Audacity Forum

I have audacity version 2.1.0 portable on win 7 64 bit intel core i3 cpu and 3 GB RAM

When i open some mp3 there is only one wave form not one above and below? Also when i select a section there is no box underneath it to name the section.

I am new to audacity. I am editing mp3 files. When played on the computer or the headphone they sound stereo,I can hear it in both ears

What is wrong?

If you have a single blue wave track and the panel to the left says "Mono" like the attached, then the show is certified mono and will play to both left and right in your headphones. The sound will be the same on both sides. You will not have violins from the left and trumpets to the right. There is no Left and Right. Both ears will get exactly the same show and will sound flat compared to a real stereo performance.

when i select a section there is no box underneath it to name the section.

I'm not sure what you want here. If you select a segment of the show and File > Export Selection, you can call the exported show whatever you want (that's a good filename). Maybe Tracks > Add Label at Selection?

You should be careful about editing MP3 files. Audacity doesn't edit MP3. It decodes the MP3 into itself and then makes a new MP3 when you get done. It does that to make sure your effects, filters and production editing don't damage the files. When you Export to a new MP3, the compression damage goes up. Always. If you start with an MP3 at 64 quality and export it as MP3 at 64, the actual quality will be something around 32, just barely enough for a mono sound track without honking and bubbling. I have a personal recorder that forces the recordings to 32 quality which makes it useless for production.

There was a poster who used downloaded MP3s in his broadcast radio show and he runs into the quality problem constantly.

"The radio broadcast sounds OK, but the podcast sounds terrible. How do I make it sound better?"

Stop doing production in MP3.

Koz

If you have a single blue wave track and the panel to the left says "Mono" like the attached, then the show is certified mono and will play to both left and right in your headphones. The sound will be the same on both sides. You will not have violins from the left and trumpets to the right. There is no Left and Right. Both ears will get exactly the same show and will sound flat compared to a real stereo performance.

Ok thats fine. It is same in both ears. I thought therre was something wrong when i did not have two waveforms

when i select a section there is no box underneath it to name the section.


I'm not sure what you want here. If you select a segment of the show and File > Export Selection, you can call the exported show whatever you want (that's a good filename). Maybe Tracks > Add Label at Selection?

This link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77K857xD3bU at 2 mins 10 seconds says you should have a space under the selected piece.Maybe that is a different version of audacity

Also i have no split in edit
I bought hypnosis files which have a little music and then a spoken introduction which is an ad for the company. I want the music to play then split the file so i can remove the introduction and go straight to the induction

instead of music/introduction/induction I want music/induction . After the induction i will want to put two different hypnosis sessions so the one intro induction will do for both

Thanks for your help

What is best to edit mp3 files then?

jack magee wrote:at 2 mins 10 seconds says you should have a space under the selected piece.

He's added a label.
See here for how to use labels in Audacity 2.1.0: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/label_tracks.html

The reason that he has added a label is so that he can use "Export multiple" and export each labelled section as a separate file (see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/sp ... racks.html)

jack magee wrote:What is best to edit mp3 files then?

It's best if you can start with a high quality WAV version of the file rather than a (lower quality) MP3 version.
If you only have an MP3 version, then you can still edit it with Audacity but the quality will not be quite as good.
If you need the final show as MP3, then be aware that exporting from Audacity as MP3 reduces the quality a little more (this is unavoidable because Audacity always works with uncompressed audio, so Importing an MP3 decodes the MP3, then exporting as MP3 re-encodes it to MP3. The process of encoding to MP3 always loses some sound quality).

If you only want to make simple cut/delete edits AND you want the final product in MP3 format, then it is better to use an MP3 editor that can perform the edits without decoding first (for example, MP3Split http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/home.php). If you want to do more complex editing or processing, then use Audacity.

steve wrote:

jack magee wrote:at 2 mins 10 seconds says you should have a space under the selected piece.

He's added a label.
See here for how to use labels in Audacity 2.1.0: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/label_tracks.html

The reason that he has added a label is so that he can use "Export multiple" and export each labelled section as a separate file (see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/sp ... racks.html)

jack magee wrote:What is best to edit mp3 files then?

It's best if you can start with a high quality WAV version of the file rather than a (lower quality) MP3 version.
If you only have an MP3 version, then you can still edit it with Audacity but the quality will not be quite as good.
If you need the final show as MP3, then be aware that exporting from Audacity as MP3 reduces the quality a little more (this is unavoidable because Audacity always works with uncompressed audio, so Importing an MP3 decodes the MP3, then exporting as MP3 re-encodes it to MP3. The process of encoding to MP3 always loses some sound quality).

If you only want to make simple cut/delete edits AND you want the final product in MP3 format, then it is better to use an MP3 editor that can perform the edits without decoding first (for example, MP3Split http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/home.php). If you want to do more complex editing or processing, then use Audacity.

OK thanks for your help re label and edits

jack magee wrote:I have audacity version 2.1.0 portable

To be quite clear for future, that is not our app and we cannot offer support for it here.

This is the address you wanted http://portableapps.com/support/audacity_portable.

You can use Audacity supplied by us in a portable fashion: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/pr ... l#portable.


Gale