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Splitting a Long Mix into Seamless Tracks for Burning??

Mark Morb

Mark Morb

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 19, 2007
186
0
Norfolk
Hi,

I'm about to move to mac from Windows. One of the things that I currently do is to create digital mixes in a multitracker (in my case Adobe Audition) with a lot of cross fading etc. When the final seamless mix is completed I can then "chop" it in Nero before burning it to CD. This allows quick navigation of the mix and allows me to enter the relevant CD text for each song, the same as any commercially available Mix CD.

Could anyone point me in the right direction for applications that would allow me to do the same in mac world...

Thanks a lot,
Mark Morb
 
Audacity's a great program as far as free apps go, but even though it's been my primary audio editing tool for the last couple of years, I'm not sure it's the right app for what you're after. I know I'm looking to step up, and going from Audition to Audacity would be a strong step backwards.

Unless I'm missing something (and PLEASE tell me if I am), making that seamless mix in Audacity requires a lot of converting from .aup (Audacity's native file type) to whatever you're using (mp3, aif, etc) and back again. The resulting sound quality is not as good as I'd like it to be. (Not sure if my being on a Powerbook has anything to do w/that.)

I'm getting ready to buy a MBP (once I get over my wait-for-update angst) and was planning to step up to Audition. Are you not able to make seamless mixes w/it, or is it b/c you're moving from PC to Mac? If the latter, you can always run it on the PC side, no? And beyond that, I thought I heard that Adobe's now (or soon will be) making Audition to run on OS X.

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread by asking whether anyone knows if Logic (Express or Pro) will do the trick for seamless mixes. I've been to two Apple stores in my area and none of the "geniuses" seem to be able to answer that question. Any advice on that would be appreciated.
 
^^ I'd love to keep using Audition but I was wondering if there was a mac alternative, hopefully they will bring out an OSX version soon. I will have to use a Windows Boot for now.....

Thanks,
 
So this is not the quick fix that you (and me) are looking for.

I have been pondering this as well, but I'm not at a point where I am ready to burn the final product. That said, here is one laborious idea that I might try when I'm ready:

I am working with Garage Band with plans to move to Logic as needed. Basically I'm thinking of making one track which contains each of the songs that I want to flow into each other. Pick one song and delete all the rest of the music. Keep track of the exact cutoff point. Save as...

Open the entire mix again, figure out the start/stop point for the next song and delete all extraneous info. Select all of whatever is leftover and move it to the zero second point in the timeline. Save as...

And repeat this until all of your songs are separate files. Export to iTunes and set as a gapless album. This is probably not a good solution for you (and I realize that we are using different software), but it's the best I've come up with so far. I'll be curious to see what others have to say on the issue.
 
Wee Beastie said:
So this is not the quick fix that you (and me) are looking for.

I have been pondering this as well, but I'm not at a point where I am ready to burn the final product. That said, here is one laborious idea that I might try when I'm ready:

I am working with Garage Band with plans to move to Logic as needed. Basically I'm thinking of making one track which contains each of the songs that I want to flow into each other. Pick one song and delete all the rest of the music. Keep track of the exact cutoff point. Save as...

Open the entire mix again, figure out the start/stop point for the next song and delete all extraneous info. Select all of whatever is leftover and move it to the zero second point in the timeline. Save as...

And repeat this until all of your songs are separate files. Export to iTunes and set as a gapless album. This is probably not a good solution for you (and I realize that we are using different software), but it's the best I've come up with so far. I'll be curious to see what others have to say on the issue.
Click to expand...

That's exactly the method I've been using w/Audacity, except that you don't have to delete the rest of the track and reload.

Instead, you import the whole piece as one track, then break it into the pieces you want by selecting "cursor to end" and splitting that second, longer part to the next track. Continue in that fashion until all tracks are separated, then highlight one track at a time and select "export as".

It works really well though I'm finding that if a particular track is one minute or less then a gap between tracks sometimes appears, even when the playlist is set to gapless. In those cases, I just attach those shorter tracks to one of the longer tracks on either side of it.

I frequently import existing songs to make DJ mixes and am looking for a program that will run in the Mac env't with more power (more features, faster functioning, better audio quality) than Audacity and a direct way of creating separate track numbers within a mix.

Will Logic do this? I've been to the two area Mac stores 2x each looking for a "genius" who can answer this question. So far, no luck. (Turns out they're not really geniuses after all.)
 
Samplitude!!!

You can record the entire mix there, Normalise it (in case som of the tracks are a little different in volume) And then the good part: After you recorded your mix, you can set in cd markers and then burn it directly from the program. This will give you a cd with a mix, with perfect transision between tracks.

Enjoy:)
 
I still think audacity is good...
record your mix in, or import your wav or aiff, normalise, split tracks and export them as... aiff/ wav/ whatever.

I use my Serato to record my mixes, then bring them into audacity and they come out fine.

check this thread for how the sound quality came out... (after using iTunes to convert to 192kbps mp3)
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=4799161#post4799161

so apparently my thread was erased, guess sharing music is wrong (even though the producers gave me the tracks, to promote their music!)

bye.
 
Macchino said:
Samplitude!!!

You can record the entire mix there, Normalise it (in case som of the tracks are a little different in volume) And then the good part: After you recorded your mix, you can set in cd markers and then burn it directly from the program. This will give you a cd with a mix, with perfect transision between tracks.

Enjoy:)
Click to expand...

That sounds promising...can you assign different CD-Text to each split area?
 
Macchino said:
Yes, Just select cd track options --> cd text, from the cd drop down menu.

Its so easy, I compile mix cd's for various companys as part of my job (Musician, producer, dj) and use it all the time.
Click to expand...

That's great...just checked it out and it looks like a really good product....BUT...it's €499 !!! or €999 for the Pro version....I don't think I can stretch to that.

:(
 
Logic Studio come with a CD authoring application called Waveburner that does anything you want to do with a CD. So if you consider going with Logic, you're "way to go" with your project. It's really simple to use and the GUI (graphic user interface) is the "apple application" type.
 
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