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You can also trim audio files in QuickTime Pro. When finished, you will have to export the .mov file as Sound to Lame MP3 or another format of your choosing.

Yes, or SoundStudio....or various others. I suspect Fission was mentioned specifically because it is non-destructive, so you are not re-encoding the file and making it sound worse. Which is the case with these other solutions.

Right, Fission has that advantage, unlike, say, SoundStudio or the free Audacity, which have to convert files. You can also use WireTap Studio to do the same thing. I mentioned Fission because it's my tool of choice.

You can also permanently trim tracks imported from CDs by using iTunes alone -- simply change the start/end times of each track (as instructed in the article) on the CD listings BEFORE you import from the CD -- iTunes will then import the tracks from the CD based on the newly edited start/end times, thus excluding unwanted portions. I also do this trick either when CDs have bonus tracks to create a completely separate track (importing the last listed track under one song name and then editing the timings of the bonus track and giving it a new name http://i.e. Bonus track or, for example, on Snow Patrol's newest album "A Hundred Million Suns" where the final track has 3-parts, importing each separately with different timings and song names (i.e. i., ii., iii.) -- thereby allowing me to rate each differenlty and include/exclude certain parts using Smart Playlist. I believe you have to eject the CD from the drive and re-insert after each import of songs under the same track number because iTunes might not re-import the same track twice during the same session after a green check is next to it from the first import.

FYI: As a long time trader of Grateful Dead shows (back in the "old days" when we traded cassette tapes through the mail!), I always enjoyed the stage banter and tuning. The Dead were known to spend a good bit of time doing so, and we always referred to long gaps between music as "Dead Air." As a purist, I prefer to keep Dead Air intact, unless it made for an awkward tape flip. ;) Thanks for the article and the nice tip on Fission!

Clearly, I'm not a purist :^0 ...but I do keep whole albums intact (albeit sometimes editing the track timings) when not purchasing singles from Amazon -- stopped buying from iTunes Store because of DRM and sub-256 kbps on most songs. Steve Jobs continues to make my dreams come true but often a bit too slowly -- music buyers do care about compression and audio quality and iTunes Store songs for sale should ideally be at 320 kbps and variable bit rate (VBR) encoding. The purist in me still buys solid albums on CD to import songs using lossless for home stereo play and then converting those lossless tracks to AAC for iPod use -- thus, maintaining 2 copies of all songs (exception: only those rated 3-stars or better for Nano/iPhone play, not that you care) that originated from CD, but no need to do this for AAC or mp3 tracks.

Speaking of quality (and the Apple promise of BOTH creating and playing media content on its systems), Blu-Ray burners must become an option for all next Macs (including 2009 Netbook) as well as Apple TV or I'll be waiting on the sidelines. Yes, digital distribution is a major part of future content consumption, but we'll still own Blu-Ray discs (if hybrid devices are priced right at market) and maybe more importantly than watching these discs on Apple systems, we'll want to burn HD video on Blu-Ray discs of our own home movies, etc.

Can't wait for Intel Nehalem which is key to above -- will wait to buy an iMac and MacBook until Nehalem is included (chip should be added in January to more than just Mac Pros).

You can actually separate out a hidden track (or silence in the middle of a track) using just iTunes, although the change will only be heard in iTunes or on iPod. Just duplicate the track so you have 2 or 3 identical copies of it (in the Finder), use Get Info on each one to change the track names, and then follow the article's instructions for chopping off the beginning or the end.
I've also used this method to take the boring bits out of very long speeches (that are on single tracks) so they'll be short enough to burn to CD. Kind of kludgy, but it saves me money and the track audio quality.

Oops, I left out a step in the above. After duplicating the mp3 file, you have to import the new duplicates into iTunes by dragging them to the iTunes icon in the Dock. THEN you can use Get Info to change track names and cut off beginnings and endings.

Fission is a crashy, buggy, sluggish, resource wasting piece of crap.
Otherwise I would have recommended it too, since it claims to be able to do lossless editing of compressed audio files.
But seriously. It's horrible. It's awful. It's junk. Worst audio editor ever. Note that it also went over a year without an update, and the latest update has a whole two items in the release notes. This is half-assed abandonware at its worst.

Stormchild said:

Please...don't sit on the fence...tell us what you really think about Fission...

To blairwillis: I'm a Deadhead too, and I don't trim my Dead tracks. It was the best example that I could find, however, to show what could be done.
To olderbrother: yes, that's another solution, but it takes up extra space. I figured that splitting the tracks would make sense for most users.
Stormchild: I've been using Fission since it came out, and I don't think it's ever crashed, it doesn't "hog resources", and it's neither awful or junk. You must have gotten a bad copy...
Kirk

...
Maybe the best way to get rid
of applause, introductions and silence
is to stop listening to music altogether...
Spend the saved time buying
more technology and marvelling
at the things it can do... whether
it actually need to be done or not.

How starved for time is everyone
if you have to cut all the ambience
out of a recording just to
get to the next tune??
This is hilarious and sad, and
time waits for no one.....
rob
...

GarageBand anyone? Free and included with every Mac…