Latest Software Reviews

MP3 Splitters: Review

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:00:26 +0000

Introduction

MP3 Splitter is a tool that can split, or cut, MP3 files. But why would you need splitting your MP3 files in the first place?

There may be numerous reasons, for example:

The MP3 file doesn’t fit into the available media. Do you intend to burn a file over 1 GB in size to 700 MB CDs? You need to split it first.
Only a part of the MP3 file is required, a song, an interesting dialog etc., and you want to cut it out.
You prefer to split the file according to its logical structure: split an audio book by chapters, cut an album by songs etc.

The popularity of MP3 splitters continues to grow rapidly as computers get more space for storing multimedia files. But how to pick out the right tool? Are the available MP3 cutters similar to each other, or are they somehow different? What is to consider?

To answer these questions, let’s take a look at some of the most popular MP3 splitters. We will discuss their functionality, interfaces, and provided documentation, and see what program could be the best choice. We will also test the tools on four computers with different version of Windows: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit, Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Our testing will include splitting a number of MP3 files with different bit rate and sample rate properties, but mostly we will describe splitting on a big MP3 album with variable bit rate (VBR), which should be more difficult for the tools to chew than a small constant bit rate (CBR) MP3 file.

Ready? Let’s start.

Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:00:43 +0000

Cool MP3 Cutter with Silence Detection

As the name suggests, Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner promises to split our MP3 files visually. This means that the program should be able to build the waveform of our MP3 file, and we will be able to select parts to split directly on the waveform. Nice. Let’s see how this really works.

Downloading and installing the program went without problems, smooth. We were able to set necessary options, for example, we preferred to install a desktop shortcut, but no other shortcuts. Some programs automatically install all possible shortcuts, which is quite maddening. Thumb up here.

After installing itself, Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner offered to launch itself. Well, that’s what we were installing it for, after all. Again, a nice option. Affirmative.

Now the program starts. A splash screen shows up, then almost immediately we see a window telling that we’ve got an evaluation version. Yes, we know that, it’s OK. We click "Launch trial version".

The reminder is replaced by the main window.

We see a warning that no file is loaded. Let’s follow the instruction to click "Add file".

Aha, it’s the usual "Open" dialog. We select our MP3 album that we would like to split. But hey, look at the supported formats:

The splitter claims to support MP3, WAV, WMA, and APE audio formats, and also CUE sheets. CUE sheet is a file that contains information about tracks (start/end time, titles, artists etc.), it’s the best way to split large MP3 files. We do have a CUE sheet to our MP3 album, but for now let’s check other features.

So, we open our MP3 file. What next?

The waveform is there, but we also see the hint telling us to click left button to set start and right button to set end. Let’s try it.

After a few seconds of experimenting we like this method of selecting parts. It allows very precise placing of start/end points. If you need to change start time, scroll the waveform to the required area and left-click the waveform. To change end time, right-click waveform. To start playing the file, double-click the waveform.

Once a part is selected, we are obviously supposed to click "Add". This adds our part to the split list.

Well, visual splitting is OK. But we notice the "Silence detection" tab and switch to it.

In our album, there are usual pauses between songs. Let’s try to run the silence recognition tool to see if it detects the songs correctly.

Without giving it another thought, we click "Add".

The program analyzes the file and populates its split list. We check the parts using the built-in player – they are correct.

As next, we check how the program actually splits the MP3 file. Obviously we should click "Split" on the toolbar.

Splitting goes quickly, which is a good sign. This means that the program doesn’t recompress our file (recompressing leads to quality losses). After splitting the program offers to open the output folder, and we do that to check the split files once again by playing them in Windows Media Player. They are OK.

We remove the split files and try splitting our MP3 by the CUE file. It goes smoothly, too, and we are pleased to see that the program uses titles, track numbers, and other information from our CUE sheet.

It seems that the user doesn’t need too many instructions when working with the program, but we press "F1" anyway.

The help is detailed, everything is sorted by topics. Even some additional information is present, like "What is CUE Sheet?" and "What Are ID3 Tags?" sections (we did notice the small ID3 tag editor, but we didn’t expect to find a section devoted to ID3 tags in general). Very good.

