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I have a big mp3 file, it comes from ripping a full cd. I would like to split it into one file per song. It will be great if it can split the file automatically, detecting the start and the end of each song.

Extra background:

I have tried mp3splt and audacity. The first one fails to autodetect the songs and audacity seems to be unable to do it.

I would like to burn the songs to a CD (mp3 format) to play then in my car radio. It will not support any fancy stuff, it doesn't even have an USB connector.

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Was the cd originally one big splob of a file, or does it have individual tracks when it's in a cd player? – djeikyb Feb 23 '11 at 0:31

5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

You can split your large mp3 into small pieces by using the "split" or "split new" function in audacity, then can move apart the portion of audio that you wish to mix down into a different file in order to export it.

In the next screenshot, I have made a new Stereo Track in order to put the split audio into a different track (for visual purposes only), then I moved the second part of the audio to that track and I have selected a portion of audio which can be exported into a new file.

enter image description here

You don't have to split the audio in order to export the portion of audio into a different file, you can simply select the audio and choose "Export Selection" in the File Menu.

In the next screenshot I am doing as I said in the words above.

enter image description here

If you yet have the CD, ripping audio with a file per song can be done by using "Sound Juicer", which will allow you to choose how to rip the media from the CD. This way you will have an mp3 file per song. And the task to mix down all the songs into a large file will be easily achieved by Audacity, just in case you need to do it so.

Sound Juicer can be installed via synaptic or by diving into the website at: http://burtonini.com/blog/computers/sound-juicer

A screenshot are placed here in order to you see Sound Juicer in action. (Sorry, I don't have a CD to rip off right now, so the playlist is empty)

enter image description here

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up vote 0 down vote

you can try something like:

ffmpeg -i /path/music.mp3 -t 00:10:00 -ss 00:20:00 -acodec copy /path/save.mp3

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Sure, but I will need to manually find each song time. It will be faster to do it with audacity, at least I can see the wave. – Javier Rivera Feb 23 '11 at 8:06
up vote 5 down vote

You say you've tried mp3split but have you read the full manpage?

I ask because the -s silence mode can take parameters to help it determine silence.

There's also a -c CDDB database query mode. If this is a known CD, you can pull the track listing from online. This will also name tracks correctly and (I think) it'll even set the tags up.

It is an incredibly powerful tool and one of your best options for preserving quality... So don't write it off straight away.

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No. The truth is that I just used the mp3split-gtk GUI. I'll look at them. – Javier Rivera Feb 23 '11 at 8:06
Bad luck. The only option not available in the GUI is to give it the number of tracks. But it just ignored it and found the same number of tracks that from GUI. – Javier Rivera Feb 23 '11 at 8:31
up vote 1 down vote

Audacity is BAD for that - since it re-encodes mp3 and the quality get downgraded. I use ffmpeg for cutting mp3 - I believe it doesn't do re-encoding:

ffmpeg -i InputFile  -vn -acodec copy -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:01:32 OutPutFile
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Please see comments to jet answer. – Javier Rivera Aug 26 '11 at 9:28
up vote 0 down vote

I can recommend mp3DirectCut. Does lossless conversion and runs fine under Wine:

Screenshot

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