Timeshift while loading

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hello Everyone,

this is my very first activity in this forum. When I open an MP3 in Audacity and then export it, the newly created file doesn’t seem to be exactly like the one I opened. Instead it seems to be slighly timeshifted. This timeshift is very small, in the case of the MP3 I use, it’s duration is about from 0 to 0.05 sec. This looks like almost not worth mentioning, but when it comes to synchronizing this MP3 with a video-file 0.05 sec of timeshift do matter a lot. So my question is, if there’s a way to avoid the timeshift change while loading an MP3? This is a problem because the timeshift also varies depending on the MP3.

I really hope you can help me with this

Thomas

2

The problem is not Audacity. The problem is the MP3 format specification.
MP3 does not support exact start / end positions. There is always al little bit of leading silence at the start of the MP3.

Wikipedia describes the issue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#Design_limitations)
“Encoder/decoder overall delay is not defined, which means there is no official provision for gapless playback.”

If you need an exact start, you will need to use a different file format, for example WAV or OGG.

3

Thanks steve for the fast answer