I am struggling as how to export Audacity edited file as MP3 with the following settings.
Mode of “joint stereo” (different than mono mode), if not possible then “2 channels” is fine as well.
Bit rate mode as “constant”
Sampling of 24 kHz
No encoding
I happen to export from Audacity a MP3 file with above settings from my friends Laptop while visiting India.
I think it was Audacity 2.0.3.
On my Windows 7 Notebook I installed Audacity 2.0.3 but could not replicate output MP3 with same settings especially with ‘No encoding’. The Lame Library I tried were 3.98.2 and 3.99.3
I checked thru Preferences but did not get any clue as how to replicate coding “no encoding” for export as MP3 file.
A related clarification - I understand Audacity 2.0.3 has libsoxr resampling library by default. How does this impact requirement of Lame Library for writing out MP3. Do we still need to provide Lame Library for export MP3 file.
If there is no encoding, there is no MP3 export, therefore Audacity does not have a “no encoding” setting.
Did you mean some other word than “encoding”?
To choose 24 kbps bit rate, use the “Quality” drop-down in the MP3 Export Options.
To export at 24000 Hz sample rate, type “24000” (without quotes) in Project Rate bottom left.
You still need to point Audacity to a compatible lame_enc.dll even though Audacity uses libsoxr. Libsoxr just changes audio between different sample rates - it does not write audio formats.
What’s the goal? In one step you want to create the highest possible quality sound file and in the next step you’re choosing system numbers of poor quality.
???
MP3 is an encoded sound format designed for use with the early MPEG1 video systems. The video format died, but the audio format lives on. The encoding produces sound damage – always – so we recommend avoiding using it for production sound.
Thank you Gale for prompt help. It is very helpful but I may have one or two follow-up question.
I recall seeing reference to some .cfg file bit I did not receive any .cfg file with the Audacity download.
Could I missed it during download of Audacity 2.0.3?
Thanks again. Regards and Best,
Anami
OK, but as Koz says, 24000 Hz (and especially 24 kbps bit rate) are very low quality. It is only really suitable for speech.
Unless the audio actually has different content in left and right channels, you would get better quality from the same bit rate setting by selecting the audio and making it mono (use Tracks > Stereo Track to Mono).
However there are very few settings that can be added to audacity.cfg that you cannot already change in Audacity itself. It is not recommended to change audacity.cfg except for resetting it using “NewPrefsInitialized=1” (as described in the above link).
Please see the attached snap-shot of Preferences for Writing Library to confirm that the Laptop with OS Windows 7 Vista Premium and Audacity 2.0.3 has no Lame file installed.
The another snap-shot provides MediaInfo analysis of file “2013-06-10 Kothi PM.mp3” confirming absence of any Writing Library but the MP3 files was successfully written OK.
This proves Audacity 2.0.3 is able to export MP3 without pointing to lame_enc.dll. And I am at a total loss.
On my Notebook with OS Windows 7 Vista Premium and Audacity 2.0.3 I cannot export same file as MP3 without a Lame Library. And this is frustrating. The only difference between the two machines I can think of that I uninstalled Audacity 1.3.11 (Beta) and then installed Audacity 2.0.3 where as the other computer did not have history of any previous version of Audacity other than Audacity 2.0.3. Could it be Windows uninstall could not clean up registry entries which may be causing this scenario. Is there any uninstaller available for a better uninstall?
For the past two weeks I and my team have struggled to pin down this issue and we would appreciate help in resolving this mysterious behavior. Thanks
It proves that something weird is happening, or that things are not as they seem.
Audacity 2.0.3 cannot export MP3 without the aid of an external encoding library. Audacity does not have the code to encode MP3 files.
There is no need to struggle with it. Just install lame_enc.dll on the machine that lacks it, then Audacity can export MP3. If it’s doing it now apparently without LAME, either audacity.cfg is corrupted (in which case you reset it as above) or it is somehow using another lame_enc.dll on your system. I think the latter is unlikely.
