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Loss of bitrate quality when exporting multiple

Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 7:43 pm
by makeswell
Hi everybody. I tried import a song, split it into multiple files, then export the files to a folder on my desktop. I did this and saw that the audio quality was at 128 kb/s. I then tried a song that I knew was 192 kb/s, imported it, cut it into pieces, and saw that it too imported at 128 kb/s at default.

Basically I just want to keep the original sound quality of the song I imported into Audacity. So if I import a song which is 192 kb/s I would like it to export at 192 kb/s, if at 320 kb/s then export at 320 kb/s. I see there are some options on the dialog box 'Specify MP3 Options', which I opened by clicking the 'Options' button in the 'Export Multiple' dialog box. Would I need to select one of the options to retain the same audio quality as when the media was originally uploaded to Audacity?

I use Audacity 1.3.13 with Windows 7. Thanks. :)

Re: Loss of bitrate quality when exporting multiple

Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 8:16 pm
by Gale Andrews
makeswell wrote:Hi everybody. I tried import a song, split it into multiple files, then export the files to a folder on my desktop. I did this and saw that the audio quality was at 128 kb/s. I then tried a song that I knew was 192 kb/s, imported it, cut it into pieces, and saw that it too imported at 128 kb/s at default.

Basically I just want to keep the original sound quality of the song I imported into Audacity. So if I import a song which is 192 kb/s I would like it to export at 192 kb/s, if at 320 kb/s then export at 320 kb/s. I see there are some options on the dialog box 'Specify MP3 Options', which I opened by clicking the 'Options' button in the 'Export Multiple' dialog box. Would I need to select one of the options to retain the same audio quality as when the media was originally uploaded to Audacity?

I use Audacity 1.3.13 with Windows 7. Thanks. :)
Audacity doesn't import the MP3 at any bitrate, it decompresses to lossless PCM. For that reason whatever bitrate you export at will make the file sound worse. Using the same bitrate as the original file (if you weren't changing the length) would only make the newly exported file the same size as the original.

You can do lossless MP3 file splits in MP3 Direct Cut which edits the MP3 directly. What you can't do in a direct editor is more exotic edits like Equalization.


Gale