Converting one big audio file (79 min) into individual tracks

Norm Apter

I have downloaded a FLAC file that extends virtually the full length of a blank CD-R (79:35). Contained on this file are 20 songs. I've been told I can use Foobar2000 software to cut /convert the file into the original individual tracks.

I've just downloaded Foobar2000 v.1.0.3 and have been fiddling around with the features but can't seem to locate the function that would help me convert this file into individual tracks before I burn to a CD-R.

Can anybody provide me with a brief explanation of how to go about doing this? (If you have different software program that your familiar with that does this as well, I'd be willing to go with that).

seeclear

I use Audacity, and it lists FLAC as a possible output format, so I guess it does FLAC, although I've never used that format with it myself.

Norm Apter

seeclear wrote: »

I use Audacity, and it lists FLAC as a possible output format, so I guess it does FLAC, although I've never used that format with it myself.

So, just to be clear, have you used Audacity to break one single file into several smaller tracks (i.e. the original songs)? Without getting into too much detail, let me say that for some reason the person who uploaded/sent the file did it as a single file, but I'd like to have the opportunity to use my CD remote to skip around to different songs rather than listen to the whole thing all the way through each time.

wayne3burk

you can download a fully functioning (30 day free trial) version of Magix Audio Cleaning Lab (v.16?).

I've been using this software for 4 or 5 yrs now and i swear by it. If it can be done Magix Audio Cleaning Lab can do it. (the germans make great software)

http://rdir.magix.net/?page=HFTX9DPVBP88

It lets you set marker points / separate the 20 songs at the marker points / write the audio to a cd or save in whaterver file format you like (flac for instance).

full version is the best $49 you'll ever spend.

-- wayne --

Cpyder

Does the file have a cue sheet associated with it? It would be a separate file if it does. You can load it into foobar2000 and then export the tracks into some lossless format of your choice.

The other way I do it, is to open it in Audacity and then highlight everything but the first track. Cut it. Export what's remaining. Delete the first track. Paste. Highlight everything but the 2nd track. Cut. Export.... Repeat. It's a hassle but if it's only 1 album, shouldn't take longer than 10 min.

backsigns

You don't need to separate the file to burn it, unless you don't want all the tracks on the CDr. The tracks will contain any gaps the original disc had. Just burn it the way it is.

Also you an convert the file to wave and if you have a .cue file, you can separate the file with EAC
Tools/Split WAVE by Que Sheet/With Gaps

Norm Apter

Cpyder wrote: »

Does the file have a cue sheet associated with it? It would be a separate file if it does. You can load it into foobar2000 and then export the tracks into some lossless format of your choice.

Thanks, I suppose I'll first try this with Foobar since I've already downloaded that program.

Yes, there is a cue sheet. I've added that along with the single big file to my Foobar playlist and yes they now appear as single tracks in Foobar. So far, so good. The only problem I'm having is exporting them.

I'm happy just to keep these tracks in FLAC, but I've looked under File and Tools in Foobar and can't locate the tool I need to export them as single files either to a new folder that I can save or to a Media Player, from which I could burn directly to CD-R (Here, I'm assuming that one can not burn files directly to a CD-R using Foobar, as I can't find any such tools with this version of Foobar).

backsigns

You can also use a program called Burrrn to burn your CDr. It supports .que files and is very easy to use.

Cpyder

Highlight the files you want, right click and select convert. Select your output format and output path. It's likely that whatever CD player you will be using to read the CD won't have FLAC support, so I'd probably choose WAV. I believe Foobar offers a FLAC output option. If not, you can find the encoder at http://flac.sourceforge.net/.

Hope this helps.

Norm Apter

Thanks Cpyder.

It looks like I was able to perform these functions and convert/export the individual files in WAV, but was still having trouble doing so in FLAC (I did download flac.exe file but I still must be doing something wrong).

I'm used to burning FLAC files to CD-Rs (supported by Winamp Media Player).

So before I burn these WAV files, here's my question? As far as I can tell, WAV files are lossless. Is that correct? I'm asking because a few of these big files are from really nice MSFL (really audiophile grade recordings), some of which are needle drops from Vinyl. I don't want to lose anything by going from FLAC to WAV. Is there such things as superior lossless vs. inferior lossless, or alternatively is the only real distinction to be made between Lossless and Lossy (mp3 lame).

Cpyder

Norm Apter wrote: »

Thanks Cpyder.

It looks like I was able to perform these functions and convert/export the individual files in WAV, but was still having trouble doing so in FLAC (I did download flac.exe file but I still must be doing something wrong).

I'm used to burning FLAC files to CD-Rs (supported by Winamp Media Player).

So before I burn these WAV files, here's my question? As far as I can tell, WAV files are lossless. Is that correct? I'm asking because a few of these big files are from really nice MSFL (really audiophile grade recordings), some of which are needle drops from Vinyl. I don't want to lose anything by going from FLAC to WAV. Is there such things as superior lossless vs. inferior lossless, or alternatively is the only real distinction to be made between Lossless and Lossy (mp3 lame).

Check out this article. About 1/4 of the way down, it talks about converting to FLAC. You need to point Foobar to where the FLAC.exe file was downloaded to. If your hardware supports FLAC, I'd definietely go with that as all the file tags will be preserved. WAV will drop all tags but the name of the track.

http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/11/06/how-to-use-foobar2000-to-convert-audio-files/

There's no such thing as superior lossless in terms of sound quality. Lossless means every bit will be preserves. The way FLAC works is basically this. (A rough understanding.) In the long string of bits that is the audio track, if there are numbers that repeat for a while, (For example: 1234444456789), FLAC will write this as 123 4(x5) 56789. Since the 4 repeats five times, you can save space by writing 4(x5) compared to 44444 like WAV would.

