MP3 and OGG Amplification Value Keeps Changing Each Export!

Audacity 3 Help Forum
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(Keep in mind, the first audio im editing is not a MP3 or OGG file!)

When amplifying the first audio to “Amplification (dB): 0.0” then exporting it to a OGG file, then opening the exported OGG file, the Amplification value changes to a higher number then 0.0 like this:
“Amplification (dB): 0.015” (This is not random i get this number each time i export the first audio!)

I know this sounds incredibly confusing but…
What is causing this and what can i do to stop this from happening?

Edit: Also Updates!!!

  1. WAV did not change my MP3 after exporting the WAV multiple times.
  2. When reopening mp3 and seeing 0.015, the “New Peak Amplitude (dB):” did not change only the: “Amplification (dB):” this does not mean the audio didn’t get affected. In fact, i compared the the first exported MP3 file to the second exported MP3 file, the wave form seems to get slightly lower.

So this means i need to know how to export MP3 files without it increasing the: “Amplification (dB):”

2

MP3 and OGG are lossy compression. The wave shape changes and often some peaks get higher and some lower.

3

I already know this, and that’s not the full anwser to my question. I need to know what settings or things i can use to stop this from happening!

4

allow, say, -1dB headroom before making the MP3,
so the MP3 version, (which can be a little louder), does not clip.

5

Sadly when i do that, it will do the same thing with this: “-1.015” Im not referring to clipping but the fact that the amplification value keeps increasing every export i make, like this: “the first export: 0.015, the second export: 0.017, the third export: 0.020”

6

You can ignore the default Amplify setting and enter whatever you want, or of course, you don’t have to re-run Amplify.

We can’t change how lossy compression works… And every time you export to a lossy format you are going through another generation of lossy compression.

We don’t want to change how Amplify works

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Isn’t there maybe a way to reset it? Since the first export starts with 0.015 but the fourth export with 0.023, I tried clipfix but even with that exporting it will just reset it to 0.024 instead! Ugh… So that means when just simply opening exporting will kill the entire quality of the MP3 overtime?! That’s evil.

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Look when i ignore the “Amplification Value” even when exporting and editing the audio many times with the WAV file (Amplify still set to 0.0) eventually i want to maybe export it to MP3 but after exporting the WAV over lets say 50 times then after opening the MP3 file it will ignore the 0.0 value entirely and instead of going from 0.0 to 0.015 it will go from 0.0 to 3.123 or something. and if you saysomething like “Just amplify it back to zero again” won’t work it will just reset itself to something like 3.125!

10

EXACTLY !!!

ALL regular audio editors decompress the audio when you open it.

If you are using lossy compression, ideally, you should compress ONCE as the last step, or at least try to minimize the generations of lossy compression.

There are special-purpose editors like mp3DirectCut that can do limited editing without decompressing.

1 Like
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So is there a way to export it without compression? (I don’t know if that sounds stupid) It seems like even when i export the WAV file numerous of times the audio is still secretly changes the MP3 as well, like i said each amount of export of a file seems to increase the “Amplification Value”.

12

WAV and FLAC are lossless and no additional damage will be done, except FLAC and regular integer WAV are hard-limited to 0dB.

Regular WAV files are uncompressed, and FLAC is lossless compression (similar to making a ZIP file).

FLAC is typically a little larger than half the size of the uncompressed WAV.

If you want it to be bit-perfect, set dither to “none”.

14

Also “mp3DirectCut” did not help. :frowning:
The amplification got back to 0.015 again!

Edit: Also Updates!!!

  1. WAV did not change my MP3 after exporting the WAV multiple times.
  2. When reopening mp3 and seeing 0.015, the “New Peak Amplitude (dB):” did not change only the: “Amplification (dB):” this does not mean the audio didn’t get affected. In fact, i compared the the first exported MP3 file to the second exported MP3 file, the wave form seems to get slightly lower.

So this means i need to know how to export MP3 files without it increasing the: “Amplification (dB):”

15

But like i said i want to export my audio to MP3 without any Amplification changes that’s all i want! So that it stays at 0.0 not increase to 0.015 and beyond. Is there a way to that?

16

Since everything went quiet, there is probally nothing that anyone can do to stop the MP3 files from increasing the Amplification Value after exporting! :frowning:

17

True, but you can compensate for it by reducing the volume by, say, -1dB, just before you export to mp3, knowing that peak-volume of the mp3 version could be a little louder

If you want to maintain quality you should avoid using mp3 & ogg wherever possible.
They are lossy formats which accumulate damage each time they are edited

.

1 Like
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Sorry its been a while, but i’ll just use WAV with 32 Bit float instead and then exporting it as MP3 file. I thought the exporting the WAV file numerous of times causes it to change the MP3 file as well! But was not the case, thanks for helping anyways! :slight_smile:

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