A couple of Caveats here.  

I am detailing how I do things with GoldWave.  If there are different ways to do these things that are not illustrated here, feel free to send them to me at the e-mail address at the bottom of this message.

Secondly, this tutorial is meant for those wishing to split large books, television series or music albums that have been downloaded and/or ripped as one large file.  These files can be quite large and cumbersome, especially when having to forward through them to get to a particular spot several hours into it, just to get to the last place you left off.

Splitting the file into smaller segments would make this task easier to accomplish, and that is my sole reason for doing this.

If you feel that you enjoy larger files in this way, then you are free to leave them as is, and ignore this tutorial.

So, let's begin from the basics first.

First, open up the GoldWave program.

Once open, press control+O to get the open sound dialog box.

Do a shift+tab to go to the file list, then look for the file you want to open.

Once found, press enter on the file, and GoldWave will begin processing the file, or, as GoldWave calls it, processing audio decompression.

Eventually, you'll land on the GoldWave main window, and it will tell you the total length of the file you've just opened.

At this point, press alt+T for the tools menu, then press the letter "P" for the Cue Points Utility.
 Right away, a dialog box will pop up, and Jaws will land you on an empty list box.  This is normal, as this is where the list of cue points in the file will appear once you've created them.

If you tab down, you'll go through a series of buttons.  The first button is New, and this you would press if you were going to manually insert a cue point into the file.  The next button after that is the close button, which will, obviously, close the dialog box.  The next button is the help button, which is also self-explanatory.

It is the button after the help button that we want to press the spacebar on.  This button is called the "Auto Cue..." button, and this button will insert the automatic cue points into the file where you tell it to.

Go ahead and press the spacebar on this button, and you'll go to another dialog box, where you'll specify the criteria for inserting the cue points.

The first item you'll land on upon pressing the spacebar on the auto cue button will be the first tab in a multi-tab dialog box.  The two tabs are the Mark silence tab, and the Spacing tab.  This last tab will space the cue points by time, as opposed to the first one, which will look for the silences at a given interval you specify.  So, if Jaws happens to read spacing tab, then press the left arrow to go to the Mark Silence tab.  If Jaws comes right out of the gate saying mark silence tab, then you don't need to do a thing, and you simply have to tab on through the dialog box at this point to specify the criteria the utility should look for.

Tabbing once to the first edit box after the mark silence tab, will land you on the edit field where you specify the decibel level the program should look for when looking for silent spots.  The decibel level is the noise level of sound.  Customarily, this level should be pre-set at minus 35 decibels, and I usually find that this is enough when marking the silence in a book, music album, or television series.

Tabbing on through to the next edit field, will land you on the edit box to specify the length of the silence it should look for.  It should automatically be set to 1 second, so if it isn't, or you don't want that particular criteria, then go ahead and enter your own number, making sure to place a decimal point and two zeroes after the number of seconds you want it to look for.

Tabbing to the next edit field, will take you to the edit field where you specify the minimum length between cue points, in other words, if you're going to be splitting this file, how long each section should be.  If you want each section to be split into 30 minute segments, you would enter 30 colon, 00, remembering to add a decimal point and two zeroes after the time you've just specified.

If you want to increase the size of the segments, say to an hour and thirty minutes, then you would type 1 colon 30 colon 00, and adding the decimal and two zeroes after that.

Now we tab to the next field, where we tell the utility to place the cue point within a specific margin.  In other words, do we want the cue point on the outside of the one second silence, in which case we would enter a number of 100, or do we want it placed on the inside of the one second, in which case, we would place a 0 in the box.  It goes by fractions, and so, if we want the optimal placement, which is usually in the middle of the silence, so as not to cut out any words, we place a 50 in this edit field and move on to the next edit field.

Once you tab on, you'll land on a series of radio button checkboxes that give you the option of automatically naming the cue points.  The options are:

*Numbering, 1, 2, 3...

*Lettering, A, B, C...

*Time based within the file, Hour colon minute colon second.

I find the best option to use here is the numbering system, as this will be the best option later on when we actually go to split the file.

At this point, you're done, and can tab to the next button, the ok button, to insert the cue points within the file.

In most cases, this will be instantaneous, but some will take a while, depending on the amount of background noise and such impeding the utility.

Once the program has finished inputting the cue points into the file, you'll land back on the cue point dialog box, and back on the Auto Cue... button.

To confirm that you've actually inserted the cue points, tab past two buttons titled import and export, and back to the list of cue points which were previously empty, but now have been filled with a list of cue points.

If you listen carefully, you'll hear Jaws call out the cue point number, and it's position within the file.  If you want to make sure of the placements, go ahead through the list of cue points, to see where the utility placed them within the file.  If you don't like where the cue points were placed, you can tab to the edit button to make a change to the position of the cue point you don't like, to the delete button to remove the cue point, or the delete all button, to remove all of the cue points inserted by the utility, and begin the process again, from the beginning or the top of this tutorial, and change the criteria.

Just a note on something you may have noticed going through the list of inserted cue points.  You may have noticed that the cue points are not exactly the actual time apart you've chosen.  For example, if you specified that you wanted the cue points inserted every 30 minutes or so, the file will automatically look for the very next silent spot in which to place the cue point after the 30 minute mark.  That's why you may notice a few seconds or even minutes added onto the time spacing.  Don't worry, this is standard operating procedure for this utility.

So, now that we've inserted the cue points, it's time to split the file...

Go ahead, after you've reviewed the cue point list, and tab on down to the split file button and press the spacebar.  Pressing the spacebar on this button will take you to another dialog box, where you'll specify where to save the split segments, how it should label the split segments, and the bit rate and frequency it should use.

