Import Tracks/ Clear HD Sounding

[reamdactiy]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so I'll apoligize if this has already been brought up. (1) When I finish recording, I have about 8-9 individual audio tracks. When I export the project it always gives a message like 'your tracks will be mixed together when exporting'. But the thing is what if I wanted to edit a track after I exported the project? So I guess the question I have is, is it possible when I export a project to mp3, is it possible to import the mp3 back to audacity with it's individual tracks? (2) I also noticed when Im recording in audacity my songs end up sounding 'muddy' or 'mono'. Is there some kind of preset or adjusting I need to do to make my projects sound 'HD'. Thanks! (When Im recording in audacity all my tracks are in stereo & same when I export to mp3)

[kozikowski]

Step 1, stop using MP3 for production. Use WAV. MP3 is a compressed delivery format and adds distortion and damage to the show every time you use it.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/WAV-MP3.wav

You may benefit from Saving a Project instead of Exporting As WAV. Maybe both. Audacity Projects are not sound files, but they're production managers. It should be possible to Save A Project and come back tomorrow and all your tracks and layers and clips should come straight back to life. At least that's the theory.

I personally Export As WAV after every live performance capture. Then I back up the WAV files onto safety external media.

If you are constantly stopping and starting a recording session, you will get multiple songs one stacked over the other. If you Record Pause instead of stopping, Audacity will string your performances end to end and then it won't make any difference whether Audacity mixes down to stereo or not. Your capture will be one long song.

If you're in Audacity 1.3, there is provision to Stop a capture session cold and then continue capture with a hotkey combination that I can't think of right this second.

Koz

[steve]

If you select a track then use "Export Selected", it will export just the selected track. Repeat for each track (as WAV files) and the tracks are still available (unmixed) for future editing.

[reamdactiy]

Alright Ill check it out.... But what about the 'muddy' sound. Im I just not mixing right?

[steve]

But what about the 'muddy' sound

It could be that you're compressing it too much with the MP3 encoding. Does it still sound muddy if you export as WAV?

[reamdactiy]

I don't use the compress effect.... maybe that's the problem? As far as mp3 goes....this is what I do. If I use a sound/instrument/sample I'll export it out as wav. I'll then load the wav into my MPC1000. When I finish making a song on the MPC, I record it into Audacity. When I'm done recording I export the project/song to mp3. And that's pretty much it. As far as mixing, all I do is the basics. Like even the levels, amplify, filter sometimes, and fade ins/outs....Maybe if I upload a song for you guys, you can listen and tell me what I need to fix? Thanks.

[kozikowski]

I don't think anywhere in that you told us which Audacity you're using. It can make a big difference because the preferences and setups are very different.

Audacity 1.2 wakes up from First Birthday in Mono, not Stereo. Reset in Audacity Preferences and restart Audacity.

Koz

[reamdactiy]

Im using Audacity 1.2.6 on Windows Vista... Do I need to upgrade?

[steve]

But what about the 'muddy' sound

It could be that you're compressing it too much with the MP3 encoding. Does it still sound muddy if you export as WAV?

I don't use the compress effect....

I don't mean the "compress effect" (dynamic compression), I mean "data compression".

MP3 files are much smaller than WAV files because the audio data is "compressed" - this is "data compression".
A small amount of data compression (around 2:1 compression) can be achieved without any change to the audio - no loss of sound quality - this is called "lossless compression". An example of a file format that uses lossless compression is "FLAC". MP3 is not lossless. MP3 can achieve much higher compression (smaller file size - often around 8 x smaller than the original audio data), but to achieve this degree of compression it has to throw some of the data away. This is called "lossy compression".

There is always a trade off when using lossy compression of "file size vs. sound quality". The smaller you make the file (more compression) the worse the sound quality gets. If the compression is set too fierce the sound will become muddy with a metallic bubbly kind of sound.

WAV format does not use data compression, so the sound of an exported WAV file should be the same as it sounds when you play in Audacity. This is why I was asking if an exported WAV sounded OK - if an exported WAV sounds good, but an exported MP3 sounds bad, then you will need to adjust the MP3 settings so that it produces a higher quality (but larger) file.

Im using Audacity 1.2.6 on Windows Vista... Do I need to upgrade?

I would recommend upgrading - there are many improvements in Audacity 1.3, one of which is that changing the MP3 settings is much easier.

[reamdactiy]

Thank u guys so much for all the replies. I will look for the update when i get home from work. Thanks.