Create Sound Clips from iTunes

  1. Open iTunes.
  2. (optional) Import any songs you’d like to make clips for.
  3. Select (click) the song that you’d like a sound clip for so that it’s the only one selected.
  4. Right-click that song and select “Get Info”.
  5. A window will appear – Click “Options” to access the screen to set your start and stop times.
  6. Check the boxes next to “Start Time” and “Stop Time”.
  7. Enter a start time in the text box next to “Start Time”.
  8. Enter a stop time in the text box next to “End Time”.
  9. Click “OK” to make that change to the song effective.
  10. Right-click that song again and select “Create AAC Version”.
  11. In the iTunes song list, you will now see two identically named songs.  The key differentiator between the two is the length of time the song is.  The sound clip you created will be less than or equal to the full-length song that it came from, but probably just less than if you truly created a sound clip.
  12. One last time, right-click the original song (the longer one), select “Get Info”, click “Options”, and uncheck the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” check boxes.  If you don’t do this, the song will only play the timespan you specified every time you play it in iTunes.
  13. (optional) Rename the sound clip with an appropriate clip name.
    • Right-click the sound clip and click “Get Info”.
    • Click the “Info” button this time to access the “Name” field.
    • Type in an appropriate clip name in the “Name” field.
    • Click “OK” to make that change effective.
  14. (optional) If you don’t want the sound clip to appear in your iTunes library, you can move it to another folder and remove it from the library so that it’s not junking up your normal song list.
  15. Right-click the sound clip.
    • Click “Show in Finder”
    • In my opinion it’s always easiest to get the file somewhere that’s easy to find and work with it from there.  You can use the Desktop for this purpose if you’d like.  In Finder, you can press and hold the Command key, click the sound clip, and drag it to Desktop on the left.  The combo of Command+click+drag+let go on Desktop effectively moves it to that location.
    • Close Finder so that you’re back on your iTunes window.
    • Click the sound clip.
    • Press the delete key and click “Delete Song” on the warning window.  This will remove it from your iTunes library.

Done!

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