Create Individual Tracks from One Long Concert Track in iTunes [Ask Lifehacker]

Category: Science/Tech | Posted by laraib 1523 days ago

Dear Lifehacker,
I've got lots of concert tracks in iTunes that are basically one long recording with no separation between tracks. Is there a way to split it up into individual tracks in iTunes? I've looked, but I don't see any iTunes feature that appears to handle this.Sincerely,Longing for ShorterDear Longing,It is possible to do what you want within iTunes, but you're right—iTunes doesn't make it obvious how. In fact, it's more of an iTunes hack than an intended feature, but either way, here's how it works.Assuming you've already imported the long album/track into iTunes, here's what you need to do. First, listen to the track and write down the start and end times of all the songs you want to split out. Once you've got that list, you're ready to start splitting up your track.

Now right-click the long track in iTunes and select Get Info. When the info window appears, click on the Options tab. In this tab, you should see two checkboxes labeled Start Time and Stop Time. Enter in the start and stop values for the track (most likely with a start time of 0:00 for your first track), making sure the checkboxes next to both start and stop time are checked, and hit OK.

Now that you've set a start and stop time for your first track, you're ready to split it out to a separate track. Right-click the long track, but this time select Convert Selection to MP3. iTunes will create a new track with the same metadata (so you'll want to go in and change it to reflect the new track title), but it will only include the section you defined with the start and stop time.

From here, just wash, rinse, and repeat on the original long track with the start and stop times for each track as you originally wrote them down.

Granted, this isn't the only way you could accomplish your goal; other tools, like the previously mentioned Audacity, are great for this kind of task. But if you want to stick with working in apps you know, this method should work without too much hassle in iTunes.

On the other hand, if you're looking to do the opposite—that is, turn an album with separate tracks into one continuous MP3—we've covered that, too.

Love,
Lifehacker