Odd failure playing MP3s...?

[KennethSo]

Howdy,

I am new to Audacity...

I just launched it, and opened an MP3 that I wanted to edit.

As I started, I clicked Play and to my surprise, I heard a brief "chirp" as the cursor flashed by. I am unable to tell if it played the entire file much too quickly, or if it played only a tiny piece of the file.

What might I be doing wrong at this very early stage of my efforts?

Sincere thanks,

Kenneth

[kozikowski]

Since Audacity knows what an MP3 file is, that may not have been an MP3 file. Did you get it from iTunes? The default format for iTunes is Apple AAC format, not MP3. Right click on the file and display properties. A lot of music flying around the internet is M4P and so on. MP3 is a relatively old format and it's not very efficient for modern web work.

Highly compressed audio files in a foreign format fly by in Audacity like they're on fire. So you need to covert it ahead of Audacity and I'm sure somebody will be along to tell you how. Also search the forum for compressed audio conversion, etc. If the Properties panels tells you what it is, that's your search term.

Koz

[KennethSo]

Hi Koz,

Of course, you had it exactly...

I got the proper tools, converted the file in question to an MP3, and was then able to manipulate it as I needed using Audacity.

Very sincere thanks,

Kenneth