Hi,
I am using Audacity 2.0.3 on Windows 7 Professional.
I have recorded a radio program using a piece of software called RadioKlone and this has created an MP3 file that plays happily in Windows Media player. The recording is over and hour and a half long.
What I wish to do is edit this file as I over ran both the beginning and the end but when I open it in Audacity, it seems to think it is only 7 seconds long and if I play it, it is unintelligble rubbish.
I’m assuming that the file is compressed or something, but don’t understand how Windows Media player plays it without a problem.
Many thanks for any help or pointers that you can give.
Right click on the file and select “Properties” and have a look to see what information Windows gives you about the file.
Is it really an MP3? How big is it (MB)? How many channels? …
How are you trying to open the file? “File menu > Import > Audio” ?
Hi Steve,
Many thanks for your reply. The file is 270Mb in size and I have opened in by clicking both file–>open and file–>import to the same effect.
When I click properties, I can’t see any channel information (not quite sure where to find that), but under the Details tab under Audio I can see ‘bit rate’ which is blank. The end part of the properties can be seen in the screen shot below.
I’m not on Windows myself. That does not really give much information about the file format. Try looking at the files in MediaInfo (get the version without installer) http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en/Download/Windows .
Hi Steve,
I’ve downloaded the MediaInfo tool and open the file using it, and it seems, as I think you probably suspected, that although the file has been saved as an MP3, it isn’t! When I look at the info for the file, it shows me:
Which I think means it’s an AAC file. I guess I will need to convert this to a proper MP3, so I wonder if you know of the best software to do this.
Once again, many many thanks for you time and help.
install FFmpeg ( http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_installation_and_plug_ins.html#ffdown ) then see if Audacity will import it. I suggest you use File > Import > Audio… in Audacity and select “FFmpeg-compatible files” in the file type dropdown box before importing the file. This should ensure that FFmpeg imports it instead of the regular MP3 importer.
If it fails you could try renaming the extension from .MP3 to .AAC or .ADTS but I don’t think that will be necessary.
Steve and Gale,
Having over a number of days followed your advice, I’m delighted to be able to report that I have now been able to convert the file to a proper MP3 and will begin editting it shortly.
