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I have a MP3 file where each line of the song is repeated thrice. When I hear it closely, what they have done is they have taken the whole song and somehow identified where each line ends (maybe they have their identifier as the 1 second silence between each line), copied the line and pasted it twice.

The reason why they have done this is, so that we will be able to memorize it easily. Now, what I want is the opposite. I want a software/method, where I identify the gap i.e., 1 second gap and then chop of the repeating 2 instances of the same line.

How do I do it and what software would best be suited for this?

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3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

What you are looking for is Audacity. Also free.

When you open your MP3, it will show you a graphical representation of the track and the splits should be easy to see, particularly if there is a gap. The repeats can be deleted and the track saved.

It will not do it automatically, but it is an easy enough manual task

The graphical representation looks like this - (from wiki.audacityteam.org/) and shows what total silence gaps look like:

alt text

Here is an image of a stereo track with silence gaps. In this image the user has selected part of the recording, shown as shaded, by "click, drag and release". To delete the selected sound all he has to do is hit the Delete key.

alt text

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+1 for the basics. the mp3 will likely be a stereo track, and the effect the OP describes could be done in several different ways that may not be easy to remove. any WAV-editing software (Adobe Audition, Goldwave, etc) can be used as well, tho Audacity is certainly the cheapest. :) –  quack quixote Oct 21 '09 at 16:15
Quack - thanks for the vote. For those not familiar with Audacity, it will edit stereo tracks as described in the answer. I interpret kanini's question to indicate that he repetitions are separated by a one second gap. I have added an Audacity image of a stereo track with gaps. –  Kije Oct 21 '09 at 18:33
Thanks Kije. I have downloaded Audacity. I will test it and keep you posted if I get into some trouble. –  Kanini Oct 21 '09 at 18:51
kije, nice addition of the stereo track image; i think that's more like what the OP will see. –  quack quixote Oct 21 '09 at 20:20
Kanini - hope this works for you. If you are going to recode to mp3, you might need a mp3 encoder. Audacity points here for the lame mp3 encoder lame.buanzo.com.ar If you get into Audacity you will find other plugins etc here audacity.sourceforge.net in the downloads tab. –  Kije Oct 21 '09 at 20:30
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If you wanted to do it automatically, like you were writing software to do this, you could use autocorrelation to find the repeating sections. :)

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+1 for the Brilliant idea! I will have a look at it, as that sounds like an interesting thing to do! –  Kanini Nov 16 '09 at 16:33
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Have you heard of Cool MP3 Splitter? It doesn't detect the gap per se but if you listen to the mp3 and watch the time of the gap you can tell Cool MP3 Splitter that time in the track and split it there. The software also has a Joiner to to you can rejoin the mp3 without the repetition. The software is free.

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Thanks, I have never heard of it. I will give it a try and let know how it went. –  Kanini Oct 21 '09 at 4:05
Sorry mate, this will split the file at the position, but it will not be useful for my request. –  Kanini Oct 21 '09 at 4:54
I am sure that there is music software that does this but it might be at a (high) cost. I will keep looking and see if I can dig up another answer for you. –  ricbax Oct 21 '09 at 5:29
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