Best way to cut a large recording into small ones?

[chinadrum]

I've recorded a continuous couple of hours of multitrack (8 tracks) music and I'd like to break it down into smaller, more manageable edits (ie. per song). Is this possible in Tracktion, or do I need to import the audio tracks into another application?

I know I should have stopped and restarted the recording between songs, but since I was strapped to a guitar at the time I couldn't do this reliably.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
cd

[Rock]

Is it eight solid tracks start to fin?

[Rock]

Well even if it isn't this is what I would do.

Code: Select all

1 - If you have room make a backup of the project
2 - Make 8 duplicate edits one for each of the songs in the current project
3 - Do the following for each edit
      A - Open the edit
      B - Select all the tracks
      C - Move the marker to the start of the song you want to isolate
      D - use the "/" key to cut 
      E - Move the marker to the end of the same song
      F - use the "/" key to cut 
      G - Select all
      H - Unselect the tracks from the song you want to save
      I - Press the Delete key
      J - Select all and drag tracks to the edit's start
      K - Using no filters render all the tracks 
         (this should create a new audio file for each track)
      L - Save edit
4 - Repeat step 3 for each following song till done.

I know this sounds like a lot but in T2 I don't think it will take too long.

[chinadrum]

It's 8 channels of 48kHz/24bit that goes solidly for two hours (which generated 8 .wav files of about 1GB each). During that time we played about 30 songs. What I'd like to do is end up with 30 edits that just contain a 3 or 4 minute slice that makes up each song. ie. 30 edits that each have 8 channels/tracks for only a single song. After that I want to balance the levels, apply effects/levelling/eq/compression for each instrument/vocal channel, add a harmony track and then create a stereo mixdown .mp3 of each song.

I know if someone had ridden the 'r' button during the recording this would have been much easier. The shear size of the files makes it necessary to chop them up somehow before copying them.

[chinadrum]

Thanks Rock, I'll try that.

[Rock]

Another maybe beter way after a little thought (I don't know if this will work in T1)

Code: Select all

1 - If you have room make a backup of the project
2 - Make a duplicate edit one for each of the songs 
    you recorded and go through and name the edits 
    after the song that you will use if for 
3 - Do the following for each edit
      A - Open the edit
      B - Move the marker to the edit start
      D - Type "I" for "in"
      E - Move the marker to the start of the song
      F - Type "O" for out
      G - Select all the Tracks
      H - In the edit panel select 
          "delete marked region>
          delete marked region of all tracks and close the gaps"
      I - Move the marker to just past the end of the song 
      J - Type I
      K - Move the marker to beyond the end of the entire edit
      L - Type O
      M - In the edit panel select 
          "delete marked region>
          delete marked region of all tracks and close the gaps"
      N - Using no filters render all the tracks 
         (this should create a new audio file for each track
          I can't tell you the exact render option that does all
          the tracks at once because I only have the demo on my 
          laptop I'm using"
      O - Save edit
4 - Repeat step 3 for each following song till done.

[chinadrum]

I'll try that too. The other method seems to be doing the trick. (BTW I have the boxed version of T2).

thanks,
cd

[LRS]

It's actually very easy - I've done this many times.

Simply create new projects for each song with their own edit. Go to your "master" project that has everything in it and using the in/out keys mark off the first song. Select each track within the in/out marks and copy to clipboard. Go to the appropriate project you have already created for this song, open the edit for this project and paste the tracks. Voila!

Do this for each song.

What you will then have is all your songs in their own individual projects which you can do with what you will. However you will still have only one set of audio files under the "master" project. There is absolutely no need to render files to other projects and therefore double up on your audio files.

Hope this makes sense.

Cheers
Graham
www.lakesiderecordingstudio.co.nz

[Rock]

T O T A L L Y disagree about the rendering... It will royally suck if you ever once forget and erase a single source file any in one of the thirty songs. If he ever does most if not all his songs will be ruined because they will all simultaneously lose a track. If it were me I would take the time and harddrive space to make sure that would not happen.

[chinadrum]

If he ever does most if not all his songs will be ruined because they will all simultaneously lose a track.

I did exactly that to one of the tracks and nearly crapped myself!

It doesn't even go into the Trash, just zapped away.

Fortunately I'd copied everything from my laptop to my desktop to do the heavy lifting and the original was still on my laptop. From now on I'll be way more careful when tidying up the project folder.

[LRS]

T O T A L L Y disagree about the rendering... It will royally suck if you ever once forget and erase a single source file any in one of the thirty songs. If he ever does most if not all his songs will be ruined because they will all simultaneously lose a track. If it were me I would take the time and harddrive space to make sure that would not happen.

I take your point but if you follow SOP regarding backups this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Cheers
Graham
www.lakesiderecordingstudio.co.nz

[Mr. Tingle]

personally I:

1. cut out everything except the 1st song, then export the edit (with trim) to a new project.
2. return back to edit and undo, then cut out everything except the 2nd song. Export again.
3. repeat untill all 30 songs have their own project.