mp3s

[jimmychan]

sorry again if I'm posting this in the wrong area and yeah I've tried searching for this but it came up with way too much for me to wade thru. it's a simple (maybe) Q about mp3s.

I've noticed that when I try and encode my own stuff, and rip my cds as well, to mp3, some times you get a strange wobble, like a wah effect, especially on the high end like hi-hats and so on. I notice it a lot on mp3s I download from band sites, but they're usually pretty low bitrates. I'm always encoding in 128bps (using audiocatalyst v2.1) so I thought I'd be ok. Should I use a higher bitrate to get rid of this, or is there something else wrong? should I buy a better codec (I'm not sure if the audiocatalyst is fraunhofer or what?). Strangely, some CDs come out ok, some have the wah wobble thingy. and, if i encode in windows wma format (which I hate just cos it's microsoft, socialist worker me!!) this doesn't happen.

if this is in the wrong place can some one point me to a forum in here where this Q is better off?

plus I always use lots of bracketed phrases in my posts so can anyone recommend a good speech writer

thanks, Jim

 

[elevate]

That wah sound is indeed the encoding. It's pretty audible up to 160kbps encoding, but it's still there. At 256kbps it gets very difficult to hear on most speakers.

 

[Evildick]

You can try this

I would say it probably is the codec that's giving you trouble. I've been using this program for quite some time now for the majority of my encoding/decoding mp3 stuff. It's fast, appears as a right-click option in your pop-up menu which means you don't have to open a whole new prog just to use the thing. It uses the Lame encoder which I have found to work pretty good.

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

Just get the dMC Music convertor. You don't need any of the other stuff unless you want it.

Dick

also, if you scroll down the page, you can get more codecs to try out and use.

 

[jimmychan]

thanks a lot, it's a really annoying effect cos I'm trying to put everything I've got onto my HD for ease of use.

Just out of interest, a tecchy question: as elevate said, it's still there at higher bitrates. Is it just a concession you have to make to endoding to MP3 and losing all that sound info? As I said, windows WMA sometimes sounds better - is this technically a better encoding? I'm loathe to use it, but should I cast my prejudices aside and use WMA instead of MP3, since I'm not ripping my CDs for dispersal anyway?

Jim

 

[Evildick]

There are quite a few ways that you can tweak the settings to get better sound quality. Bitrate is only one of them. You can use a Constant Bitrate (CBR) or Variable Bitrate (VBR). Select the channels (Mono, Stereo, Joint Sterio), frequency (12000-48000Hz) are most of them. You can check here to get a better understanding of how to work with your mp3's.

http://www.mp3-faq.org/

Dick

 

[jimmychan]

Thanks, so which is recommended - variable or constant bitrate?