Section 3.7. Start and Stop Times for Songs

3.7. Start and Stop Times for Songs

Most of the time, there's musical interest in every juicy moment of the songs that you download, buy, or rip from CDs. Every now and then, though, some self-indulgent musician releases a song with a bunch of onstage chitchat before the music starts. Or maybe you've got a live album with endless jamming at the end, as a song plays out.

Fortunately, you don't have to sit there and listen to the filler each time you play the file. You can adjust the start and stop times of a song, so that you'll hear only the juicy middle part.

As you play the song you want to adjust, observe the iTunes status display window; watch for the point in the timeline where you get bored (Figure 3-6, top). Say, for example, that the last two minutes of that live concert jam is just the musicians riffing around and goofing off. Note where you want the song to end.

Then select the track you want to adjust. Choose File Get Info to call up the information box for the song, and proceed as shown in Figure 3-6 at bottom.

Figure 3-6. Top: Song too long for your taste?
Bottom: Click the Options tab and take a look at the Stop Time box, which shows the full duration of the song. Change the number to the length of time you want the song to run, as you noted earlier. iTunes automatically turns on the Stop Time box. Click OK to lop off those last boring minute of the song. (You can do the exact same trick at the beginning of a song by adjusting the time value in the Start Time box.)

The shortened version plays in iTunes and on the iPod, but the additional recorded material isn't really lost. If you ever change your mind, you can go back to the song's Options box, turn off the Stop Time box, and return the song to its full length.