When the file gets played back, a decoding program goes through the FLAC file and decodes it into 44444 just like the WAV format.

On playback, they are the same file. When being stored, FLAC just compresses the information more efficiently. It's just like how a ZIP file works. It looks for similar bits and groups them to shorten the amount of data needed to represent the data. Same file though, once unzipped/decompressed.

Lossless vs. lossy is a whole different story. Lossy algorithms actually throw out information that is unlikely to be heard by the listener. Once thrown out, you can never get it back. Some algorithms do a decent job. At higher bitrates, lossy formats can be quite transparent. Stick with lossless if you have the file space. And with hard drives running as cheap as they do today, anyone should be able to afford to keep their entire music collection lossless.

LessisNevermore

backsigns wrote: »

You don't need to separate the file to burn it, unless you don't want all the tracks on the CDr. The tracks will contain any gaps the original disc had. Just burn it the way it is.

That will work, but if you want to say, skip the 1st and 3rd songs, you'd be out of luck. The cd player would read the entire disc as one song. I believe the rip in question was a vinyl rip.

backsigns

The whole point of the .que file is to separate the tracks with the gaps for burning. Using a .que file in foobar showed him that the tracks are separated with it, so burning it with the .que will yield the same results.

Cpyder

Referring to whether a lossless format is superior. I suppose I forgot to mention that some formats do not support higher bitrates and bit depths. For example, FLAC can support up to 32-bits per sample, a sampling rate of up to 655,350 Hz and up to 8 channels. I'm not exactly sure about the specs of WAV but I don't think it can support 8 channels and such high sampling rates.

So if you had a FLAC track with an uber high sampling rate and 8 channels of audio, I believe the converter would downsample the track and also combine the audio channels to convert to WAV.

But once again, this only applies when you have a track in one format that exceeds the capacities of your target format. This doesn't happen often. And it will never happen with Redbook Audio CDs. (Everyday CDs.) All Redbook Audio CDs are 44,100Hz and 16-bits.

Norm Apter

Cpyder wrote: »

Referring to whether a lossless format is superior. I suppose I forgot to mention that some formats do not support higher bitrates and bit depths. For example, FLAC can support up to 32-bits per sample, a sampling rate of up to 655,350 Hz and up to 8 channels. I'm not exactly sure about the specs of WAV but I don't think it can support 8 channels and such high sampling rates.

So if you had a FLAC track with an uber high sampling rate and 8 channels of audio, I believe the converter would downsample the track and also combine the audio channels to convert to WAV.

But once again, this only applies when you have a track in one format that exceeds the capacities of your target format. This doesn't happen often. And it will never happen with Redbook Audio CDs. (Everyday CDs.) All Redbook Audio CDs are 44,100Hz and 16-bits.

Great info.

On a somewhat related subject, I've noticed that some of the downloads available are made by people who have uploaded in a higher resolution format: 24-bit/96. The files are about three times the size of the 16-44 downloads. Now, obviously the higher resolution (24/96) will not fit on redbook CD-Rs, but I'm wondering what the target is? In other words, how do people listen to these? music server? burn to DVD?

I don't have a music server and my laptops speakers are really nothing to brag about, so at this point I haven't bother with this option.

If one can burn to DVD, would it be just a regular DVD-R or some "special" DVD?

Cpyder

The highest quality audio discs are SACD and DVD-A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Audio

There are several players on the market. I'm not sure if any normal CD players that support higher res formats than Redbook CD if you burnt them to a disc. Check the specs of your CD player.

A lot of 24bit/96kHz or 24-bit/192kHz files you come across will be vinyl rips. I have several of these vinyl rips. I play them on my computer connected to my 2 channel audio system using an optical cable.

And then of course, you also have TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, which are the audio formats found on many Blu-ray discs. These formats are capable of 24bit/192kHz surround sound audio.

backsigns

Norm Apter wrote: »

Great info.
On a somewhat related subject, I've noticed that some of the downloads available are made by people who have uploaded in a higher resolution format: 24-bit/96. The files are about three times the size of the 16-44 downloads. Now, obviously the higher resolution (24/96) will not fit on redbook CD-Rs, but I'm wondering what the target is? In other words, how do people listen to these? music server? burn to DVD?

I don't have a music server and my laptops speakers are really nothing to brag about, so at this point I haven't bother with this option.

If one can burn to DVD, would it be just a regular DVD-R or some "special" DVD?

Most people use a program called Audio DVD Creator. It creates a menu for you and you can either leave the flac files as is (takes longer) or convert the larger 24/96 files to wave, then creates a VIDEO_TS folder that you burn to DVD, like any other video. Supports 24/96 24/48 resolutions

Norm Apter

backsigns wrote: »

Most people use a program called Audio DVD Creator. It creates a menu for you and you can either leave the flac files as is (takes longer) or convert the larger 24/96 files to wave, then creates a VIDEO_TS folder that you burn to DVD, like any other video. Supports 24/96 24/48 resolutions

Thanks. I'll look for that. By the way, if I were to use that program to burn the audio files on to a regular DVD-R, I'm also wondering if would play on my "normal" DVD player. More specifically, is there a particular format that a DVD must be able to play to be able to play these audio files?

Here's a link to my simple DVD player (am wondering if this player could handle this format before I go to the trouble of burning these DVDs): Philips DVP5990/F7 DVD Player with 1080p HDMI Upconversion and DivX

backsigns

That program converts music files into regular DVD format playable on any DVD player. It is an awesome program for music files! MP3, Flac Wave are supported, could be more, if not just convert to wave and it will be supported for sure! I forgot to mention, you need to create an AUDIO_TS folder (it will be empty) for any program to burn correctly, no big deal, I just use the same empty folder over and over.