Home | New Products | Hot Products | Tweaks & Geeks | About | Quizzes | Tutorials
 
Easy Automatic Track Splitting
Drew's Tutorial
Track Trackers - The New Technology
Separate Tracks - 1st Time Every Time.
Using The Visual Track Tracker
Plus Now Get 4 More Track Tracker Programs
Instantly and effortlessly turn your recorded side of an LP, Cassette, Open Reel tapes or an hour of Internet Streaming Audio or your Cable TV's Digital Audio into individual numbered tracks. Automatically put them in a folder and give them a common prefix and even a side number so you'll always know what they are. It's a new, fast, easy to use technological breakthrough that's now built into the new DAK Wave Editor PRO.

Plus after you've separated your tracks you'll have your tracks set up like this:

Album Names_Side_Track 1
Album Names_Side_Track 2
And So on.

Then if you're making MP3s, our batch Tag Editor will let you put in the actual Album Name and Artist Name once and have it automatically put into all your tracks in 1 step super fast and easy.
NEW- Important Tip -
For Spoken Word recordings like speeches, training and
church services, it's still important for you to separate your files into tracks so your listeners can jump from place to place. Otherwise they always need to start at the beginning and have no fast-forward.

You can use the Time or Size Trackers to instantly break your file into parts (say 10 tracks) without marking anything yourself. Then use DAK NEW NO PAUSE CD BURNER to burn your CDs and your listeners can jump from place to place but there are virtually no audible breaks at all throughout your entire presentation. Just choose the No Pause Burner from the Tools Menu of the Advanced Editor and you'll be all set.

This is a very big deal. Very few programs allow you to separate tracks at all. And the ones that do can be very slow and time consuming to use. It's not their fault, Wave Files are very big and it takes your computer a long time to process them. The new Track Tracker technology changes all that. In the example below:

I'll show you how to take a side of a record that had 9 tracks and

in less than 2 minutes (I can do it in 52 seconds)

separate all 9 tracks. 1st time, every time. No guessing. No problems. Just easy track splitting.

Then in less than another 1.5 minutes, the Track Tracking technology will take over and automatically do all the track splitting for you.

The Track Tracker Will:

1. put all your tracks in the folder of your choice.
2. automatically number your tracks and assign a prefix of your choice.

OK, let's do it. Remember it's 1st time every time and less than 2 minutes to do it.

Oh, if you're not really sure why you want to separate tracks, and you do, here's a little explanation.

Quick Index
Major Tutorial Sections
How Do I Track By Visual Method? - MAIN TUTOIRAL - Preferred
How Do I Track By Size Method?
How Do I Track By Sound Method?
How Do I Track By Sound/Silence Method?
How Do I Track By Time Method?
How Do I Track By Visual Method?

The Track Trackers Menu
Separating Music & Voice Tracks FAST!!!!
The DAK Track Tracker has been the most powerful way to separate tracks when you copy records and tapes to digital. It's given you a fast, easy first time every time way to quickly separate tracks into individual digital files. It's garnered worldwide acclaim.

Tracking via visual method (highlighted) is the best and fastest way to separate your tracks. But many of you have special needs so we've added 4 new ways to separate your tracks to give you maximum flexibility. Each will work flawlessly, but they are more for specific situations than for every day use.

But remember, the visual method will probably be your best bet for most of the time.
Here are your new choices.

Track Via Size Method - Separate a file into 10ths, 5ths, 1/4s or 1/3rds or in 1/2. Very fast, very handy.

Note: For mass production of voice tapes this method is great. But for records and cassettes I prefer to have my tracks where each song begins.

Interesting sidebar CAUTION. Many of the people who duplicate records and cassettes for $20 use this method because it's so cheap and easy to do. Another reason why doing your own copies is the best. You want tracks where the songs are, not just every 5 minutes. :)

Track Via Sound Method - Listen to the file and click wherever you want a track. Then the file will be separated into those tracks.

Track Via Sound/Detect Silence Method - This method is automatic. It 'listens' to the file and puts in tracks wherever it thinks there's enough silence to mean there's a track. This method is good for digital Internet recording but won't work on cassettes and records because there's too much surface noise for it to tell the difference between soft music and inter-track noise.

Track Via Time Method - When you load a file this Tracker will compute the total number of seconds and give you 5 choices by number of seconds of how you want it separated.

