Carving Individual Songs Out of CD with No Breaks/Separation

I had a Frank Sinatra in concert disk given to me, and it had no breaks on the CD. This was super frustrating because I'd have to listen to the CD (then later MP3..I had this CD way before iTunes), all the way through or mess with manual fast forwarding. But using the steps below, and with some help from Wikipedia and a Time Calculator, I was able to manually carve each song out of the one long song on the CD.

Here's how it is done:

1. Bring up on the web the album. I prefer to use Wikipedia, but there are other sites with "discology," information. Essentially you need to find a track listing that includes the length of each song.
2. Use a Time Calculator such as this... http://www.grun1.com/utils/timeCalc.html

   I like the linked version because it's got multiple input fields so you can figure out your start/stop times for each song before you begin to "carve."

3. Using the information from Wikipedia, etc, add in the length of each song using the calculator. This will give you the start and stop times.
4. Click "get info," as if you were going to edit the metadata for the album or song.
   1. Click the tab for "Options."
   2. Click/Check both the "Start," and "Stop," boxes. (you have to click both, leave one unchecked and it won'twork)
   3. Default "long CD length song," start time will always be "0:00," and end time will be like "1:25:07.45." For the first song leave it at "0:00," (YOU STILL HAVE TO CHECKMARK THE START BOX, EVEN IF NOT CHANGING START TIME).
   4. Based on the length of the first song, according to Wikipedia or wherever you got the information, check the "stop," time and edit it to say the accurate length of the song.
   5. Play the song with the start/stop times checked before anything else. It will still show the full CD length in the above iTunes UI. But the song will start and stop at the times you have in the slots next to checked boxes.
   6. If the song sounds good, right-click and select "Create AAC Version."
   7. Find your AAC version, andcheck it for accuracy.
   8. If it sounds right, then repeat the process for each additional song.
   9. ****One little tip is when you go to edit Start/Stop times for the next song. Uncheck the start box (it will default back to 0:00), and then check it back, and then whatever time is still in the "Stop," slot....add 1 second to it, and input that time in the "Start," spot. You do have to delete the "Stop," time before you can add +1 second into the "Start," time. It won't let you add a start time that is after the "Stop," time. (Makes sense)
   10. Consult your time calculator to see when the second song should end.
   11. Add that time into the "Stop," field.
   12. Repeat the process of quality control checking and selecting "Create AAC Version."

At this point, you get the idea. Continue along and carve out each song!

One tip is to rename the original song to something super short, like "A," or "1," because everytime you have to rename you new AAC version to fit song 3, 4, 5, and so on. It's handy to just have the super short name in the box for editing. You obviously can also just hit delete if it's highlighted, but sometimes I'll spaz on my clicking and mess up the hightlight, in which case it's nice to only have one character to delete. Also it prevents any confusion, and unfortunately even with the best plan and preparation, I still get confused sometimes when I'm doing this! My brain can only handle so much, and this can cause some overload.

That's about it. You should now have all the songs broken apart, and ready to be tagged. And in case you're curious, the original Sinatra CD, and it's individual songs, are all now "Matched," with iTunes Match.

I hope this is helpful, if you have questions feel free to reply and I'll do my best to get back to you and help. I'm by no means a technical guru, so I know what it's like to try and figure this stuff out. I'll help in any way I can, but you may have to bear with me and be a wee bit patient.

GOOD LUCK!