Newbie Question - Garbled imported Audio

[saharasaidi]

Every time I import mp3s into Audacity they come out scrambled like white noise. I re-installed it, and I still have the same problem. How can i fix this? Everything else i've tried to do works just fine.

[waxcylinder]

Are you sure these ar MP3s? Where are you getting these files from?

You are almost certainly trying to import a file type that Audacity does not support. Audacity Supports WAV, MP3, OGG and FLAC & MP2 in 1.3.

The scambled white noise is Audacity 1.2's inelegant way of telling you that it can't handle the file type you've given it - in 1.3.x a more appropriate and informative error message appears.

If this is the case you have two basic options:

1. find and use some converter software to convert your file to a type that Audacity supports

2. play the file in any music software that supports that particular file format and record it in Audacity.

There's a free program called SUPER by erightsoft that can convert most media file types. If you can convert the files to WAV files that should fix the problem.

WC

[saharasaidi]

I checked the file types I was using and it says they're AAC audio (.m4a) files. I tried a mp3 and it worked. Thanks!

(I got those files from my iTunes library, so I assumed they'd be mp3s. I guess not.)

[waxcylinder]

You should be able to get iTunes to create an MP3 copy from the AAC files for you, it may be a bit fiddly but it should work.

I think the developers are working on an AAC interface for 1.3.x - I think that export is there in 1.3.8 but not working to well at the moment. And I don't know if the developers are planning to provide AAC import.

One workaround would be to play the AAC file in Itunes while at the same time recording it in Audacity.

WC