Track Via Visual Method Preferred - All the other trackers work great, but this is still what you'll use 90% of the time for copying records and cassettes. It presents a view of the entire recording that looks like an EKG. Where there are flat line parts is where the tracks will be. Just click on them and then the Track Tracker will create the separate digital files for you.

THE EXTRA MARKER RULE
As you'll see below, using the visual tracker is just like looking at an EKG. Where you see action, there's music. Where it's flat there's a track.

Here's the rule.
These are your set Right and set Left buttons.
You need to put your markers into the spaces between the waves in track order from first to last. And you need one at the very beginning of the 1st track and one at the end of the last track. So that means if you have 6 tracks, you'll have 7 markers because of the extra one at the beginning.

Just remember that and you'll be all set. Oh and with the added Set Right and Set Left Marker buttons shown above, you can always get to the beginning or end of the file with just a single click.

IMPORTANT ADDED NOTE: Oh, and if you have blank at the beginning or end, just put your first or last mark at the beginning or end of the music. If you do, you'll automatically discard all the blank at the beginning and/or end. This isn't like analog where you had to start the recording at the needle drop or beginning of the cassette. Now just start the recording and relax. All the blank will be easily discarded when you use the Track Tracker.


Track Tracker Example Using Track Via Visual Method
OK, I've just recorded an LP that was about 22 minutes on side 1. The record had 9 tracks and I used the Automated Length Timer in the DAK Wave Editor Pro to automatically make the recording.

I'm going to show you how you can separate it into 9 separate numbered tracks ready to burn to a CD (you can use our Click & Pop filter first if you want) and you'll spend just about 2 minutes telling the Track Tracker what to do and then let the Track Tracker do it all for you in another 1.5 minutes automatically.

It's the same for copying cassettes, tracks you've recorded from the Internet or anything you put in the Wave Editor.

Arrow 1.) This is what a track looks like. You can zoom in if you'd like to see it bigger.

Arrow 2.) Just Click the Track Tracker Menu to access the Trackers.

Arrow 3.) For our Demo here, I'm going to choose the Visual Track Tracker.


OK, let's get started.

Uses The Editor Alert


When you click a Tracker, you'll get this alert warning you that you are using the Editor itself to support this process.


Choose Your File And Target
OK we're going to choose our tracks. But first, where do we want them to go and what do we want to call them? It's all easy and instant. You really will do all this the 1st time every time in just about 2 minutes.

Arrow 1.) Where do you want to put the tracks that the Track Tracker automatically generates for you? Just pick any folder on your computer. Or make one with the name of the artist or album or anything you want. Click the . . .Button. Don't type the folder name.



THE TARGET FOLDER RULE
What's a TARGET FOLDER? The Track Trackers and many of DAK's tools process your files and make a new copy of your file. Or in the case of the Track Trackers, we separate one file into many. But we don't destroy your original file. We leave it as is and make a copy. Well we send your copies or parts to another folder. That folder where we send your tracks is called a Target Folder.
This is a Target Folder Button: CLICK IT, DON'T TYPE the name.

How do you choose your Target Folder? You'll usually see a button with 3 dots on it like this . . .
You DO NOT TYPE IN YOUR FOLDER ADDRESS. Simply click the . . . Button and navigate to the folder using the normal Windows Browse Dialog box that comes up when you click on the . . . Buttons.

Now you know how to use . . . Target Buttons

Arrow 2.) Navigate to the folder you want your tracks to end up in.

Arrow 2a.) See the folder name you've chosen here. DO NOT TYPE IT. Navigate to it.

Arrow 3.) What do you want to call the tracks? The Track Tracker will automatically generate and number all your tracks. But, you can put the Album name or Artist name, or anything you like as a Prefix so in my example, you'll see that I've chosen the name of the album, Sing Out. So I'll get tracks SingOut_1 - SingOut_9 automatically. Now you'll never have to wonder what track 9 is or where you put it.

IMPORTANT NOTE SIDE 2. Do side one first. Then when you do side 2, add a 2 to the prefix so you'll instantly know that the tracks will be from side 2.

Arrow 4.) Do you want Wave (standard audio for CDs) or MP3 tracks? Just click the button you want. If you are going to burn CDs, do Wav. Also if you're going to process the tracks through the click, pop and hiss filter use Wav also. Remember, you can always use the batch processor to go to MP3 later if you want to.

So all you do is click your cursor where you see the blank spots between tracks (more later) and then click the Add Marker Button. That's all there is to it.

Arrow 5 OPTION.) If you haven't already loaded the side you want to Track, (you can load it first) or if you make a mistake and want to start over, just use the Open File to reload this or another file. Or if you've finished side one and want to do side two without closing the Tracker, load the next file here.

