Can someone please re-post the accurate order info to get a tracked Lovesexy CD? I cannot find that old thread . . . thanks!

Each european "Lovesexy" these days is tracked.

If you already have the one-track version and you have a cd burner you can create your own tracked version. It's quite easy. If you want to do this and need some info to go about it I'd be happy to help.

From the FAQs:

4.3 Where can I get a tracked CD version of 'Lovesexy'?

Although originally released on CD as one continuous track, this album has long been available in tracked format in UK retail outlets - including UK-based online music stores e.g. www.amazon.co.uk and www.hmv.co.uk

You can buy one here: http://www.amazon.de/exec...62-2048034 from Amazon.com Germany.

John

FABpolska said:

That's probably true....

AsylumUtopia said:

i never thought of that

butterfli25 said:

I've been asked for info on how to do this, so I'm posting the info on here for the benefit of anyone who's interested :

In effect, what you need to do is take your one-track version and chop it into the various bits that make up the songs. To do this you'll need some sort of wave editing software. I recommend Audacity - it's free, quick to download, really easy to use, and it can input/output to/from wav/mp3 so there's no need for additional conversion software.

You can get it here : http://sourceforge.net/pr.../audacity/


There's also a tutorial on how to use it here : http://www.daniel.uklinux.net/tutorial/ - this tutorial is for more advanced track editing that isn't necessary for this purpose, but it's useful if you want to learn more of what Audacity is capable of.


The following instructions are based on using Audacity, however the process would be similar regardless of what wave editing software you use :

On the File menu, select Open... and browse for your Lovesexy one-track. It doesn't matter if it's a wav or an mp3 - if it's an mp3 audacity will automatically convert it to wav.


Once your one-track is loaded into Audacity you'll need to play and pause as appropriate to find the beginning and end of each track. Once you have identified a track simply highlight it with your mouse, go to the File menu and select either "Export Selection as WAV" or "Export Selection as MP3". You will then be prompted to name the export file and the highlighted portion will be exported. To make it easier, you can also add markers or labels to identify the beginning/end of each track. You can do this two ways : 1. Play the track, when you reach the place you want to insert a label press pause, then go to the Project menu and select "Add label at playback position" or 2. Simply click the mouse at the appropriate place on the track, go to the Project menu and select "Add label at selection". The labels are only labels though, you'll still need to select the appropriate portion between the labels and Export Selection as...

It's probable that you will be able to load the entire Lovesexy one-track into Audacity - I just loaded a 78 minute mp3 into it without any problem. My PC is quite old aso I imagine that most PC's will be able to handle it. If not - all is not lost - you can still use Audacity to do it.

Rather than using Audacity as an editor, you can instead use it as a recorder. Open Audacity and set the recorder input to the appropriate setting (there's a little icon in the shape of a microphone which will allow you to set the recording source). Open your jukebox software - whatever you would normally use to play music on your PC - and get ready to play Lovesexy.

Before you start make sure the Wav output on your volume control is at maximum - as you'll be recording directly from the wav output if your wav volume is set low then whatever you record will also be low volume and you might lose sound quality if you try to amplify it afterwards.

Press record on Audacity (the red button). Then press play on your jukebox software to play Lovesexy. When the first track is finished, pause your jukebox (you might want to rewind a few seconds as well, so that when you go to record the next track you won't miss any of it) and then press stop on audacity. There will no doubt be some space at the begining of the recording and part of the next song at the end, so you can crop these bits and then export what's left as either wav or mp3. I don't know what the volume level on the one-track version of Lovesexy is, but on my multi-track version it's very low, so you may want to amplify the wav before exporting it. The Amplify option can be found on the tools menu. When you've saved your track close Audacity and open it again (you can just select new project, but that just opens another instance of Audacity - too many of them and you'll run out of memory). Press record again, to start recording the next track, resume playing Lovesexy from your jukebox software, and repeat the whole process for each track in turn.

This method is of course more time consuming than simply chopping a large wav file into bits, as you have to listen to each track as you record it, but you can look at this as just another opportunity to listen to a great album! There's no need to worry about losing sound quality as you're recording from digital output to digital input. You may lose some volume but this can be rectified by amplifying the track as described above.

One thing to watch out for if you're going to use the record method - everything that is output through your speakers will be recorded (assuming you've chosen the correct source to record from) - so you may want to switch off any messenger programs or calendar alerts before you start - basically anything that makes sound while you're recording will be included in it.

Hope this helps.

AU.
[Edited 11/9/05 11:17am]

Personally, I'd use CD Wave Editor to cut Lovesexy up into individual tracks.

From what AsylumUtopia has written, it seems there is a lot of messing about outputting each track individutally using Audacity.

CDwave loads an entire file, which has to be a .wav, then it is very simple to input the track split points (it has an option to do it automatically looking for quiet bits (flat lines on the audio wave graphic) between tracks, or you easily input your own. You put in as many splits as you want, name the split points as per the song names, then it outputs all the tracks with the correct names in one go, as .wavs.

You can find it on Google easily, just type in the name, and it is free to download since it is shareware. It's a great little program, just a shame you have to convert from mp3 to wav first.

metalorange said:

Only if you can't load the entire wav into it due to it's size - and to be honest I don't know if that scenario would actually arise - I am assuming it could as other wave editors I've used have problems with large wav's. Otherwise the process should be as simple and straightforward as you've described with CDwave. You're still going to have to set the split points yourself, there isn't any software that'll be able to track Lovesexy correctly based on silence between the tracks. I'll test it this evening and update my post. I think you can probably name the splits and have them save as individual tracks all in one go from Audacity too. I don't know for sure because I haven't tried it and I was trying to keep it simple - I don't really want to write a book about it. .

Anyway, the software isn't that important - there are plenty of wave editors capable of doing it - the main thing is it's possible to do and there are plenty of ways to do it. I guess Audacity has a slight advantage in that you can import an mp3 and it will convert it to wav itself. Not a big deal anyway - there are plenty of programs to convert wav/mp3 - I used to use MusicMatch to do this until I got Audacity - which does it faster than anything else I've used.

I must check out CDwave now to see if it's got any goodies I don't have in my other wave editors.

AsylumUtopia said:

thanks for the help!!!!!

butterfli25 said:

You're welcome!

I've updated my first post above - I have confirmed that there shouldn't be a problem loading a large album-length mp3 or wav into Audacity - unless your PC is really old and knackered.

The "warner issued" promo version is tracked. I have one of (I guess) a few copies that are out there.

Thanks for all the feedback! I ended up ordering it from the German Amazon site.

I love hearing this album in its entirety, but sometimes I just wanna hear a few tracks on random.