Splitting large MP3 files to individual tracks. Is it easy?

D

drad dog

New member
I am brand new to wanting to do this. Maybe it's as easy as pie. I have many files 45 to 100 minutes long that I have made. Is there program software or app to automate the editing of these files into tracks. Either that or a graphic select, drag and pull to do it. Hopefully with a manageable number of errors in the process to correct later.

I have audacity but I use it for limited functions and am not expert.
 
It's easy enough to edit the file, but if you're going to make it an mp3 again you're into the accumulation of sonic loss. Each time you recompress a compressed file the sound quality degrades substantially. The best thing to do is go back to the uncompressed wave file.

In Audacity you probably just select the portion of audio you want to be a new file then export it. There may be a way, with markers or the like, to precisely split the files so there's no overlap or lost audio.
 
Can this be automated and then type track names after the fact? or do you need to go through the file make an edit point for each track and name it then.
 
drad dog said:
Can this be automated and then type track names after the fact? or do you need to go through the file make an edit point for each track and name it then.
Click to expand...

There may be software that can detect silence between songs, but I don't use that kind of thing so I don't know where to direct you.
 
drad dog said:
Can this be automated and then type track names after the fact? or do you need to go through the file make an edit point for each track and name it then.
Click to expand...

I'm also not aware of any solution that intelligently looks for the song breaks and automatically slices things in the manner you want.

What I would do is launch the MP3 file into Soundforge (Sony's advanced audio editor), cut and paste the sections into a new files and save. You could create a shortcut/hotkey mapping to a script for the new file creation and saving part, but obviously not for the cutting part since Soundforge doesn't know which section in the MP3 to cut.

No matter what there's going to be a degree of manual work involved just because your ears need to tell the software somewhere along the way *where* to start/stop each track.
 
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You want to find patches of silence and split those to separate files?

Reaper has some tools that could help:
Import your file
Right click it -> Item processing -> Auto trim/split selected items
Mess with your parameters.
Ctrl+a to select all.
Right click one -> Render to stems

Then in your project folder, you will have a seaparate wav file for each chunk.
 
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