Just got a bootleg of one of my favorite groups... Problem is, it is in 3 giant MP3 files. I'd like to break the files up into individual songs. Can someone recommend good (free, if possible) software to accomplish this?

- Thanx!
- Jon

This may not be the best software for the job, but in the past, I've used MP3 Tag Studio .

You can enter in the time at which you want cut, and which half to keep. If you need multiple splits, you can make multiple copies of the file and cut 'til you get what you want (or at least, that's the way I do it).


Bill B.
Mk.2 SN 080000183 - 38 GB / Green

For things like this (or when I download an MP3 that has a pop at the beginning or end - or even a song from Napster that had an error with only 4 seconds to go), I convert the Mp3 to a wav file using MusicMatch and then edit the wav file with Cool Edit. After that, you have to re-encode to mp3 using MusicMatch again, so you may get some quality loss.

I have heard that the newest version of Cool Edit Pro allows you to edit mp3's. I am not too sure if it edits the mp3 file, or just makes a temporary wav file and then re-encodes it to mp3 afterwards. If that is the case, I would not go this route because I have heard that the mp3 codec used by Cool Edit is not the best.

12gig Mk. II BLUE
Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com

suprised tony hasen't responded already. i seem to remember (correct me if i'm wrong), that tony wrote some software that could trim mp3s in multiple places. check out his page at www.jps.net/tfabris i think. if not, worst case, as has already been mentioned is making multiple copies of the file and using mptrim to do it, but that is a big pain, especially if it is a very large file.

jeremy

12 gig, green...

suprised tony hasen't responded already.

Jeez, gimme a break, I was away from the computer last night. We just got new carpet in our living room and I was moving the furniture and TV set. Worked on the TV set wiring and stuff, too.

Yes, John, my Gapkiller program will split up a large MP3 into smaller ones based on time index markers. In fact, I think it'll even allow you to tag those files with the desired track names.

That wasn't its original purpose, but I got enough requests for the feature that I added it. And also Doug Burnside gave me a homework assignment that required it.

The only problem is that you need lots of disk space to get the job done. The program makes multiple copies of the files as it works (it's not very efficient about it). But as long as you've got the disk space, it does the job.

Oh, and I wasn't aware that Tag Studio let you split files like that, too. Nifty.

___________
Tony Fabris

You may be interested to know that Magnus has finally released MP3 Tag Studio with ID3v2 tag tool support!! Yes!

Direct quote from the blurb:

* FULL ID3V2 SUPPORT INTEGRATED!
A _lot_ of work has been done to make it
as powerful, fast and easy to use as
possible.

* New tool "Direct tag manipulation", that
can copy data between any tag fields,
disregarding their versions. Has presets
for converting ID3v1 tags to ID3v2 tags,
casefixing tags and other things.

Sounds like this could finally be the Swiss Army Knife. You can get it at:

http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Gapkiller worked perfectly! Wow, GREAT job Tony!

Tag Studio is a lifesaver too, but it's pretty slow now when you use the IDv2 support! Still better than adding v2 tags manually...

- Jon

Direct quote from the blurb:

Rob, if you got that blurb, I suspect that you and I may be one of about seven people in the world who actually registered and paid Magnus his exorbitant $19 shareware fee!

In my correspondence with him, he told me that only a tiny fraction of the people who downloaded his program ever paid for it, but he said he didn't really mind all that much, that it was a labor of love and not a commercial enterprise.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Yup, you're right - welcome to the fold, brother!

I'm always in favour of paying for shareware, and for $19 this was unbeatable. Damn good stuff.

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Ha, here's another chance to voice the need for gapless MP3 transitions...

When you do split your MP3 files up, what you'll find if you play them back-to-back on a so-called "gapless" player is that it almost sounds gapless, but not quite. That's because MP3 frames are not totally independent of each other.

In order for truly gapless playback to work, the MP3 decoder must not only avoid inserting artificial spacde between tracks, but it must also avoid resetting its internal state between tracks---so that as far as it's concerned it will treat consecutive MP3 files as if they are one big file.

The degree to which this is noticeable varies from split to split, depending on the sounds occurring at the time. But I've definitely noitced it.

(Incidentally, because ID3v2 tags are stored as frames, I think that means you need to limit yourself to ID3v1 tags for the tracks as well.)

I'd really like to see this done in Empeg so that I can reliable encode entire albums, split them along MP3 frame boundaries, and know that the result will be indistinguishable from the original whenever I play the tracks consecutively.

Michael Grant
12GB Green
080000266

In order for truly gapless playback to work, the MP3 decoder must not only avoid inserting artificial space between tracks, but it must also avoid resetting its internal state between tracks

I know of one plug-in for WinAmp which does this. It's not the one I use because it actually causes glitches of static unless the two MP3s were encoded and split that specific way.

And the decoder has no way of knowing if the two tracks were meant to be played gapless or not.

___________
Tony Fabris

I know of one plug-in for WinAmp which does this. It's not the one I use because it actually causes glitches of static unless the two MP3s were encoded and split that specific way.

If there really is such a plug-in, then it must be one of the plug-ins for which source code is not included. I couldn't find one that did it; I actually had to modify the source code on one to get it to do true gapless playback with split MP3s. It was the mpg123 plug-in.

Michael Grant
12GB Green
080000266

And the decoder has no way of knowing if the two tracks were meant to be played gapless or not.

This should be easy to solve (if you have the source for the decoder). Use two id3v2 tags - one to uniquely identify the file, another to specify the file that should be played gapless before (or after) this one. Then you just have to tag the pieces properly after you split the big mp3 file.

Borislav