# Can Audacity or other Software scan a 20 min recording & extract all the takes of a song? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 23, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-audacity-or-other-software-scan-a-20-min-recording-extract-all-the-takes-of-a-song/723248 "2015-06-23T15:22:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-audacity-or-other-software-scan-a-20-min-recording-extract-all-the-takes-of-a-song/723248/1 "2015-06-23T15:22:25Z")
I’ve never been able to press record and do a great take of a song. I get the best results by pressing record and start playing. If/when I mess up, stop, count 8 beats of silence, start again. I might play 20 or thirty minutes. I can go into audacity and easily see my various takes. But its laborious to manually select each take, copy, write it out. Repeat for the next take. It can eat up an hour or two. Then I still have to review my takes and pick the best. It would be so wonderful to just scan that 20 min recording and spit out all the takes into uncompressed files in a work folder. Then I could open that folder in VLC as a playlist. listen to each file. did I screw up? press the next track button & go to the next file. I could review and find my best takes in ten minutes. A huge, huge time saver. Anyway to do that in Audacity? Or is there software that will scan for gaps in a recording and extract all the takes? ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-audacity-or-other-software-scan-a-20-min-recording-extract-all-the-takes-of-a-song/723248/2 "2015-06-23T15:27:35Z")
You should check the manual, but I don’t think there is any way for Audacity to do this. How would it know when one take stops and another one starts, since there could be deliberate pauses in your song? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-audacity-or-other-software-scan-a-20-min-recording-extract-all-the-takes-of-a-song/723248/3 "2015-06-23T15:30:31Z")
I always do at least a full 8 beat count of silence between takes. Thats at least 5 seconds. It’s an obvious gap that I easily see when I edit manually. I never have a rest break in a song that long. I’d use an even longer break between takes if my song had a long rest in it. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-audacity-or-other-software-scan-a-20-min-recording-extract-all-the-takes-of-a-song/723248/4 "2015-06-23T16:29:12Z")
I think this is what you are looking for: [http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/silence\_finder\_and\_sound\_finder.html](http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/silence_finder_and_sound_finder.html) That will label the individual takes. Then you can do this to separate each labeled part into separate pieces: [http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/splitting\_a\_recording\_into\_separate\_tracks.html](http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/splitting_a_recording_into_separate_tracks.html) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-audacity-or-other-software-scan-a-20-min-recording-extract-all-the-takes-of-a-song/723248/5 "2015-06-23T16:49:06Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > I think this is what you are looking for: > [Audacity Manual](http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/silence_finder_and_sound_finder.html) > > That will label the individual takes. Then you can do this to separate each labeled part into separate pieces: > [Audacity Manual](http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/splitting_a_recording_into_separate_tracks.html) Yup, I generally us this to establish separate tracks when I’m recording an album, but there’s no reason not to use it whenever you’re looking for gaps in recordings. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-audacity-or-other-software-scan-a-20-min-recording-extract-all-the-takes-of-a-song/723248/6 "2015-06-23T17:04:45Z")
I’ll give that a try. thank you. Anything to save some time. I music rather make music then edit it. I have to bring this guitar back to the shop. Getting some feedback from the pickup he installed. Didn’t realize it was this strong until I started reviewing my recorded tracks.