Audacity Forum

When using Audacity to export recorded .mp3's with Variable setting 2, Standard variable speed, and channel mode on Standard; I find myself importing that file to my iTunes library only to find that it has a very inaccurate length of time. Such as, a 5 minute song will show up to be 7:19. The song will still play fine, and even if you scroll through it you'll find that the song still plays at that point on it's progress bar. The only problem is it's not the right amount of time the song is.

If I start playing one of my .mp3's, it'll play to it's length and then cut to the next song. Only, the progress bar is inaccurate and 2minutes it was supposed to go to never came. How can I solve this?

Any help or response is appreciated. Let me know if you need further clarification.

Assuming you mean "stereo" not "standard" I can't replicate it on Windows with the Win version of iTunes. Are you using the released Audacity 1.3.3 or a version compiled from source code? What Project Rate are you exporting at? Please try again at 44100 Hz Project Rate (set at bottom left of the Audacity screen).

I am having the same problem. I'm using Audacity 1.3.6 on an Intel Mac Tiger. When I export some .aup projects (cassettes that will go to CDs) to MP3 format using standard preset, the recording length of say a 45min item reads in ITunes as a 2 or 3 hour recording. It's baffling as the recording is still the original length when it actually plays. Can anyone help solve the mystery? I can't find a way to resolve the issue or make Itunes change the time info. If I export the same .aup to the AIFF format it reflects the correct length. The problem occurs when I export to MP3.

I just found a solution! Export project to aiff (or other Itunes compatible format) Set Itunes preferences to import using MP3 encoder. Then you right click on the AIff file (or whatever format it is) and it gives the option to create an MP3 version. That Itunes conversion DOES `show the proper length. There's an apparent glitch in the Lame conversion Audacity uses.

WAV is also an iTunes compatible format BTW. If you are using an iPod connected to your iTunes library, then you may want to consider using iTunes to convert WAV/AIFF to Apples AAC compressed format. Bitrate for bitrate, AAC is generally reckoned to give slightly higher sound quality than MP3. MP3s of course have the advantage of greater portability i.e. to other non Apple compressed music players.

WC

Since the time I replied back in January, it's become much clearer that MP3 encoding is problematical and likely to produce the wrong reported length and bit rate if you use variable bit rate (on Windows and Linux as well). The presets do seem to work OK on Windows, however. This is already noted in the 1.3.6 Release Notes in the Audacity installation folder, or online.

Exporting MP3 at the command line with (external program) works correctly on Windows if you put LAME.exe (not lame_enc.dll) in the Audacity installation folder, and I assume would do on Mac and Linux with the correct binary.


Gale