Crummy sounding MP3 Exports

[RickC.]

I have 1.2.6. Everything seems to work as it should except:

If I export a wav it sounds great. If I export an MP3 the file sounds as though it's underwater or something. I had not noticed this with earlier versions of Audacity. Do I need a different LAME, is this a bit rate issue, or something else?


Thanks,

Rick

[kozikowski]

In Audacity 1.2, you must choose the MP3 export bitrate in Audacity Preferences. 32 is the minimum for mono, 64 is the minimum for stereo, and nobody can hear any damage over 300, but the file sizes go up as you increase the number. I think the default is 128 and that seems to work for most people.

If you started out life with an original sound file in MP3, those numbers won't work any more. Multiple compressions cause serious damage. The second MP3 is compressing the compression damage of the first MP3 and it's not pretty.

We tell people to stop using Audacity if all they want to do is simple cutting and sound management. You can get native MP3 editors to do that without decompressing the original file and increasing the damage.

Koz

[RickC.]

Thanks-- mine is set at 128. I'm not importing MP3s and exporting them again, I'm exporting MP3s from either WAVs I've imported or straight from the project. I've noticed if I use another utility such as Switch to convert the WAVs recorded in 1.2.6 to MP3 the results are a little better but they're still not clear.

[steve]

If you use the latest versions of Audacity and Lame for Audacity you can make better sounding MP3s by using VBR (variable bit rate) encoding. The preset "Standard" should give reasonable sound for stereo music.

[RickC.]

Thanks-- if a project is created (or modified) in 1.3, will 1.2.6 still be able to read it?

I'll load 1.3 and the latest LAME and see if I still have the issue.

[steve]

if a project is created (or modified) in 1.3, will 1.2.6 still be able to read it?

Audacity 1.2.6 can not open a project that has been saved by Audacity 1.3.

If you want to be able to take a project back into Audacity 1.2.6, first open the project in Audacity 1.2.6 and save it with a new name (Save As...)
You can then work on one copy with Audacity 1.2.6 and the other with 1.3.11