OK, after you do this once or twice this will just take you a few seconds and you're ready to let the Track Tracker automatically generate all your tracks for you.

OK, let's create the tracks.
Set Your Tracks FAST!
OK, here's all you do to set the Tracks.

Arrow 1.) Look for the flat line Spots like this.

Arrow 2a.) Click the Add Button.

Arrow 2b.) Change your mind? Hit the Delete Button.

Arrow 2c.) Want to clear all markers you've set? Hit the Clear Button.

Arrow 3.) This Green Bar is your friend. Once you've zoomed in, and you can zoom in as far as you like, just grab this bar/handle by left clicking and holding and use it to drag to the next track or anywhere you like in the loaded file.

Arrow 4.) The Green Bar also shows you your position in the total file and where you've already put markers. There's actually a lot of good info in the Green Bar.

Arrow 5.) These numbers represent the exact position of each of your tracks.
Is It A Track?
OK, I see the space, but is it a track? Easy to check.

Arrow 1.) Highlight a small area around the questionable track.

Arrow 2.) Hit play, and you'll know instantly. OR,

Arrow 3.) Zoom in to see it super clear.
Zoom In To See. Is It A Track? NO
You can zoom all the way in to 1/4 of a second. Then you can play just the part you want, or see if there's music or not. Zooming in is super easy and fast and you can zoom in, in the increments that you need.

NO MUSICAL EFFECT ZOOMING. You can zoom in or out as you please with no effect on the loaded track. And if you are zoomed in just grab the green bar to move onto the next track without zooming out. It makes it really easy.

Arrow 1.) Here you can see it's almost a flat line.

Arrow 2.) You can play just this tiny area which is just from 14:28.6 to 14:28:8. Wow that's really zoomed in.

Arrow 3.) You can tell by the size of the Green Bar how much of the file you are seeing.
Track It Now
You're finished. This is what the Track Tracker looks like.

You see that you have 10 marks. That's for 9 tracks. The 10th mark is because you put a marker (marker 1) at the very beginning of the file. That's about the only thing you need to remember to do.

Arrow .) This is it. The moment of truth. Click The Track It Button! Let's watch the automation.

BECAUSE YOU ARE FINISHED. Now let the Track Tracker Do its thing.

Click Track it Button.


Track It Fast & Easy
OK, you can go get a soda. But don't be too long. It only took my computer about 1-1/2 minutes to separate all 9 tracks for me. What do you see here? Glad you asked.

Arrows 1.) As the Track Tracker Separates the tracks, it displays each track as a full screen view. No reason, it's just fun to watch.

Arrow 2.) If you look at the green progress bar, you'll see that there are 9 marks in this channel. As the Track Tracker splits your tracks, the green bar moves across the segments so you know how far along it is as you watch. Of course it does its job whether you are there or not. Whenever you come back all your tracks will be separated and waiting for you.

Arrow 3.) You'll see the progress bar move to the right as the job finishes.

Let's see your tracks.


It's Tracked To Separate Digital Files
Here are your tracks. I've opened the folder that I had selected (Sing Out) and as you can see it automatically put all 9 tracks right here in the folder. Each track has the name of the Album I chose (Sing Out) and the track number following it.

Arrow 1.) The Prefix you chose. In this case Sing Out.

Arrow 2.) The Track Number assigned by the Track Tracker.

Note: Your track Icons will look different. They are really the same, but the design on the Icon is based on which program on your computer you've selected as your default music player. So don't worry. If you're like me and I have 8 computers, each has a different looking Icon. But they all will say Sing Out1-9.

Now you've seen how easy it is to separate your tracks. The first time this may take you 5-10 minutes. But after you've done it once or twice, you really will do all this in just about 2 minutes per side. And remember, I do it in just about 52 seconds. Let me know how fast it is for you.

Enjoy your music. Now with DAK's New Track Tracker Technology, there's phenomenally less effort than you have to expend before you start listening to and enjoying all your tracks on your computer and on CDs.


OK now that you know all about Track Trackers, let's explore THE 4 ADDITIONAL TRACK TRACKERS that you can use to separate your tracks.
 
 
Tracker - Via Size Method
If you want to simply break a file into pieces, this is the fastest way to split it up. You will want to do this mostly for voice files where you have lots of them to do.

