Today I encountered a strange thing, one that I have not noticed happening before today.
I had a few mp3 files that ended with hiss sound. I put the desired fade out effects to the hiss at the end, pasted in a little extra silence at the end, to allow the track to end smoothly, and not abruptly or too quickly. It sounded good to me, so I exported the mp3 and put it in it’s proper folder. For some reason, I opened that file in Audacity, and I noticed that the fade ot was gone and it ended with a hiss sound. I tried again, re-applying the desired fade out, and exporting the mp3 again. Opening the file again in Audacity resulted in the same thing, the fade out was gone, and the song ended with hiss again. I decided to open the file in Winamp, and Windows Media Player, skipped to the end of the song, and I did not notice any hiss. Listening to the file in Winamp and Windows Media Player, it sounds as though the hiss does fade out, as it should, but when I open the file in Audacity, I hear hiss at the end. I’m confused. Thank you.
Perhaps the file that you are importing into Audacity is the original unprocessed file, and the file that you are playing in WinAmp / WMP is the file that you exported after editing (ie. two different files).
I would highly recommend that whenever you edit and export a file with Audacity, save the new file with a unique file name. Not only is this safer (because if anything goes wrong, you will still have the original), but it can also avoid confusion regarding possible duplicates that have the same name (which is what I suspect is the explanation in this case).
Thank you for the response. I’m afraid that wasn’t the issue. I’m really confused by this. I just tried it again. Opened the file, created the desired fade out, listened back to make sure it sounded good, exported file, opened a new Audacity file, opened the newly exported file, fade out gone, all hiss at the end.
Try this:
- Launch Audacity
- Open this file:
(it’s just a short test tone) - Apply a fade out.
You should be able to easily see and hear the fade out effect. - Export as an MP3 file and name it: “test2”
- Close Audacity
- Restart Audacity
- Open the “test2.mp3” file
Does it fade out?
Yes, that worked normally. I’ve tried some other files, also, and they worked normally.
It only seems to be happening with a few files. I re-downloaded the source file, opened it in Audacity, applied a fade out, extracted it, re-opened the edited file, and the fades/edits are still there. It’s just happening to the file I had previously downloaded. It’s very strange and confusing. I think I’ll just come to the conclusion that it’s just one of those things, and move on, since everything does seem to be working normally for the most part.
I don’t think that it matters, but this is the file that was giving me the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYGrXrPlrFg
I converted that YouTube file to an MP3, then opened and edited it in Audacity to clean up the ending. I guess it’s possible something unusual happened during that first editing and extracting process. It sounded good, but after re-opening it in Audacity, hiss returned to the end. However, I should have mentioned originally that the ending of the song was not the same as it was originally. Even though the hiss was back, the ending was still somewhat cleaned up. The ending of that original file also contained clicks and pops, and I was just hearing hiss, although I should have been hearing it fade into silence. Strange and confusing.
Thank you, and I apologize if I explained and described things poorly.
I forgot to mention that I had also cleaned up the beginning, removing a small amount of noise/hiss. That remained the same when re-opening the file. It was just the ending that confused me. I could tell the ending was different/better/cleaner than originally, but it was fading into hiss, not silence.
Thanks for your time and understanding.
I guess I should also point out that the file I provided a link for was not the only file this happened with. It happened with at least 2 others yesterday. I can’t figure it out why it happened, but if I re-do everything with a new source file, that seems to take care of the issue.
I apologize for all these replies, but I think it could be something about the original file. I was incorrect in saying that re-downloading the source file, and re-applying my edits took care of the issue. I just re-downloaded that song, made my edits, exported, re-opened, edits remain other than it still ending with hiss.
Very confusing. I apologize.
I am now finding that this is happening to many of my files that I edit, not just one or two or three.
Now working on editing some Frank Sinatra tracks. Same as before, I apply a edits including fade out, export file, re-open it, and hiss is at the end. Other edits seem to be the same. When I play the files in WMP and Winamp, it sounds as though it fades out properly.
I’m going to burn some of these tracks to CD, and then I’ll listen on a stereo to hear if the fade outs are there, or if there is hiss. I am thinking the fade outs will be there. I wonder why I hear hiss at the end when re-opening the files in Audacity…never noticed this happening before.
Thanks again.
I just edited a song, but there was no fade out edit required. I removed some silence from the beginning, and that was the only edit I made. I exported the file, re-opened it, decided to check the ending, and there was hiss. There was no edit made to the ending, because one was not necessary. The song faded out into silence, but now I hear hiss at the end in Audacity when re-opening the file.
Thank you.
Do you hear that kind of hiss with any of these files?
Does the hiss stop when you pause? (Just making sure it’s the file and not your soundcard.)
How loud is the hiss? Is it audible at normal listening levels (without cranking-up the volume during the fade-out)? Very low-level hiss could be [u]dither[/u]. You can turn dither off if you wish, but you shouldn’t be hearing the dither under any “normal” listening conditions.
I set dither to ‘none’ and tried another edit. It seems to be okay now.
Thank you very much.
Are you using an ancient version of Audacity? I recall some years ago that there was a bug that caused dither noise to be much higher than it should be.
Which version of Audacity are you using? (Look in “Help > About Audacity”).