how to split an audio track?
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I have 2 connected questions about adding audio files to my blog.
As background, I already have successfully added several audio files at various places on my blog pages, taken from my own excerpts of music that I created on Mac’s Garage Band.Now, I am trying to add two audio files (i.e., make them into audio players) taken from an .m4a track sent to me by a friend, which contains two songs. (There are no copyright problems because this is original music created by the friend.)
1. On my Mac, using iTunes I split off the two songs into two m4a files. However, when I try to transfer them on WordPress Dashboard — Edit page – – Add Media, those two files are not high-lighted, so I cannot click on them to download them to the blog page. Is there any way to do this?
2. Alternatively, it looks like the entire m4a track sent by my friend can be high-lighted, so presumably it can be downloaded to the blog page. However, if I do that I will have the entire m4a track of two songs, but I only want one song at each particular place on the blog. Is there any way to download the entire m4a track twice, to two places on the blog page, and then edit (delete from) the audio file once it is on on the WordPress blog page, so that I can have just song A in one place and just song B in the other place?
Thanks
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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It sounds like what you want is to have one audio file that has song 1 and song 2 on your blog so that each song appears to be a separate audio file.
To do this, you can create new m4a files that have different file names and upload them to your media library like you have done with other files. We do not have a way to start playing an audio file at a specific point in the file.
It sounds like you did this in #1, but I’m not sure I understand if you were having difficulty uploading the files or inserting them into a post.
Could you explain a little bit more where you were running into trouble, including the file names for the songs you are having trouble with and the post where you are trying to insert them?
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Jackie, Thank you for the very prompt response.
I guess I am not using the correct terminology to explain the problem,.
First of all, I am not doing this via “Media Library”. There seem to be two ways to upload audio files – – (1) by clicking on Media Library and (2) by clicking on “Upload Files”. I did that (Upload Files) because right now the two songs/m4a files are not in my existing WordPress media library , and I don’t know how to get them into it.
Anyway, you are correct that from the one original m4a track I created (at least I think I did) two new ones, one for each song. (When I run them on my computer, either from copies on the desktop or through iTunes, they seem to be OK.) So, those two files are found on my iTunes list and also as copies on my desktop, as m4a files.
So then, from the Dashboard, I go to Pages then to my “Lyrics” page, then Edit. Then I click at the place on the lyrics page where I want to insert the audio file/audio player for one of the songs. (That would be, for the first song, right after the title to the song “Scior Sindich” on the Lyrics page.) Then I click on Add Media. Then I click on Upload Files (again, since the two songs are not in the Media Library). But then, both when I select the song from the desktop or when I try to select it by clicking on Music then iTunes then the album and then the desired song, the song/m4a file does not get high-lighted, so I cannot click on it to select it for uploading to the Lyrics page on the blog. (Again, when I did this in the past with files I created on Garage Band, there was no problem, as you can see by checking some of the audio players that exist for other songs on the Lyrics page.
So, I don’t know what I am doing wrong this time.
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Jackie, I now realize that I did not directly respond to your questions.
The file names for the songs are Scior Sindich, El.m4a and Sulla Montagna.m4a.
Also I am not trying to insert them into a “post”. I set up my WordPress site not as a blog but as an old-fashioned website, so all the pages are “static” and actually there are no posts. I want to insert those two songs right after the titles for them (and before the lyrics for them) on the “Lyrics” page, which contains over a hundred songs.
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What it sounds like to me is that you’re having difficulty selecting those files to upload to your page (which also means uploading them to the media library, where they would be stored). If they are grey and are unable to be selected for upload, that suggests that they are not saved in a recognizable file format.
You might check the files to make sure they are readable as m4a files.
If you are unable to troubleshoot this on your end, would you be willing to upload a file to a file sharing service such as Dropbox so I can download it and test it on my end to see if the file itself is working?
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Hello, Jackie,
Somehow I did not see your message until just now – – there was no e-mail notification. And I did not expect a reply today, assuming that you might be on holiday.
Anyway, I was snowed in today (literally) and fiddled around on this for hours, and i think I got it. Figured out, as per your suggestion, how to add to the media library. Thanks to you, now I know about that. But I got the same bad result, only grey files, even for m4a format. However, then I read about Audacity software, so I downloaded it, plus a plug-in needed for Macs. Ultimately, I could (1) chop up the track into two songs and (2) convert them to mp3 format, which seems to work for WordPress Media Library. Right now, those two songs are on my Lyrics page on the blog and seem to be working fine.So, problem solved, knock on wood. Thank you very much for your suggestions.
Anselmo -
That’s great news. I’m glad you were able to sort it out.
If I had to guess, there was something about how you encoded the previous versions that made them unrecognizable as .m4a files, even with the file extension.
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Jackie, I am back with a follow-up problem. The problem last week was with a track that I received from a friend, so, as you wrote, there may have been a problem with the encoding. (And thankfully I found a way to work around that.)
But now I am back to recording my own tunes on Mac Garage Band. I want to add those short tracks as audio players on my WordPress “blog”. (If you look at my Lyrics page, you can see that I have done that at least a dozen times in the past, with no problems.) But now, it won’t work. When I try to Add Media to a page, the Garage band track does not highlight, so I cannot select it. When I try the alternative (as you suggested last week) of adding the track to the Media Library, I was able to get it into the Media Library, but when I tried to insert it onto the blog page (Lyrics page) it got inserted as a “.band” instead of as an mp3, as had always been done in the past. And then, on the Page, instead of becoming an audio file that I could click on to hear the melody, every time I clicked on it it just sent a download back to my computer. In other words, it did not go on the page as an audio player but as something else.I may be doing something wrong or different, but I have tried many times to repeat what always worked fine in the past. Has something changed with the WordPress software or coding? Do you have any advice?
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Your most recent upload of Figlia d’un Pastore melody is actually showing up a .zip file, which is a folder to download, rather than an .mp3 or .m4a file. You might take a look at that and try uploading the file again.
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OK. I will try again. But as far as I can remember, I am doing this the same as I did in the past, when I had no problem selecting songs from Garage Band for inclusion on the blog. Thanks. But I am puzzled why the Garage Band selection is a .zip file this time instead of mp3 as in the past.
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This is a follow-up. I fiddled around some more and found that if I export the song from Garage Band to iTunes it changes to mp3 format and then I was able to download it onto the WordPress blog page. Strangely, the audio player on the page is different than ones that had appeared earlier, but that is a minor issue. So, it seems like the problem may be solved. Thanks very much Jackie, and let me know if you have any suggestions or information.
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It sounds like it may take a little exploring with Garage Band to find the best way to use it to create your files for WordPress.com. I don’t have much experience with creating my own music (Garage Band is more of a game than a tool for me!) so I may not be the best to offer advice.
I’ll leave this thread open, and maybe others will see it and chime in with suggestions.
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