Music Editing Software

Fidelis

Sorry if this has been raised before, couldn't find anything in a search.

Are there any programs (free ) that can do relatively simple editing of .mp3's e.g. edit the first 20 seconds of a track so as to cut out an interlude or some such.

alb

Cooledit 2000 is great for that kind of thing

bruce wayne

so is goldwave

Diarmuid

Originally posted by Fidelis
Sorry if this has been raised before, couldn't find anything in a search.



Are there any programs (free ) that can do relatively simple editing of .mp3's e.g. edit the first 20 seconds of a track so as to cut out an interlude or some such.

editing mp3's isnt a great idea. If you really have to you will probably have to decompress the mp3 to a wav, edit that, recompress back to mp3. (hence the two stages of compression will result in a poorer quality mp3).

Having said that probably the newer programs will do that on the fly but you still have the quality problem. No getting around it.

Mr E

Check out this thread for some useful info.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58039

- Dave.

alb

Originally posted by Diarmuid


editing mp3's isnt a great idea. If you really have to you will probably have to decompress the mp3 to a wav, edit that, recompress back to mp3. (hence the two stages of compression will result in a poorer quality mp3).

Having said that probably the newer programs will do that on the fly but you still have the quality problem. No getting around it.

There's no reason why it should lose quality if you use a decent program. When it decompresses it you won't lose anything, and the recompression (if at the same bit rate & frequency) shouldn't chop off any more than the original compression did

tman

editing mp3's isnt a great idea. If you really have to you will probably have to decompress the mp3 to a wav, edit that, recompress back to mp3. (hence the two stages of compression will result in a poorer quality mp3).
Having said that probably the newer programs will do that on the fly but you still have the quality problem. No getting around it.

yeah, sound forge 6 does that, sweet app. but it's not excactly in the 'free' bracket

Cake Fiend

'Diarmuid', are you going to back that little pearl of wisdom up with some factual info?

Diarmuid

Originally posted by Sico
'Diarmuid', are you going to back that little pearl of wisdom up with some factual info?

mp3 compression is a lossy form of compression. You LOSE information when you compress data with it. When the original music source was recorded it was COMPRESSED to an mp3 format (loss of information). To edit this mp3 you have to convert it back to a wav format (probably 16bit/44kHz if you want to get the full 22KHz range of the audible spectrum ) edit it and then COMPRESS it back to an mp3. (second compression stage and hence further loss of information)

The wav file you edited does NOT contain all the information that was in the original wav file.

Whether you notice the degredation of music quaility depends on a number of factors (original mp3 bitrate, wave file format/sampling freq, bit rate of final mp3). The fact is data is being lost.

Sico, it isnt a "pearl of wisdom" it's a fact.

http://www.puredigitalaudio.org/digitalcompression/index.shtml
http://www.mp3-converter.com/mp3codec/lossiness.htm

Mr E

I don't doubt what you're saying, Diarmuid, but unless you've got surgically enhanced hearing (or if you are one of those anal audiophile MP3 knobs that insist on encoding everything at 256kbps "because they sound better"), you're not going to notice much of a difference.

I've sliced and diced regular 128kpbs MP3s without any noticable degradation in quality.

- Dave.

Fidelis

Thank you, one & all!

Diarmuid

Originally posted by TmB
I don't doubt what you're saying, Diarmuid, but unless you've got surgically enhanced hearing (or if you are one of those anal audiophile MP3 knobs that insist on encoding everything at 256kbps "because they sound better"), you're not going to notice much of a difference.



I've sliced and diced regular 128kpbs MP3s without any noticable degradation in quality.



- Dave.

well my opinion is that if you are going to go to the trouble of ripping your cd collection to mp3's, you may as well do it correctly and get a good high quality copy of your cd's. It's not like hard disk space is expensive at the moment, so what's the advantage in encoding to a low rate?

If you want to check out results of listening tests check this /out:
http://users.belgacom.net/gc247244/quality.htm
[ results 90% of the 128 Kbit material was picked out in a blind comparsion to a CD]

But I'll admit that you are not going ot notice much difference on computer speaker, a decent pair of headphone is a different matter though

Mr E

MP3 players..... I've got an MP3 walkman, and an MP3 car stereo. I want to fit as much as possible on them.

I started MP3ing everything about a year ago, and have a pretty bloody big collection now (as a few people on these boards will testify! ). When I started, I played about with different bit rates, and was perfectly happy with 128kbps.

- Dave.

sceptre

SOund Forge is king. Pricey though.

And Diarmuid has a point - it's just like repeatedly editing jpegs.