On 2/13/2009 5:25 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
Instead, my first suggestion would be to use an editing application that operates on the original MP3 file and does not require you to re- encode -- which, as far as I know, is what is happening with the app I use (Fission).
I don't believe that is true, although I don't have direct experience with Fission. But David's and Lee's comments seem to back me up.
Looking around a bit more on the web, I do think we need to distinguish different kinds of editing. It appears that certain kinds of edits can be made to MP3s without needing to recode, namely splitting up an MP3 into pieces and applying gain. (See http://sherber.com/url/3c , for example.) Other kinds of edits I think require re-encoding.
Failing that: assuming David is correct that Audacity has its own native format, then Step 1 above seems unnecessary. Just open the MP3 in Audacity, make the edit, then save back to MP3.
Yes -- unless you plan to do more editing. Keeping in mind that every save to MP3 format degrades quality, what you want to avoid is open the MP3, make an edit, save back to MP3. Open the new MP3 a week later, make some more edits, save back to MP3. Repeat again the next day. You've now re-saved as MP3 3 times, introducing more artifacts along the way. If you open the MP3 and save your intermediate work each time as a WAV, you incur no further loss penalty until you're done and you convert your WAV to MP3 to share with others.
(It's the same with images. If someone sends you a JPG that you plan to edit repeatedly, you should first open it and save it as a TIF, and then make all your edits to the TIF. When you're done editing, you can export the TIF as a JPG for portability, keeping your source TIF for any further changes. If you edit and save as JPG, you incur loss and introduce artifacts each time.)
Aaron. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