Let’s summarize our experience with the program:

Interface: easy to operate, hints, every feature is visible. However: the "Add" button is placed perfectly for entering time, but is too far from the waveform for visual splitting (maybe another button with the same functionality should be added). Also, building the waveform is slow, if one wants to display the whole file at once (the program defaults to a small part of the file with the possibility to scroll to the rest of it, which should be considered as the recommended setting). 8
Features: splitter and joiner in one program, WAV, MP3, WMA, APE support, can split MP3 using CUE sheets, can create CUE sheets, waveform, visual splitting, silence detection, splitting by equal parts or time, ID3 tag editor (information is automatically taken from the source file or from the CUE file), no re-encoding when splitting MP3 files, possible to extract intersecting parts, built-in player. 10
Documentation: detailed help, plenty of information. 10
Compatibility: ran on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. No issues. 10

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MEDA MP3 Splitter

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:09:47 +0000

MP3 Cutter with a Big Waveform Display

The next program that caught our attention was MEDA MP3 Splitter.

Installing goes smoothly. We can’t avoid creating a start group, which is a bit upsetting, but otherwise the setup is OK. It also suggests to run the program when finished.

MEDA MP3 Splitter welcomes us with a registration reminder window. However, no restrictions of the trial version are listed here (and they do exist), which is again a bit upsetting. We click "Continue" to get the trial version started.

The first thing that we see is a large black area and a plenty of scissors on the toolbar. Well, no file is loaded, we could have guessed it. The "Open" icon on the toolbar is clearly recognizable, so we click it.

The program offers a usual "Open" dialog, exactly as the previous one. Here we learn that the program supports MP3 and APE files.

We open our MP3 album. It takes quite a while, but then we get the following:

Very nice. The waveform is big and looks pretty. Even better, there is a smaller waveform above the main one, it shows the whole file. We also notice that there are red vertical lines that coincide with start/end time of songs in the album. It seems like the program has automatically set split points.

Well, then let’s do the splitting. We suppose that the button with multiple diskettes next to the "Open" button will do the trick.

MEDA MP3 Splitter offers to enter a key. As we press "Cancel", it informs us that only 3 parts can be saved in the trial version. Then a wizard starts:

Hmm, we didn’t expect that splitting the file will require five steps. Is there any way to avoid clicking "Next" five times?

Alas, no. We click the button over and over again and finally get to the screen where the program offers to unselect parts that we don’t want to save. We notice that there are some parts in the list that are only 1 or 2 seconds long. Obviously, they are pauses between songs, so we don’t really need them. We unselect them and click "Next" once again.

The program saves files (pretty quick, it seems that, like the previous program, MEDA MP3 Splitter doesn’t re-encode files). Then it offers to open the output folder, what we agree to do.

Oops. Instead of 3 parts (the trial’s limit) it has extracted only two. Obviously, the pause between the first and the second song that we unselected also counted.

We explore menus to see if there are other features and find import from a cue file. We clear the automatically set cut points and use our CUE file. OK, it works, but the program completely ignores ID3 information from the CUE file.

Remembering the problem with showing the complete file on the waveform from Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner, we try to zoom out… but don’t find the feature. MEDA MP3 Splitter allows scrolling, but not zooming in and out. Very unfortunate, as the big display would allow more precise editing even with larger parts of the file.

At last, we press F1.

MEDA MP3 Splitter reports: "Failed to launch help". Hmm, we didn’t expect this. No help at all? Wait, there is a button with the question mark on the toolbar. What about it?

Aha, the button works.

The help is scarce and somehow uninformative (for example, in the introduction we read: "MEDA MP3 Splitter is a powerful tool."). We did find more by exploring menus than by browsing the help.

So, let’s summarize:

Interface: big nice looking waveform display, pretty intuitive to open and save files. However: auto-parsing makes the program slower when opening a file. If we want to set cut points manually or load them from a CUE file, we should delete automatically set cut points. No way to load CUE file without loading MP3 file first (and so letting the program set cut points automatically). Very annoying wizard on saving parts. Not every feature is obvious, some of the features are discovered in menus. Error when trying to launch help by pressing F1. No text labels on the toolbar. 7
Features: splitter and joiner in one program, silence detection, CUE sheet support (but MEDA MP3 Splitter can’t create CUE files). MP3 and APE support. Big waveform, but no zooming. ID3 can be set in the saving wizard, but no information is taken from the source file, or from the CUE file, all tags should be entered manually. Can split MP3 to the given number of parts, but no equal duration and file size. Cannot extract intersecting parts. Can convert MP3 to WAV. No re-encoding when splitting files (good). Built-in player. 8
Documentation: poor. 3
Compatibility: ran on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. No issues. 10

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MP3 Cutter Joiner

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:28:26 +0000

Simple MP3 Cutter

The next MP3 splitter tool that we have fished out has a simple name: MP3 Cutter Joiner. Let’s see what kind of program it is.