The first edit field you land on in this new dialog box is an edit field where you'll specify the location of the file in which to place the split segments.  Typically, the utility will assume that you have used or are using a common folder for placing all of your split files.  This can be an option if you wish to avoid the hassle of typing in or looking for the folder to place the segments every time, however, if this really isn't a hassle for you, feel free to change this item, remembering that the location within the edit filed at the moment is left to the last location it placed the last segments it split.

To change this location, if you are familiar with the location, or are able to type out the location, go ahead and type it in this field.  If not, there is a browse button, one tab over from the edit field, so go ahead and press the spacebar on it, and you'll be taken to a dialog box where Jaws automatically focuses on the ok button of this dialog box.

Press shift+tab to go to the tree view of the folders on your hard drive, and arrow through the list of folders, opening and closing the tree view where necessary to find the location you wish to place the split segments into.  If you do not have a specific folder to place the segments into, you can press tab once after the tree view, and press the spacebar on the create new folder button, which will take you to an edit field, in most cases, where you can type the name of the folder in which the segments will be placed.  Remember to have the folder you wish the new folder to be created in, highlighted before you press the create new folder button, as pressing this button will create the new folder within the folder you currently have highlighted in the tree view, so be careful.  Once you've named the folder you've created, tab to the ok button, and press the spacebar.

Tabbing past the browse button will land you on a checkbox asking you if you want to overwrite the files with the same name.  If this is a repeat job, you may wish to do this, in which case, you would press the spacebar to check this option, or you may leave it unchecked, in which case, it will prompt you should there be files in the folder with the same name as the segments it's creating.  This is not usually the case, but, as a matter of opinion, I usually leave it unchecked.

Another tab will land you on a series of radio buttons, where you specify how the utility will name the segments it creates.  The options are as follows:

*Use Cue name for file name

This will mean that the files names of each segment will contain the cue name given in the file.  So, if you named the cue points with letters, numbers, or time names, these are the file names the utility will use.

*Use Base File name and number

This will use a common name like Track followed by a number.  If using this method, you will need to enter a base file name and numbering scheme with which the utility will use.  For example, you may want the segments to be titled, "Track 001", in which case, in the subsequent edit filed, you would enter the criteria of, "Track###".  The amount of number signs placed within the file name will depend on how many tracks you think there will be and how the utility numbers those tracks.  For example, if you have a file that has been cued to add over 100 cues, then you would want to enter three number symbols in order to reflect the number of digits.  In this case, the numbers containing three number signs will begin 001, 002, 003 and so on to the end.  In most cases, this edit field is filled in automatically with "Track###" so you can basically leave this value alone.  You do have the option to change it, so don't feel you are required to go this route.

*Use cue name prefixed with base filename and number

This uses a combination of both methods listed above, and as such, is pretty self explanatory.

I usually use the second option, to use a base file name with number, and I leave the value in the edit field as is, with the word track, followed by the three number signs.  If you find the number of cue points placed within a file number more then 999, then I would recommend placing four number signs in the base filename, otherwise you may run out of filenames to use should the number exceed a three digit number.

Tabbing past the edit field, you land on another edit field, asking you what number you want the first file to start at.  You can enter any number you wish here, but I usually just leave it at the number 1.

If you tab again, you land on a checkbox asking you if you want to prefix the original file name.  I usually tend to leave this checked, so as to not have any confusion should the files get moved into a directory with more than one Track ### file, in which case, you may be asked to overwrite the file with the same name, or you will replace the file automatically.  So, if you follow my opinion, then leave this checkbox checked.

Tabbing will land you on another series of radio buttons, these outlining the bit rate and such you want to save the file segments in.  you've heard of people talking about a file being 44100 hertz, or 44.1 khz, and 128 bit rate, or 128 kbps?

Well this is the series of radio buttons that determines this.  You can choose to keep the same file attributes, meaning that if the file is saved at a specific frequency, say, 44100 hertz, and a particular bit rate, possibly, 128 kbps, then the utility will save the segments in the same way.

The second option is to save the segments as CD compatible Wave format and alignment, which will save it into wave files for later compressing into another format, or for just leaving it and burning the tracks onto a CD.The last option is to save the file using the default format and attributes, which may or may not be any number of combinations, either Wave, Windows Media Audio files, MP3 files, and so on.  I believe the default is Wave, if you haven't changed this in the options of the program.

If you have not changed the default save format and attributes, and wish to convert the segments into another format, such as MP3, OGG, or WMA format, please see my tutorial on how to use GoldWave's batch utility feature, which I can include upon request.

As I have already changed this on my various computers I've used, both now, and where ever I hand my hat, I usually use the default save format and attributes.  You may opt to choose the file's original format and attributes, so arrow up to that option.

At this point, you are ready to begin the split utility, so tab to the ok button, and press the spacebar.

At this point, you may elect to do something else, either on your computer, or away from it, it really is your choice, but if you decide to do something on the same computer, and you find the computer too choppy to deal with, you can lower it's priority factor, meaning how many resources it should take up while performing this split function.

To do this, on the status dialog box, which should have popped up shortly, if not immediately once you press the ok button on the previous dialog box.

On this dialog box, you really only have two tabbing choices.  The first is the cancel button, and the second is a combo box, that have the following options:

*Maximum
*High
*Medium
*Low
*Very Low
*pause

You will have to decide which is best for you.

Once it's done, you may or may not hear a plunk sound, which is the program telling you it's finished and to carry on.

It should automatically take you back to the cue point list, at which point, if you're done, can tab to the close button and press the spacebar.

You can now close GoldWave with alt+F4, if you're done splitting files, or press control+F4, if you've got more files to split, as control+F4 simply closes the file you're working with and leaves the program open to work with other files.

This is the end of the tutorial, so if you've got further questions, drop me a line at:

victor.gouveia@rogers.com
