Audacity Forum

Hi.

I have recently been using a stream capture program to copy streamed radio shows to copy to CD to listen to in the car. These are in MP3 format and inevitably have ad breaks in them. Whilst editing in Audacity is a doddle, the problem comes when I need to "export" my edited MP3. Because there is no option (that I can see) to export "as is", you basically have the choice of exporting as a .WAV or .MP3 file. If exporting an MP3 as a .WAV you are creating a larger file unnecessarily (it's a lossy file to begin with), or if saving as an MP3 you are re-compressing an already compressed file and (presumably) degrading the sound quality still further.

Is there a way around this so that I can basically edit the MP3 file and then save it exactly as it is without re-compressing the file or having to save the edited file as a .flac file to save the sound quality? If not Audacity is there another program out there that may do the trick?

Cheers for any help.

Ed.

No you can't get around this with Audacity. When you import the MP3 into Audacity it "adds water" to create an Audacity project. And as you correctly say when you edit and then later re-export to Mp3 you are degrading the sound quality further by adding additional compression.

There are apparently some simple MP3 editors on the market (and some may be free-ware) which enable you to trim and cut MP3 files as-they are in MP3. Try a quick Google of t'interweb ....

WC

Thanks - I will investigate tonight!

Ed.