I want to split an audio file into several equal-length segments using FFmpeg. I want to specify the general segment duration (no overlap), and I want FFmpeg to render as many segments as it takes to go over the whole audio file (in other words, the number of segments to be rendered is unspecified). Also, since I am not very experienced with FFmpeg (I only use it to make simple file conversions with few arguments), I would like a description of the code you should use to do this, rather than just a piece of code that I won't necessarily understand, if possible. Thank you in advance.
P.S. Here's the context for why I'm trying to do this: I would like to sample a song into single-bar loops automatically, instead of having to chop them manually using a DAW. All I want to do is align the first beat of the song to the beat grid in my DAW, and then export that audio file and use it to generate one-bar loops in FFmpeg.
In the future, I will try to do something like a batch command in which one can specify the tempo and key signature, and it will generate the loops using FFmpeg automatically (as long as the loop is aligned to the beat grid, as I've mentioned earlier). 😀
You can use the segment muxer. Basic example:
ffmpeg -i input.wav -f segment -segment_time 2 output_%03d.wav
-f segment
indicates that the segment muxer should be used for the output.-segment_time 2
makes each segment 2 seconds long.output_%03d.wav
is the output file name pattern which will result iin output_000.wav
, output_001.wav
, output_002.wav
, and so on.