Whats up everyone… I have a recording that includes audio and vocals (Podcast show). Everytime I export the show as a MP3 the vocal audio is somewhat distorted. I play music and then I have some talk show talking with music playing lightly in the background. The talking is just not coming out right. It sounds like a slight echo of some sort. Now when I export the recording as a WAV file is sounds perfect. What can be the problem? My mp3 output rate is 128. I also normalized all the tracks and this did not help.
Try using an external encoder such as Lamedrop and see if it is any better. If it is just the same, then it must be a problem with the audio rather than a problem with Audacity.
http://www.rarewares.org/mp3.php
Actually I just experienced this exact same problem. I’m using LAME v3.96 for my MP3 encoder. I tried mixing a couple songs and exporting out as a 128 MP3 but there is a definite echo to vocals that I can hear. I listen to the original source files and it’s not there. I think it may have less to do with exporting it as an MP3 and more to do with Audacity and how it handles multi-track stuff. If I create a brand new file that is one track and export it out using the same MP3 settings it sounds clean as a bell, it’s when I start adding more tracks that all of a sudden the audio gets distorted.
Any idea how to fix this?
Edit: I downloaded another program to edit what I needed to do (Acid 3.0) and did exactly the same steps I was doing in Audacity, and the MP3s came out absolutely clean from Acid, no distortion at all. This is an Audacity problem for sure and needs to be looked into.
Yeah, definitely a Audacity problem. I exported my file as a .wav from Audacity then used lamedrop to convert to .mp3 and it can out perfect.
Then it’s definitely not an Audacity problem. Audacity does not encode mp3’s, Audacity works with uncompressed audio. MP3 compression is done with LAME, not Audacity. I’m not sure why you have the problem using LAME in Audacity, it’s the same program as LAME in LameDrop (and I’ve never had any problems with either), but the important thing is that you’ve got a method to get perfect recordings, and that’s what matters.
I have a feeling that it depends on the file type you are working on, in my experience, if i import an mp3 into audacity and do some editing and then export it again as an mp3 then it will come out sounding like rubish (probably because it has been doubly compressed?). Wav. files are fine so i guess you just keep doing what your doing and export as wav and convert to mp3 later.
Hello,
I need some help, I am burning the CD into window’s media as an pm3. I have audacity set at 32000HZ but it imports at 44.1HZ and sounds to fast, all my front & back bummper music productions are in the 32000HZ and sound ok when I quickmix, but when I burn the CD and play it, it too fast, really fast. Help Also at the bottom left hand corner, it says 44.1 I go and change it but it goes back to 44.1 when I import audio.
Thanks,
Achievement Radio
Please stop hijacking other peoples topics Achievement Radio.
Your question has already been answered here:
http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=3614&p=14044#p14044
That’s correct - every time you compress audio to mp3 there will be some loss of quality. You should work with uncompressed files whenever possible and only convert to mp3 as the final step (if you need it as an mp3).
It is often a good idea to keep a backup copy as an uncompressed WAV file in case you want to edit it again at a later date.