help finding song lengths for an album

Subject: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 01:08 AM

this is not sorcha it is her daughter kate and i need help. i am trying to find the song lengths for the album "the shores of loch katrine" by shotts and dykehead caledonia pipe band. trying to make a cd from a vinyl record and cant find the end of the songs and its driving me crazy. any help would be greatly appriciated. thanks kate

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Scrump
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 07:16 AM

Don't have the album so can't help with the track lengths, but do you have any software that will allow you to 'see' the sound?

I assume you have recorded each side of the album as a long track (in .wav format).

If you open the track in your recording software, you should (hopefully) be able to display the sound file like a sort of wave format, so you can see the 'chunks' of sound.

If the album is a studio recording, you usually get gaps which are easy to see, but it's more difficult for live recordings. Even so, if you look carefully, you can often see where the songs/tunes start and finish, more or less.

It would help to know what recording or sound manipulation software you have.

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 08:00 AM

Based on the old sage

"A man's legs should be just long enough to reach the ground, but no longer"

I suppose I'd have to say that a song should be as log as it has to be...

but that's getting far too deep for what you wanted to know...



The old original 'wave file player' in Windows used to let you see the wave shape and track separations so you could work out at how many mins 7 secs it was, but that only worked for .wav files not for .mp3s - can't remember its name, but JiK will be along soon to tell you, I suppose...

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 08:04 AM

I'm not at home at the moment but I have a piece of software that does exactly that - if you want me to send it (I don't think it's huge) PM me - Nick_ . I think it's called LPripper or something

It splits the tunes automatically but then allows you to look listen and adjust. I have used it a few times and it's fine

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: gnomad
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 08:29 AM

I have used LP Ripper too, got a full version off one of those magazine cover CDs, it works fine, and seems well designed for the technologically-challenged [i.e. for me].

If you can't find a freebie somewhere the latest version is available here for about $35, trial version [free] is fully featured & not time-limited, but will only let you save 2 tracks.

I think Audacity probably does this too, and I know that is available free, but I'm afraid it outwitted me when I tried it, see para 1.

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Nick
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 02:22 PM

It's a 1/2MB zip file if you want it

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 02:26 PM

Here I go again sounding like an agent, I just know I like using it.

Go get a free unlimited facility download of Polderbits sound recorder and editor. It is fully funcional for two weeks, long enough to sort out all yhour problems then it only cost a few quid to licence it forever. Well worth it as I think you will see.

Andy

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 10:49 AM

i have the audacity program, but my problem is that its bagpipes and the songs dont end i swear. they just keep going and going like the enigizer bunny. im trying to divide the tracks to go on a cd and i wanted to know the actual lengths of the songs so that i could seperated the tracks in the correct places. kate

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Cluin
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 11:08 AM

Maybe they are non-stop sides on the album? Just medleys that go on for about 20 minutes each?

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 11:43 AM

Sorch here.....LOL. That is what I told her since it IS pipes. I haven't had time to listen to it.

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Scrump
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 11:54 AM

I've occasionally had a record that I haven't had time to listen to properly to split the tracks up, wherer there were a lot of short tracks, or where I wanted to put markers in, etc.

You could just write each side of the LP side out as one long track, so at least you'll have the 2 sides on CD (with 2 very long tracks).

Then when you get time in future (ha!) it will be a piece of p*ss to load it back from the CD, with no need to re-record it.

Just a suggestion!

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Nick
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 11:55 AM

So the program I offered that does exactly that is no use to you?

No matter

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: wysiwyg
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 11:57 AM

Kate--

I get that sometimes on gospel music of a pentecostal sort, where the "end" of the song is extended forever. If it is a copy for my own use only (which is what is legal), I just divide them where I feel a transition in the song, where it feels right to me.

I ALSO have material, though, that is one, one-hourlong track on a CD, where a radio program is an hour or so in length and I expect to like 90% of it. When I play one of those and don't like a passage, I use the next-track control when I play it back. On many players, if you push that control once, you skip to next track; but if you hold it down, it fast-forwards within the track. My favorite radio show has an opening these song that I cannot stand, so I routinely fast-forward the playback to skip the first 3 minutes and 11 seconds, since I know that's how much time that song will take.

Anyway, if it's too hard to divide, you don't have to divide it at all.

~Susan

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: MMario
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 12:04 PM

there appears to be a copy on ebay - I can't "see" it, because I'm blocked from e-bay ; but it looks like they have thre track descriptions and maybe times.

if you HAVE the vinyl - can't you play it and time the songs?

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 12:11 PM

Hate to be pedantic, but who was the singer with "Shotts & Dykehead" ?

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: MMario
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 12:14 PM

the other thing you could do is e-mail them at

info at sdcpb dot com

and ask them

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Bernard
Date: 19 Jan 07 - 03:50 PM

Sorch - if you have Audacity, you can do it easy-peasy. You play the file until you get to a suitable point, then select that section, cut it from the original file and paste it as a new file. Save the new file as track_01, then repeat the procedure and save as track_02. Keep going until the original has gone, but don't save the empty file!

PM me if you need talking through it.

The problem with 'continuous' tracks is burning them to CD. You must use burning softwasre (Nero %.5 onwards is fine) that allows you to remove the 2 second pauses at the start of each track.

Most MP3 players are pretty hopeless with continuous tracks, it's rarely possible to find one that doesn't either clip the start and end of the track, or do an automatic 'crossfade'.

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Jim Lad
Date: 20 Jan 07 - 03:30 AM

Try http://www.polderbits.com/lp-to-cd.html?ref=adword1

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Jim Lad
Date: 20 Jan 07 - 03:44 AM

Bernard: Thank You. You've answered my question before it was asked.