The setup process goes smoothly, but the program doesn’t allow to avoid creating Start menu entries and desktop icon. When finished, the setup offers to launch the program.

MP3 Cutter Joiner greets us with a registration reminder window. It notifies that we can convert only 15 files in the trial version.

Well, this means that the program will convert our files to WAV and then back to MP3 when splitting. This kind of behavior is known as re-encoding, and it leads to quality losses. It also slows down the process of splitting and requires additional space for temporary WAV files.

We click the button to register later. MP3 Cutter Joiner loads itself.

The window is small and looks pretty nice. Obviously we should click "Add" in the lower part of the window to add our file.

When opening our album, we notice that the program supports WAV, WMA, MP3, and OGG files.

Our file is added to the list. Now what?

We try to click the "Cut" button below, expecting to see some kind of "Add cut points" dialog, but the program silently starts converting our file. Hmm, please stop it.

A few seconds we explore menus. Nothing.

Aha, there are some clocks right above the "Cut" and "Combine" buttons. Let’s try them.

After a bit of experimenting we find out that the clock-buttons set start/end time of the part we want to extract. They are used with the track bar to the left.

But how do we set another part? We want to extract more than one.

Well, let’s ask for help. Pressing F1.

The help is there, but not much of it. Quickly we realize that there is no multiple parts splitting. We can extract only one part from our file.

Anyway, it is tiresome to look for each song without the waveform, so we didn’t care to extract songs. We simply tested the program on a random section.

Summary:

Interface: simple and easy to use, as soon as one understands that he or she can’t extract more than one part. 9
Features: splitter and joiner, supports WAV, MP3, WMA, and OGG files. Built-in player. No waveform, no CUE sheets, no silence detection, no splitting by equal parts/time/size. Re-encoding files. No multiple parts extraction. 3
Documentation: poor, only basic instructions. 4
Compatibility: ran on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. No issues. 10

MP3 EasySplitter

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:41:49 +0000

Basic MP3 Cutter

The next in our list is MP3 EasySplitter.

Setup is quick, but the program doesn’t offer us much choice. It installs start menu entries and a desktop icon automatically. Upon completion it also shows a small text file that mostly brags about advantages of the program. A little bit annoying.

The setup doesn’t offer to launch the program, so we start MP3 EasySplitter by double clicking its desktop icon.

No registration reminders are shown, it goes directly to the main window.

The blue arrow shows where to start. OK, we click the button to get an "Open" dialog. Browse and select our album.

Oops!

The error message says that our file is corrupt, but we know for sure that it isn’t. It has been successfully split by quite a number of other MP3 splitters. So, what’s wrong? Variable bitrate?

We try opening another (much smaller) file, and it is opened OK. But when we try to set start/end points, MP3 EasySplitter throws the following message:

So, files bigger than 5 MB are not supported by the trial version. Very unfortunate. Why would we need to cut a file smaller than 5 MB? Well, only for testing…

Trying to get help by pressing F1 – failed. We click the Help button, but get a short FAQ instead.

Summary:

Interface: very simple, but a bit ugly. 7
Features: only MP3, built-in player, no re-encoding. No waveform, no silence detection, no splitting by file size/duration, no CUE sheets etc. Error. 2
Documentation: small FAQ. 2
Compatibility: ran on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. 10

MP3 Splitter & Joiner

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:49:24 +0000

Nice MP3, MP2, MP1 Cutter

The name of our next program is as simple as it could be: MP3 Splitter & Joiner. Let’s try it.

Installing is easy. The program creates a Start menu entry, but allows the user unchecking other options.

We choose to launch the program directly from the setup. The main window is shown immediately, without any registration reminders.

The "Open" icon is clearly seen in the "Source MP3" area, we click it. The "Open" dialog is quite usual, we select our MP3 album. Aha, the program supports CUE sheets:

But let’s try it with the ‘raw’ MP3 file first.

