Use iTunes to Crop and Split Files

If you have an audio file that you would like to crop -- that is, remove some of the audio, like cropping a photo -- you can use iTunes to perform the operation. Cropping is not the most intuitive operation, but it is simple to use. This is handy when you want to remove extraneous sound at the beginning and end of an audio file. Cropping is also useful for isolating a small snippet of sound from a file.

Using a similar set of operations, you can also separate a lengthy file into smaller chunks, each of which is a new audio file. This is great when you have extremely long audio files that you would like to split. This may happen, for example, when you record an LP record. It is easier to simply record an entire side of an album and then chop it up in iTunes later, rather than start and stop the recording process for each song on the album.

1. Click the iTunes icon in the Dock.
   
   
2. Click a playlist name.
   
   
3. In the playlist, click a song from which you would like to copy a segment.
   
   
4. Listen to the song and locate the exact times of the clip segment you would like to copy.
   
   Note: To locate where you would like the clip to start, move the playback head in the display to the desired point. Write down that time. Then move the playback head to determine the end time of the segment.
   
   
5. Press Command-I.
   The Info window opens.
   
   
6. Click Options.
   
   
7. Click Start Time and type the beginning time of the segment to copy.
   
   
8. Click Stop Time and type the ending time of the segment to copy.
   
   
9. Click OK..
   
   
   
10. Press Command-, (comma).
    
    The iTunes Preferences dialog appears.
    
    
11. Click Importing.
    
    
12. Click the format of the new clip; for example, select AIFF Encoder.
    
    
13. Click OK to apply the settings and dismiss the Preferences dialog.
    
    
14. Click Advanced.
    
    
15. Click Convert Selection to AIFF.
    
    iTunes converts the segment that you defined into a new track.
    
    iTunes plays a "ding" sound when the conversion is complete.
    

TIPS

Did You Know?
When you extract a segment from an audio file in iTunes, iTunes gives the copy the same name as the original. Locate and rename the file as soon as you have finished creating it to ensure you do not delete the wrong file. If you are not sure which file is which, look at the time column of both tracks -- the smaller one is the copy.

Apply It!
After you complete the first conversion, you can continue separating audio segments from the file in a similar fashion. Select the start and end points as before, and perform a new conversion for each segment that you would like to extract. Do not forget to rename the new file each time.

Reprinted from Mac OS X Tiger: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks, copyright 2005, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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