THE DOWNSIDE isn't serious, but it will break the file into tracks without regard to the recording. So it might break the tracks in the middle of a word or in the middle of a note. That said, it's still a very effective and super fast way to make a big file into small files so that you can skip from place to place. And remember lots of people who you'd pay $20 to copy a record or tape for you use this exact method.

OK, here's how to Track Files by SIZE. Remember that the file is actually loaded in the editor for this process.

Arrow 1.) If the side you want to Track isn't loaded, you can load it in the editor with the Open Button. Or if you want to Track a 2nd File you can open it here too without having to close and reopen the Tracker. This is to make it faster for you to use. You can run 20 files through and track them all in just a few minutes.

Arrow 2.) Choose your Target Folder by Clicking the . . .Button and navigating to the folder you want your new tracks to end up in.

Arrow 3.) Add a prefix to your tracks. Use the Album Name and side number or the Artist or anything you like. Each Track will then have the Album Name, Side Number and the Track Number assigned by the Track Tracker.

Arrow 4 & 4a.) Select how you want the file split into tracks. You can choose 1/2, 1/3rds, 1/4s, 1/5ths and 10ths. The Tracker will then automatically calculate the size of the file and make the tracks for you.

Arrow 5.) Choose if you want your finished tracks to be Wav or MP3. Of course if you're going to restore your sound later or just burn CDs use Wav as it sounds best. You can always use the Batch Processor to convert 1000 tracks at once from Wav to MP3 or MP3 to Wav.

Arrow 6.) Click the Track It Button and the Size Track Tracker will turn your file into individual digital files/tracks that you can burn to CDs with programmability or load in your MP3 player or iPod and use like any other track you own. It's a perfect solution for perfectly formed digital files.

Trim Files First Note: Before Using this Tracker, it's a good idea to highlight any blank at the beginning and end of the file and use Edit/Delete Selected to eliminate any blank space, as this Track Tracker won't automatically delete it.
 
Tracker - MP3 Via Sound Method

OK, here's how to Track Files to MP3 by listening to the sound. This sound tracker tracks MP3 files only.

Arrow 1.) Load the side you want to Track.
Arrow 2.) Play the Track

Arrow 3.) Click Here to insert Tracks as you listen. So what you'll be doing is listening and inserting tracks wherever you want them to be.

Arrow 4.) Click the Track It Button and the Track Tracker will turn your marks into individual digital files/tracks that you can burn to CDs with programmability or load in your MP3 player or iPod and use like any other track you own. It's a perfect solution for perfectly formed digital files.

Important Note: This tracker puts the tracked files into a special folder on your C: drive. Just go to C:/Tracked and you'll find the tracks you just did. Be sure to move them before your next tracking session so they won't be overwritten.


Tracker - Via Sound/Silence Method
OK, here's how to Track Files by Sound/Silence.

Just use the powerful DAK Song Stalker and it's just like you are recording live from the Internet. Play the side you want to Track in either the DAK editor or Windows Media Player, Set the Silence Level, New Track After and Discard Tracks sliders and you're all set. See the full in-depth DAK Song Stalker Tutorial Here.
Tracker - Via Time Method
OK, here's how to Track Files by TIME. Remember that the file is actually loaded in the editor for this process

Arrow 1.) If the side you want to Track isn't loaded, you can load it in the editor with the Open Button. Or if you want to Track a 2nd File you can open it here too without having to close and reopen the Tracker. This is to make it faster for you to use. You can run 20 files through and track them all in just a few minutes.

Arrow 2.) Choose your Target Folder by Clicking the . . .Button and navigating to the folder you want your new tracks to end up in.

Arrow 3.) Add a prefix to your tracks. Use the Album Name and side number or the Artist or anything you like. Each Track will then have the Album Name, Side Number and the Track Number assigned by the Track Tracker.

Arrow 4 & 4a.) When you select this Tracker it automatically computes the entire length of your file. Then just choose which increment you want. You have 5 choices of track lengths for each file you load. Each will be dependant on the total length of the file in seconds.

Arrow 5.) Choose if you want your finished tracks to be Wav or MP3. Of course if you're going to restore your sound later or just burn CDs use Wav as it sounds best. You can always use the Batch Processor to convert 1000 tracks at once from Wav to MP3 or MP3 to Wav.

Arrow 6.) . Click the Track It Button and the Track Tracker will create individual digital files/tracks that you can burn to CDs with programmability or load in your MP3 player or iPod and use like any other track you own. It's a perfect solution for perfectly formed digital files.

