Here is a question that is frequently asked by beginners: how do I cut the mix I’ve just recorded on my PC into separate tracks? There are many tools you could use for this, but here's how to do it using the ever popular Sony Sound Forge, or it's bundled brother, CD Architect.
If you just want to cut your mix into individual tracks for playback in an mp3 player… Here’s how you do it using Sony Sound Forge.
* Go to File -> Open, and select your freshly recorded mix. * Find a suitable spot where you would like a track marker to go. For the best results, zoom in to choose a spot where the waveform crosses the horizontal axis. You can use the Up and Down arrows to zoom into the waveform horizontally, and the Shift+Up and Shift+Down arrows to zoom in vertically. * Press ‘M’, or if that’s too easy, go to Special -> Insert Marker. Do the same for every place where you want a new track to begin. * Go to Special -> Regions List -> Markers to Regions. * Now go to Tools -> Extract Regions. * Choose a destination folder for your tracks. * Choose a file name prefix, as requested. If you want nice neat filenames, untick ‘Use long file names for destination file names’. * Click Extract.
Your mix is now split into individual tracks. Now you may load them into a playlist in your music player of choice.
…but if you want to make your mix into a CD with track breaks, you might as well do this instead: Many people use Sound Forge to cut their mixes into separate tracks and then burn them onto a CD. That’s fine, but if you know that’s what you want to do from the outset, you can save yourself a few minutes by skipping the above and just using the product that is often bundled with Sound Forge: that is, CD Architect. This great program is often overlooked, but it’s my personal favourite for any CD creating task. Here we go:
* Open CD Architect. Go to File -> New * In the Explorer window, navigate to where your DJ mix is. Then simply drag the file into the main window area. You will see the waveform appear there immediately. * Find a suitable spot where you would like a track marker to go. Again, for the best results, zoom in to choose a spot where the waveform crosses the horizontal axis. (Just as with Sound Forge, you can use the Up and Down arrows with the shift key to zoom into the waveform horizontally and vertically.) * Press ‘T’, or if you prefer, go to Insert -> CD Track. Do the same for each track. * Put a CD in your CD burner. * Go to Disc -> Burn CD * Click OK * Wait a bit. * It’s done. Now send your mix off to clubs and DJ agencies, and become a superstar. If you want.