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 20 Jan 07 - 06:20 PM

I use a freebie (old) full version of LP Ripper from a magazine cover disc and find it very easy to use. You can both see the shape of the sound and also listen to a section of the start and finish of each selected "track" to help you adjust the selection.
I would accept the offer to have a copy sent.
If you use the limited version, where you can only save the first two tracks all you have to do is make the first tune track 1 and the rest of the recording track 2 (delete any oter track markings). Save track (your first tune) and track 2 (the rest of the lp). Then start again with "track 2" as the new full recordiing. The second tune then becomes "track 1" to save.
It's easy this computer technology if you are smarter than a computer...
Quack!
Geoff.

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Bernard
Date: 20 Jan 07 - 08:37 PM

Most people are smarter than computers - and most people don't realise it!!

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 21 Jan 07 - 06:09 AM

At the risk of repeating myself just do as Jim Lad suggests as well and go to Polderbits and all your problems are solved.
Andy
Polderbits has the answer

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Bernard
Date: 21 Jan 07 - 06:42 AM

I think some of you missed the point of the original question...

Kate wasn't asking about getting the audio on to the PC, but how to chop the resulting audio into 'tracks'.

Proprietary software separates audio into 'tracks' by detecting the gaps, and cannot detect 'tracks' where gaps do not exist.

The best way to deal with this is by using a wave editor as I've already suggested...

Another way, messy and unreliable, is to manually stop and start the playback whilst recording to PC. With vinyl this would be very imprecise, but could work okay with a cassette recording.

As far as I'm aware none of the 'ripping' software has a manual track marker system, but most wave editors do. In other words, during recording or playback you can insert a marker with a click of the mouse, which makes finding your 'tracks' a little easier.

Audacity only allows markers to be added during playback as far as I can see, but Soundforge (Sony bought it from Sonic Foundry and actually improved it!), CoolEdit and Adobe Audition (Adobe bought CoolEdit from Syntrillium and changed the name, amongst other things!) all have the facility to drop markers during recording - which is when you most need them!

My preference is SoundForge, which is the programme I use for assembling programmes for Radio Britfolk - I used to use it when we were broadcasting on BBC GMR.

Sony integrated SoundForge with CD Architect, which is not the best CD burning software, but it is particularly good for assembling audio CDs - you can see each wave file from within the project and open it directly with SoundForge. Another useful feature applies normalising and stuff without affecting the original files. Nero allows normalising, but slows down the burn process to do it each time rather than letting you hear the results before you burn.

Erm... lecture over!!

;o)

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Nick
Date: 21 Jan 07 - 09:48 AM

As Bernard points out software listens for the gaps, but as Geoff points out LP Ripper then lets you split the tracks wherever you want.

If you know there are 8 tracks on the album for instance you would choose 8 tracks and the software will guess where the splits are. If the tunes go into each other it will make it's best guess which will probably be wrong.

As he points out it then has a little playback device which allows you to listen to sections and decide where you want the splits to be; you then move the marker accordingly and the progam then produces 8 wav files according to the splits you have decided

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 21 Jan 07 - 12:08 PM

Back to LP Ripper.
When tracks run together or overlap it is not easy for software to guess the split point, but a brain and an eye can spot obvious changes in the patterns of a waveform which allow you to decide which section to listen to.
I transferred some stuff by the Moody Blues to CD. Almost every track ran into the next one, so it all had to be done by highlighting a section and watching the position of the marker line to see what part of the wave graphic matched the change point. It was then possible to make fine adjustments by editing the numbers (tenths of a second intervals) in the "timer" setion of the editor.

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 21 Jan 07 - 12:25 PM

I have the LP - do you still need assistance ?

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Jan 07 - 11:44 PM

i have figured it out i was wrong the tracks dont go on forever. they do eventually stop but thank you for all of your help guys.
kate

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Hrothgar
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 04:52 AM

Why not listen with a stop watch?

Subject: RE: help finding song lengths for an album
From: Scrump
Date: 22 Jan 07 - 05:06 AM

My 5p's worth: I use a little program called CDWav to chop the 'big' .wav file (e.g. one side of an LP that you've previously recorded onto your disk drive) into smaller .wavs. I can't remember where I got it from now (I think it was shareware but I've had it for so long I can't remember), but I've used it for years, and I like it because it's simple to use and does the job. (I don't like relying on software to find the gaps for me, as it's not IME 100% reliable in this respect (especially for a live recording without gaps).)

In CDWav you just open the 'big' .wav, and it displays the waveform at the top, for the whole file, and highlights a smaller section of the file below in more detail. You can click anywhere on the waveform at the top to highlight a different part of the file on the screen below. You can play the file and listen to where you are as you do it, to make sure you get the split in exactly the right place.

For studio albums you can easily see where the gaps are, and you can click at the appropriate place and then click on a button to insert a marker where you want a 'split' to be. For files without gaps (e.g. a live recording), you can click roughly where you think the split should be and then click again until you find the best place to split the tracks. It instantly starts playing from wherever you click, as you do it, which makes it very quick and easy to 'tell where you are' in the file. It's very easy and intuitive to use (btw I have no commercial interest in it, I'm just a satisfied user).

The display of the waveform at the top uses different colours to show the different tracks, as you split them. When you've done, you just click on save, to save the original file as lots of smaller .wavs. Then use your favourite burning software to burn to a CD (remembering to cancel the 2-sec gaps if the burning software defaults to that).

Although you can get software that does everything for you, I prefer to do it this way, partly from habit, partly because I have more control over the process, and because I know it works for me.