Trim Files First Note: Before Using this Tracker, it's a good idea to highlight any blank at the beginning and end of the file and use Edit/Delete Selected to eliminate any blank space, as this Track Tracker won't automatically eliminate it.
Tracker - Via Visual Method PREFERRED
OK, here's how to Track Files by Visually Clicking on the spaces between the tracks. Remember that the file is actually loaded in the editor for this process

Arrow 1.) If the side you want to Track isn't loaded, you can load it in the editor with the Open Button. Or if you want to Track a 2nd File you can open it here too without having to close and reopen the Tracker. This is to make it faster for you to use. You can run 20 files through and track them all in just a few minutes.

Arrow 2.) Choose your Target Folder by Clicking the . . .Button and navigating to the folder you want your new tracks to end up in.

Arrow 3.) Add a prefix to your tracks. Use the Album Name and side number or the Artist or anything you like. Each Track will then have the Album Name, Side Number and the Track Number assigned by the Track Tracker.

Arrow 4.) Choose if you want your finished tracks to be Wav or MP3. Of course if you're going to restore your sound later or just burn CDs use Wav as it sounds best. You can always use the Batch Processor to convert 1000 tracks at once from Wav to MP3 or MP3 to Wav.

Arrow 5.) Move your cursor over the editor to the location that you want a track to be put in. Then Click the Add Button. Arrow 5a lets you delete a track you don't want and Arrow 5b lets you clear all tracks.

NOTE: You can only put tracks in, in the order 1-10 as an example. If you miss a track. You can't go back and fix it. You either need to clear all the tracks and start over, or you can just process the file. Then just grab the track you missed and use the Track Tracker to separate the two tracks that you missed.

Arrow 6.) This is the visual screen where you see the tracks you've created.

Arrow 7.) Click the Track It Button and the Track Tracker will turn your marks into individual digital files/tracks that you can burn to CDs with programmability or load in your MP3 player or iPod and use like any other track you own. It's a perfect solution for perfectly formed digital files.
 
A few last things that I want to mention.

Why separate tracks?

A lot of people don't tell you that you need to separate tracks when you copy your LPs, 45s and cassettes to CD.

If you don't separate the tracks, you can only start your CD at the beginning and play till the end. There's no way to get to the middle tracks.

So in the example above, you would always have to start with track 1 and play through track 9 if you wanted to hear track 9. Plus, with our system it's easy to make compilation CDs because we make every song or section into a separate digital file.

So if you've got 2, 5 or even 20 LPs of a single artist you can take tracks from any or all albums and easily put the ones you really like onto a 'favorites' disc. It's really no harder to do than just putting the tracks from a single album onto a CD.

And Finally, if you don't separate the tracks you can't eliminate the tracks you don't want. Usually there are 2 or 3 tracks on any LP or cassette that you don't really love. Now once you separate them you can leave them off or delete them easily.

Plus if you're copying spoken word tapes you want to put in tracks too. It's easy to do and it will make listening a whole lot easier. For books or sermons when you listen you don't want to have to start at the beginning each time. Put in a track every 10-15 minutes. It makes access really easy and you'll be glad you did.

So, spend about 2 minutes as I've shown you above once and enjoy perfectly separated tracks just like commercial CDs forever. Now with DAK's all new Track Tracker Technology it's easy to have great sounding easy to listen to CDs from now on.

Remember you'll get your tracks separated the 1st Time Every Time with the all new Track Tracker Technology in just about 2 minutes flat.

Enjoy. . . Drew


Tutorial Review Please.
So, What do you think? Good? Bad? Was this tutorial Helpful? Too detailed? Not Detailed enough? What would you do differently?
What do you want to know? What subject would you like me to write a tutorial about?
Please CLICK
to tell Drew (me) PERSONALLY.


DAK Home | About DAK | New Products | Hot Products | Quizzes | Electronic Tutorials
What Happened to DAK 1? | What was Drew Doing? | Map | Tweaks & Geeks | DAK Guarantee

Pictorial Tech Support. 6 AM - 11 PM Pacific Time
Got a question? Need help setting up? No problem. We've found that we can email you detailed help with step-by-step PICTURES where appropriate to make sure you can make the most out of our products and software much better than trying to describe what to do verbally over the phone.

CLICK HERE For FAST Complete Email Tech Support

DAK INDUSTRIES, INC.
19528 Ventura Blvd. #350 Tarzana, CA 91356
All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form. Copyright 1999-2007 DAK, INC.
Privacy Pledge | Legal Information | Contact the Webmaster