The file appears in the split list in the lower part of the window.

The track bar becomes active (blue). We can drag the slider to any position and click "Insert split" to set a cut point. Pretty easy.

Unfortunately, MP3 Splitter & Joiner offers no waveform and no silence detection, so it is a bit hard to find different songs in our MP3 album. We cut the file in random points for testing, then check the output. Everything is correct.

As next, we load our CUE sheet. The program tells us that the trial version splits only five parts, but it’s OK for testing. Again, the songs are recognized and split correctly. ID3 tags are automatically imported from both MP3 and CUE files.

Now, let’s check the help. F1.

That works. "Overview" says that MP3 Splitter & Joiner "is a very useful MP3 audio editor", period, but otherwise the help contains sufficient information about the program.

Our summary:

Interface: easy to use, features can be discovered by examining the main window. 10.
Features: MP3, MP2, MP1 support, splitter and joiner, CUE sheet support, can export CUE sheets, ID3 tags are inherited automatically from MP3 and CUE files, built-in player, overlapping split. However: no waveform, no silence detection, the overlapping is rigid (cannot be specified for each part differently). 7
Documentation: decent. 6
Compatibility: ran on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. No issues. 10

MP3 Splitter

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:58:11 +0000

Lightweight MP3 Cutter

Another program that we encountered when searching the internet was MP3 Splitter. We downloaded the program to see if it was THE MP3 splitter.

The setup package came enclosed into a ZIP archive, which we found to be a bit awkward. Well, no problem, but still…

While installing, the program didn’t offer to create any icons. It silently added an entry in the start menu, but otherwise the setup was OK.

The program shows a registration reminder window when starting. Restrictions of the trial version are listed there: we can use the program for one week. Alright, we click to continue trial and get to the main window.

The "Source MP3 file" area contains only one button, so we click it. A conventional "Open" dialog, it seems that we can select only MP3 files. Let’s load our test album.

No luck. Hmm, the rest of MP3 splitters could process the file. Let’s try another file.

We load another album (a smaller file) and it works. Perhaps, the program can’t process variable bitrate files.

For the test we split our file into 12 equal parts. Success.

F1 doesn’t open help, we should click the "Help…" button in the left lower corner. A small HTML file with instructions is opened then, but there is not much in it to read. Well, the program itself is so simple that one can’t really expect to find sophisticated documentation.

Summary:

Interface: simple. However: it is not obvious that "Split by selection" and "Split by parts" are tabs. F1 doesn’t open help. 8
Features: splits MP3 files. Splits by selection and by a number of parts. Built-in player. No waveform, no silence detection, no CUE file support, no splitting by size/duration. Error opening the test file. 2
Documentation: a few simple instructions. 2
Compatibility: ran on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. 10

Power MP3 Cutter Joiner

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:12:34 +0000

Simple MP3 Splitter

Power MP3 Cutter Joiner is yet another MP3 splitter that we intend to test. The name suggests that the program has powerful features. Well, let’s try it.

The setup is OK. It doesn’t ask if we want to create a Start menu entry and desktop icon (it creates them silently), but neither we expect that much. At least it doesn’t create quick start entries automatically.

When starting, the program informs us that the trial version allows converting only 19 files. Well, converting means that Power MP3 Cutter Joiner re-encodes our files when splitting. This leads to quality losses and is slower than direct MP3 splitting.

We choose to continue with the trial, and the program opens its main window:

We see an empty list. Obviously, we should click "+" on the toolbar to add files for splitting.

The "Open" dialog is pretty conventional. We notice that the program supports WAV, MP3, WMA, and OGG files. We open our MP3 album.

Our file is added to the list.

We notice the "Start time", "End time", and "Current time" bars on the right. By changing start/end time we can select a part of our file, but how to add it to the split list?

Inspecting the help confirms our suspicion: the program can extract only one part of MP3 file a time. So, we select a random part and extract it just for testing. Searching and extracting songs would take too much time.

Summary:

Interface: clean and simple, the features are obvious. 10
Features: splitter and joiner, built-in player, supports WMA, WAV, MP3, OGG. No CUE sheet support, no waveform, no splitting by silence, equal parts/size. Re-encoding. Cannot extract multiple parts, only one part a time. 3
Documentation: poor, only basic instructions. 4
Compatibility: ran on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. No issues. 10

Slice

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:22:28 +0000

MP3 Cutter with Silence Detection

This tool has a name that makes it somehow distinctive among all the other tools that we review. No usual MP3 splitters or MP3 cutters. Let’s see how that influences the overall performance.

