crappy mp3 conversion

  • Thread starter Thread starter LI Slim
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LI Slim

LI Slim

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It seems to me that when I convert from wav file to mp3, I lose a huge amount of quality. When I burn my wav file to a CD, it is much closer to a professional quality CD than my mp3's are to professional quality mp3's.

I'm converting to mp3 using my mixing software, which is n-track.

What can I do to remedy this insidious problem????
 
MP3 is a lossy format. That's it's big advantage, small files but with the respective quality hit. Don't expect a 5 MB file to sound as good as 50MB file. Impossible, something was lost.

There is nothing you can do. Except, leave it in it's native form. Or accept the inherent quality loss of the mp3 format.
 
I have used some pretty bad encoders and they really do mess up the sound quite a bit.

A friend turned me on to an encoder that uses a german companies compression scheme to convert and I noticed right away that the conversions were much better. The software is Audioactive Production Studio - Professional. It uses is the Fraunhofer conversion scheme.

I have read that Lame is a nice encoder too but haven't been able to spot any software that uses it to try it out.

I do know that if you use less data compression that the mp3's sound much better. I read somewhere that once you start encoding at 192kbs that all the encoders work about the same. It is at 128kbs where the different schemes become appearent in quality.

Maybe just try a different encoder or a lower compression.

Good day!
 
WaveLab's got it

WaveLab 3.0 has an awesome MP3 converter. While of course it's not gonna be as good as a wav, I've had quite a few people say they could barely...BARELY tell the difference from a wav file at 128 kbps. It has 3 options...quick, compromise between speed and quality, and high quality. Quick sucks, compromise is good, really good...and high quality is awesome. Trouble is, it takes my tired old machine about 2 hours to make a high quality version (5 minute tune) and about 17 minutes for the compromise setting. But if you're putting stuff up on the web, it's worth the wait. It uses the Fraunhofer conversion scheme also. I used Music Match Jukebox until I got WaveLab....no comparison. bOb
 
Took me a while to figure out that the Vegas Pro Encoder has the option of quick and nasty or higher quality at each of the supported encoding rates but I think the extra wait is worth it.
Two hours for a 5 minutes song? That's pretty discouraging. Is that a 386? :)
 
I agree with Sound Cracker...

Audioactive is very good - I use it myself.............

Bruce
 
Is that a 386???

Nope, it is a Pentium 166, w/56mb ram. I was surprised at how long it takes also, but I use the compromise setting 90% of the time. It works real well, and is perfect for MP3.com and the likes. Hey, I just finished a tune in Cakewalk where I got 18 tracks out of this old hog, so it ain't all that bad :) (of course, no realtime effects going on there). I am holding off buying another computer just yet, maybe by summertime they'll be giving those PIII 1 gigz away by then! (I wish).
 
Yes, I agree, theres LOTS you can do to not loose quality.

1. Use software that uses the Fraunhofer encoder.
2. Encode in 128 kbps or higher.

With this you should achieve barely audible soundloss.
 
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