I’ve exported a song in MP3 format, Extreme Preset: 220-260, and in the folder it shows 606kbps. Is this normal?
You need to help us out a little bit. Start with the information in the pink band above and then on to the show you’re trying to compress. Stereo? Mono? Duration?
Koz
FYI - MP3 only can’t go higher than 320kbps.
That’s a myth.
You can go up to 640 kbps but no player can play it.
However, you can use the --freeformat switch in order to archive your files and re-import them into Audacity.
On export, choose “External Program”.
Under options, you can specify your own format such as:
lame -m m --cbr --freeformat -b 640 - “%f”
There are of course better settings–those that can be read by an arbitrary player.
-b means the minimum bit rate to use and
-B the maximum
An overview over the switches can be found here:
http://ecmc.rochester.edu/ecmc/docs/lame/switchs.html#-freeformat
Don’t be to concerned about the average bit rate.
If there’s a lot of silence in the file, 32 kbps are used.
There’s also the bit reservoir that takes some burden off the actually required bit rate to achieve the given quality setting.
Robert