The setup was the most annoying thing in our recent experience. After accepting the license agreement we were offered to select some packages. Without giving it a thought, we clicked "OK". The setup installed a whole bunch of programs that we didn’t need. And although they were installed all together, we could uninstall them only one by one.

The program starts immediately after installing. Its splash screen doesn’t fade out before you click it, which is not annoying, but a sort of strange.

We can already see that the program offers no waveform. Adding files is simple: the "Add files" button is clearly visible on the toolbar. We click it and open our album.

The MP3 file is added to the list. Now we can split it into a number of files, split the album by duration, or use silence detection (the third option).

We also notice the "Encoder Settings…" button, which tells us that Slice re-encodes MP3 files while splitting them. As we know, this leads to quality losses and is much slower than direct MP3 splitting.

OK, let’s run the silence detection tool to detect songs in our album. Aha, this can’t be done separately, we can only run the silence detection tool together with splitter/encoder. So, it won’t be possible to check if it recognizes songs correctly before it extract parts. Well, there’s no built-in player, anyway.

So, we click "Slice Files" and wait. Silence detection and then extracting is even slower than we expected and we let the program run in the background while doing other things. After a few minutes we check the program again. Finished. Good, let’s check the output.

We start playing the split files… and are greatly disappointed. The silence detection didn’t work properly, it has cut songs in the middle while leaving pauses inside files. Even worse, quality of the split files is simply unacceptable. Slice added unpleasant noise where the sound was too loud, which shouldn’t happen even with re-encoding.

Pressing F1 to get help. Works.

"Contents" is opened in our default browser. There are six topics: Introduction, Using Slice, Encoder Settings, Shortcut Keys References, Support, and Software License terms. Each of them represents a single page.

Summary:

Interface: simple, easy to learn. 10
Features: MP3 splitter, splitting by equal parts/duration, splitting by pauses. Silence detection tool can be adjusted. Re-encoding (converting) files while splitting, which is slow and leads to quality losses. No built-in player. No waveform. Splitting by silence on the test album was incorrect. Quality of the split parts was awful (noises). 2
Documentation: scarce. 4
Compatibility: ran on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista 32 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit. No issues. 10

The Best MP3 Splitter

holkwen — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:37:27 +0000

Most Advanced MP3 Cutter

We have tested eight tools designed to cut MP3 files. Some of them have more features than others, which also should be taken into account. For example, Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner has gotten -2 for its interface because of waveform-related issues, while Slice has 10 out of 10 by not offering the waveform at all.

Here is a general summary for all tools:

None of the above tools had any compatibility issues, although we tested the software on 4 computers with different versions of Windows. All the tools support Windows Vista and Windows Vista x64.

MP3 Splitter and MP3 EasySplitter failed to open our test MP3 file, which is very bad (however, they did well on smaller files with constant bitrate CBR). Slice was able to open the test file, but failed to split it correctly. Besides, it added noises to the split parts. MP3 Cutter Joiner and Power MP3 Cutter Joiner are very similar and have very limited functionality (no waveform, no silence detection, the user can extract only one part a time etc.).

The top three MP3 splitters are (ascending): MEDA MP3 Splitter, MP3 Splitter & Joiner, Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner. MEDA MP3 Splitter has a big and nice waveform, but no zooming makes it less valuable. Some features are lacking, and some are difficult to find/apply. Annoying wizard for saving files: where other splitters perform cutting at one click, MEDA MP3 Splitter launches 5-step wizard that asks unimportant questions.

MP3 Splitter & Joiner is a nice cutter for MP3 files. Unfortunately, it lacks waveform and silence detection features, so we couldn’t easily find pauses between songs in our album.

The best MP3 splitter in our list is Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner, and not for nothing. The program is fully loaded with features. Its waveform is much smaller than that of MEDA MP3 Splitter, but zooming makes it more accurate. Drawbacks include: not obvious (for visual splitting) placing of "Add" button and big delays when displaying a whole file on the waveform. However, the latter feature is unique to Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner, other splitters cannot zoom out.

The program also has the best manual with plenty of images, instructions, and additional information.