okay so I did a mix using audacity and I wanted to save it in mp3 format so I clicked file-export and then I typed the name I want to save it as then it says WARNING your tracks will be mixed down to two stereo channels in the exporting file!!
I have used audacity before and this warning didn’t come
when I clicked okay it was savd and then I went to hear it.it doesn’t sound the same!some parts are cut out but it is normal when I hear it on audacity WHAT SHOULD I DO PLEASE HELP
This problem didn’t bubble up to the top of the help system because nobody can think of a way for Audacity to break like you have. Audacity may not have always warned you what is was going to do, but I think it always mixed down to plain stereo. Plain, stereo WAV files are acceptable in all three computer platforms, but multi-channel WAV files are not.
Describe your show and how you constructed it. How many tracks do you have? Are you using the latest Audacity 2.0.3? How long is the show?
Koz
MP3 only supports mono & 2-channel stereo. You cannot compress multi-channel (5.1 surround, etc.) to MP3.
To avoid mixing down to mono or stereo, choose Edit > Preferences, choose “Import / Export” on the left, click the radio button “Use custom mix…” then click OK.
There is of course MP3 “Surround Sound” ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3550833.stm and MPEG Surround - Fraunhofer IIS ) which is still 2-channel but encodes spatial information for the extra channels that can be interpreted by MP3 Surround players ( http://www.freedownloadsplace.com/Fraunhofer-MP3-Surround-2.0-Download-442.htm ).
If you want MP3 “Surround Sound” and are able to play it, then after changing the Audacity Preferences as above, export as “WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM”. Then download the “Demo Software mp3 Surround Encoder” for Windows from http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/bf/amm/download/software/download/download.html . The encoder is easy to use - just drop the exported WAV file onto the encoder. Note that “evaluation” encoder does not support more than 6-channel WAV files.
You can also use the command-line version of the evaluation encoder in Audacity itself. When you export, choose “(external program”) then click “Options…”. There is some help with exporting at the command-line in the Manual .
In your command you have to include options for the input bit depth (-res which must be 16-bit or 24-bit, so change the Audacity Quality Preferences if needed), channels (-c), sample rate (-sr which is the same as the Audacity project rate) and the output bit depth (-br). So the command will look something like this:
"C:Program Files (x86)mp3senc_win64_fcrv15_20080530mp3sEncoder.exe" -if - -br 192000 -c 6 -res 16 -sr 44100 -of "%f"
Gale