Rogue Amoeba ’s Audio Hijack Pro is a terrific program for capturing audio that plays through your Mac but it ’s an uncomplete answer — once you ’ve capture hours of streaming audio recording , there ’s no means to split it into digestible segments and then identify which bit is which . Rogue Amoeba meet in that missing functionality with Fission 1.1.1 , an audio editor that makes divide long audio files into private course as gentle as possible .
Fission is n’t intended to be a full - featured two - rail audio editor program as is Freeverse ’s $ 80Sound Studio 3or HairerSoft ’s $ 30 Amadeus II (; “ Best of Mac Gems ” , August 2006 ) . Unlike these other applications , you ca n’t record audio directly into the programme . Rather , it takes filing cabinet you ’ve already recorded , displays them as wave forms , and then ply the tools for mechanically part sound streams — for example , cyberspace radiocommunication broadcast or LPs and cassettes that you ’ve captured with a programme like Audio Hijack that you ’d like to turn into iTunes track or cubicle phone band tones . Unlike some other audio editor in chief that convert files as they ’re import or pull through , nuclear fission lets you edit and save the emended file cabinet in their aboriginal audio format — the program supports MP3 , AAC , Apple Lossless , AIFF , and WAVE . Thus , there ’s no loss of audio lineament that can pass off when you convert a file .
Let’s split
You utilize the program ’s Smart Split command to manipulate your audio file cabinet . Select the statement and up pops the Smart Split window . you may choose one of the two presets — Analog Recording or Digital Recording — and the single file is marked with green line where nuclear fission senses that breach between tracks be . If it fails to find all the gaps ( or finds too many ) , simply adjust a couple of sliders . The first slider is Length , which tells Fission how long a period of silence must be to be identify as a gap . ( The default is 2 second . ) The other is Sensitivity , a setting that determines interruption by how quiet the euphony gets . ( The default for the Digital Recording preset is -60 dB. ) you’re able to save these adjustments as presets . Once you ’re happy with the split points , just click the Split button and the file is disunite into individual tracks .
In several mental testing recordings I was able-bodied to apply these luger to accurately discover every path , but if the slipper fail , you could manually insert splits using the program ’s Split tool . I never had this variety of luck with Roxio ’s CD Spin Doctor 2 , a utility include with Toast Titanium ( ) that ’s also designed to automatically split up long files . What ’s more , unlike Fission , CD Spin Doctor did not spell AAC and MP3 single file .
Fission offers some other basic redaction feature . For good example , a click of a button cold shoulder , cuts and splits , or crops a take audio cut . you may also get across buttons to fade - in or slicing - out selected audio recording — the rootage or ending of a raceway , for example . Fission get you scrub audio by dragging the playhead back or forward while audio turn . And if you ’d care to mark split points by clip — half an 60 minutes into the file cabinet , for example — you’re able to do that as well .
Tagging tracks
Fission allows you to tag tracks within the program via its Inspector pane . This is a really utilitarian feature , letting you enroll typical ID3 tag — championship , creative person , album , track number , and genre , for example , as well as lyrics and nontextual matter — before you export the item-by-item files .
Much as I appreciate this feature , I wish the Inspector were a little more refined . As it is , you could come in Artist and Album information before splitting the track and that information is inherited by the split path . But it does n’t also mechanically introduce track numbers — which would be helpful when you ’ve split up a single record album and would like iTunes to finally act the course in the right order . you may set track numbers manually in nuclear fission or afterwards in iTunes , but it ’s a annoyance . Also , moving from track to track and field to field requires a peck of mousing . Next and late data track button ( with keep company keyboard commands ) would be welcome , as would fields ( such as Title ) that stayed take as you move from one trail to another .
Macworld’s buying advice
Fission is the best tool I ’ve notice for identify gap in a variety of audio files and cleave those files into individual tracks . Its ability to edit files in their native format is a manna from heaven ( and a feature I ’d like to see added to other audio editors ) . While trail files within the program is useful , I ’ll keep my fingerbreadth crossed that in Fission ’s next revise , it will be as easy as it is utilitarian .
