Hello,
I’m using Audacity to create a seamless loop. I’m very accurate with cutting the sample at zero crossings ect.
When I export the file (I export is as mp3) and reopen it there is a short period of silence in the beginning and end (around 0.25 ms).
How does this happen and is there a function I can turn off to avoid this from happening?
Tim
MP3 format is unsuitable for seamless loops. It’s a limitation of the format that there is always a little leading silence. Use a different file format such as WAV or Ogg Vorbis.
Thank you Steve!
I don’t know the Ogg Vorbis extention, is this also a compressed file?
Is the leading silence always a problem with .mp3? Or do other DAWS export the .mp3 without a leading& ending silence?
Yes, it’s a free and more modern compressed audio format. See: https://xiph.org/vorbis/ and https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Vorbis)
Yes.
Cool Edit Pro (later became Adobe Audition) created a “.CEL” format based on MP3, but with additional header data to define the start of the first audio frame. This was specifically to address the problem of leading silence in MP3s (Ogg Vorbis was not widely available back then).