How to Split Audio Tracks Using Ecasound

This guide explains how to split a continuous live concert audio recording into individual song tracks using Ecasound, a lightweight, command-line multi-track audio processing utility. By identifying track transition timestamps and leveraging Ecasound's input-offset and processing-duration parameters, you can quickly extract each song into its own lossless audio file without needing a heavyweight graphical digital audio workstation (DAW).

Prerequisites

Ensure Ecasound is installed on your system. On Debian- or Ubuntu-based Linux distributions, install it using:

sudo apt-get install ecasound

Understanding the Syntax

Ecasound uses command-line options to define input files, start offsets, processing lengths, and output files:

• -i:input_file.wav: Specifies the continuous master recording.
• -y:START_TIME: Sets the starting position (offset) in seconds or hh:mm:ss.ddd format.
• -t:DURATION: Specifies the duration of the audio clip to process.
• -o:output_file.wav: Defines the destination file for the extracted track.

Step 1: Identify Your Track Cue Points

Listen to the concert recording or use a basic audio player to note the start time and end time for each song. Convert these markers into duration values:

• Song 1: Starts at 00:00:00, ends at 00:04:15 (Duration: 00:04:15)
• Song 2: Starts at 00:04:15, ends at 00:09:40 (Duration: 00:05:25)
• Song 3: Starts at 00:09:40, ends at 00:14:02 (Duration: 00:04:22)

Step 2: Extract Individual Tracks

Run individual ecasound commands for each segment. Replace concert.wav with the filename of your recording:

Extract Track 1:

ecasound -i:concert.wav -y:00:00:00 -t:255 -o:track01.wav

(Note: 4 minutes and 15 seconds equals 255 seconds. You can also specify -t:00:04:15.)

Extract Track 2:

ecasound -i:concert.wav -y:00:04:15 -t:00:05:25 -o:track02.wav

Extract Track 3:

ecasound -i:concert.wav -y:00:09:40 -t:00:04:22 -o:track03.wav

Step 3: Automate the Extraction with a Bash Script

To avoid running commands manually for long concerts, create a script named split_concert.sh:

#!/bin/bash

INPUT="concert.wav"

# Array format: "OutputFile|StartTime|Duration"
TRACKS=(
  "track01_intro.wav|00:00:00|00:04:15"
  "track02_song_one.wav|00:04:15|00:05:25"
  "track03_song_two.wav|00:09:40|00:04:22"
)

for item in "${TRACKS[@]}"; do
  IFS="|" read -r OUT START DUR <<< "$item"
  echo "Extracting $OUT..."
  ecasound -i:"$INPUT" -y:"$START" -t:"$DUR" -o:"$OUT"
done

echo "Splitting complete."

Make the script executable and run it:

chmod +x split_concert.sh
./split_concert.sh

Ecasound will process the master recording sequentially, producing clean, gapless audio segments ready for tagging or compression.