between each track you will be adding an additional 2 seconds to the existing silence between tracks, and the vinyl surface noise or cassette hiss will suddenly disappear which some listeners may find annoying. See Refinements, below, for ways of dealing with this.

Refinements

Remove the "silence" between songs

Of course, the space between songs is not really "silent" - it contains vinyl surface noise or cassette hiss. Using standard editing techniques you can select and delete these portions of the recording, then insert whatever gap (silent portion) you want when burning the CD.

If you will be listening to the songs primarily on a computer or MP3 player you may prefer to have some silence at the end of each song. In this case select the silent portion then click on Edit > Silence Audio. Now you can edit the length of the silent portion to your taste. Alternatively you can delete the silent portion, then click on Generate > Silence and specify exactly how much silence you want.

Avoiding a sudden cut-off of vinyl surface noise or cassette hiss

Both of the above techniques will result in the vinyl surface noise or cassette hiss suddenly stopping, which some listeners may find annoying. You can avoid this by putting a quick fade-out at the end of each song. You can do the fade-out after the music ends (in effect fading out the noise), or you can fade out the last second or so of the song if that works with the music. Experiment and listen to the results to decide what works for you and for the music you are working on.

Links

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