Split long MP3 Tracks

[jacqui01]

Hi All
I'm hoping someone may be able to help me out here, I put a similar question on ages ago, but I'm hoping with a few new members there might be some more help.
I've just ordered an I Pod, initially for personal use, maybe at some stage to use for the odd gigs, I have most of my music on Mini Disc, and want to transfer it to I Pod, I know it has to be from the PC in iTunes, so I have recorded some of my discs onto my PC via a digital in cable, and saved them as MP3, but I've just recorded each whole disc to save time,about 30 tracks on average on each one as it would take me forever to record each song individually, I have about 1500 tracks in total.
But now I want to split the MP3's into individual tracks (each song), I've tried in Nero, but when I split the tracks and save, they save as a Nero files as one whole file with the split tracks on it, I want to save them each separate so I can transfer to the ipod , also I'm sure once I had a long MP3 track and opened it in a program, and it had an option to find the silences between tracks in one go, not by doing it manually, and split at those points, then save them as separate tracks and rename accordingly, but for the life of me I can't find out how or which program I did it with.
Hope someone may be able to help, fingers crossed X
Jacqui

[Tubbs]

Hi Jacqui, here is a link that may help for splitting mp3.

www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/gmm/fwmp3.html

On the link page scroll down to mega mp3 splitter.

Ive never used it but someone else may have on the forum.

Hope it helps!!

p.s. i never used minidisc/ipod (i have a sony equivalent) so can't help you there.

Good Luck!!

[gibbo]

Hi Jacquie,
There's also a freeware program called LP Ripper which does what you described, ie: you record a whole LP record across to your pc in one go, it finds the silence between tracks and lets you name each track as a separate file. I don't know if it does MP3s, I think it was for wave files. It may be updated now to include MP3s.
Try Tubbs' link and see how it goes but if you have trouble just Google "LP Ripper freeware" and see what you get.
Cheers, Dave.

[jacqui01]

Hi Tubbs & Gibbo
As always many Thanks for posting a reply to help.
So here is an update, Tubbs I tried your link but it only seems to do a manual cut of long files, although helpful I really need something that will do a batch of files,
Gibbo, I tried your link but the LP spitter would only work with Wav files, tried an add on for MP3's but could not get it to work, would probably be OK if I was only using Wav, could come in useful if I ever get round to recording the 1000 or so LP's we have in the house
I found another link while checking your ones out called slice, I tried in on one batch of 10 files linked an it worked fine, the only thing is it does not tell you how many tracks it is splitting the files in until you do it, so you don't really know if it's correct or not, but so far it's an option, unless anyone else or you guys find any thing else out there, I'll keep you posted how I get on.
Thanks again Jacqui
:-*Gibbo Tubbs - here's a kiss each

[Tubbs]

I will keep an eye out for you Jacqui, if i come across one i will post a link for you.

Still, it was worth it for the kiss!! ;D

[jacqui01]

I'm still trying to get this one sorted, I thought the Slice program was the answer but it appears to be clipping the songs just a touch short at the end of each track :'(I suppose it just detects the silence and cuts it dead on that spot, so I may have to find one that is a manual edit, I just tried Audicity which is here on the forum, I managed to select the silences, but can't find out how you save each section as a separate track.
Just going to bang my head on the wall for a while
Catch you later
Jacqui

[gibbo]

Hi Jacquie,
In Audacity you need to highlight (select) the area of the original audio track that you want to save as an MP3 by simply selecting the start and end points (from - to) of the section you want in the time-frame boxes at the bottom of the Audacity screen. It takes a bit of messing about because the time frame is so accurate to 100s of milliseconds but you'll get it with a little practice. Then go to the "save as" function under File and save the highlighted area as an mp3. If this doesn't work for you you may have an older version of Audacity.
Let me know how it goes.
Cheers, Dave.

[themd21]

Here's another diversion you might try.
I use it to create ringtones for my mobile, but as you can cut the mp3 to any length it should solve your problem.
The program is free from www.mptrim.com
You dont need to install it as it runs and loads direct from the desktop. Its the business.

[JohnG]

Hi Jacqui,

Me again, the festoon bulber!

Audacity will do the job for you for sure, but I think that it converts the mp3 to wav first and then back again. Double conversion is never a good idea as you lose quality along the way.

There are two programs that I know of to do this for you, one is a freebie but it depends how the "album" was originally made. If it was created using a program called "albumwrap" then the free "albumwrap extractor" is definitely the one to use. Albumwrap inserts a little marker between tracks and the extractor finds it and splits at that point without converting the file.

The other one which I think is 19 or 20 dollars is called "Direct WAV MP3 splitter". It will split either kind of file for you and it doesn't covert the mp3 before splitting it.

Here's a couple of links for you:
www.infamus.com/albumwrap/extractor.htm
www.pistonsoft.com

Hope that's of some use?
Best regards,
JohnG.

[jacqui01]

Just a quick update on how I'm getting on splitting tracks.
I tried pretty much all the suggestions here, I found the Audacity did have the problem with quality loss due to compression, and a few of the others if they were free had limited features.
But I found a helpful trick with my mini disc player though, a little feature called Auto Space, which I've never used before, but by putting that on as I recorded from Mini Disc to PC, it automatically put a three second space between each track, so when I went into the Slice Program, it was much more accurate at finding the silences, then if any were missed I opened the file in it's wave editor and selected the portion I wanted and save as a new track, so I think I've cracked, it's taken a while to get there, and labeling all the tracks is a long boring job, but I'll finish it eventually.
Thanks for all the advice, some of the programmers I may try again when I start sorting out my old LP's, now that will be a hell of a job, don't think I'll be doing it for a while yet.
Here is a link to the site I got Slice from, lot's of other good stuff there too
www.nch.com.au/index.html
Cheers Jacqui