New Wave Outpost Forum

change of topic, i didnt see a need to start a new thread.
ive been trying to find 2 rare blue in heaven songs for a long time and i finally found them from a guy who emailed them to me but he only had them in m4a format.
and ive never used and have no need for ipod itunes stuff.
i already had all my 80s albums before itunes so never needed or used it.
ive been trying to find these 2 songs for a very long time and just need to convert them to mp3.

thank you.






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old topic

i finally broke down and got an mp3 player for work.
and of course i want to put as much on there as possible.
and i decided there are a few songs i love but that have very annoying intros or outros or tec... that i want to edit off.
for example i love the song porcupine by echo and the bunnymen but i hate at the end where the whole song just completely changes to this long rambling other song.

If you're using Windows:

MP3DirectCut ... freeware and pretty much a self-contained EXE file (+ INI file to save your settings).
http://mpesch3.de1.cc/

BTW, You can't really edit MP3s. The best you can do is cut/join them.

[quote][i]Originally posted by obs[/i]
<br>If you're using Windows:

MP3DirectCut ... freeware and pretty much a self-contained EXE file (+ INI file to save your settings).
http://mpesch3.de1.cc/

BTW, You can't really edit MP3s. The best you can do is cut/join them.
[/quote]

Actually, you can edit them....you just don't want to.

You can decode, edit the wave, and re-encode ... which is what so-called MP3 editors do.

What I was trying to say was that editing an mp3 (and when I say editing I mean removing surface noise) is not a good idea because of the loss of fidelity. A wav or flac file is an ideal source if you have surface noise to remove.

Cutting off a lengthy ending where there is nothing but silence is not a problem when it's an mp3 or adding silence to the beginning where the song starts abruptly is ok too. Boosting the volume or decreasing it is ok but as soon as you start "cleaning" up an mp3 you start losing bits of sound.

well yeah thats all i want to cut off uneeded outros and intros to make more room for other songs.

now if only i can figure out how this works?
no problem cutting the part i want but i can not figure out how to save what it as a new mp3 without the part i cut?

I've used Audacity for what you're describing. I've been pretty happy with it.

[quote][i]Originally posted by newwavepop[/i]
<br>well yeah thats all i want to cut off uneeded outros and intros to make more room for other songs.

now if only i can figure out how this works?
no problem cutting the part i want but i can not figure out how to save what it as a new mp3 without the part i cut?
[/quote]

What program are you using? Usually, once you cut out the offending part all you have to do is go to file and "save as". Your program should have options on what format in a drop down menu. If it's a really basic program then all you should have to do is hit "save" and it will save the new version right over the old one. I would rename the file and save it before I overwrite the old one though just in case it saves it to another format and screws up the original track.

[i]What I was trying to say was that editing an mp3 (and when I say editing I mean removing surface noise) is not a good idea because of the loss of fidelity.[/i]

And what I'm saying is that you cannot edit an MP3 [:)]. You can make cuts, you can adjust the volume via normalizing, but you cannot truly edit an MP3. If you want to do noise reduction, it has to be decoded first, whether you do it manually or have the software do it transparently. Fidelity is lost because the original MP3 gets decoded and later gets re-encoded, hence wave editing, not MP3 editing.

This is why I recommended MP3DirectCut. It works directly on the MP3, so there is no loss in quality. Of course, the drawback is that you cannot make 'dead on balls' accurate cuts. You're limited to deleting whole frames.




[i]no problem cutting the part i want but i can not figure out how to save what it as a new mp3 without the part i cut?[/i]

Mark the part you want to cut using the SET BEGIN and SET END buttons. Once selected, press DELETE on your keyboard. FILE ... SAVE ALL. Just make sure you save it using a different filename.

ok i got it, i knew it had to be something simple making me feel stupid.
thank you very much, now i want to look for more songs to cut.

[quote]Originally posted by newwavepop
[br]change of topic, i didnt see a need to start a new thread.
ive been trying to find 2 rare blue in heaven songs for a long time and i finally found them from a guy who emailed them to me but he only had them in m4a format.
and ive never used and have no need for ipod itunes stuff.[/quote]
Never say never. Likely the easiest way to convert is actually to get iTunes, put those songs in it, go into Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Importing adn select MP3 Encoder and the MP3 settings you want. From then you, you can select the songs you want to convert and go to Advanced > Convert Selection to MP3. This will also work to and from AIF, WAV, and Apple Lossless as well. You can even downsample MP3s this way, for example to convert 320kbps to 160 or selected VBR samplings if you're trying to save space.

As others have mentioned previously though, it's never a great idea to transcode between already-compressed formats as this ends up further degrading sound quality.

Is anyone familiar with a program called "mp3 magic"? It's a very simple program I have that lets you cut and/or join mp3's using frames and supposedly real-time listening and, as some other folks mentioned here, I occasionally cut out intros or outros (or fade in or out) for which it works great. BUT it sucks when I try to use it for cutting out quick "fucks", "shits", etc. to make my songs work-friendly when I listen at the office. It always seems to be off by a split second or so. I recently tried cleaning up 'Bodies' by The Sex Pistols and the finished mp3 was, well, a screaming fucking bloody mess. Any suggestions on a more accurate cleaning method? Thanks....

[quote][i]Originally posted by obs[/i]
<br>[i]What I was trying to say was that editing an mp3 (and when I say editing I mean removing surface noise) is not a good idea because of the loss of fidelity.[/i]

And what I'm saying is that you cannot edit an MP3 [:)]. You can make cuts, you can adjust the volume via normalizing, but you cannot truly edit an MP3. If you want to do noise reduction, it has to be decoded first, whether you do it manually or have the software do it transparently. Fidelity is lost because the original MP3 gets decoded and later gets re-encoded, hence wave editing, not MP3 editing.

This is why I recommended MP3DirectCut. It works directly on the MP3, so there is no loss in quality. Of course, the drawback is that you cannot make 'dead on balls' accurate cuts. You're limited to deleting whole frames.




[i]no problem cutting the part i want but i can not figure out how to save what it as a new mp3 without the part i cut?[/i]

Mark the part you want to cut using the SET BEGIN and SET END buttons. Once selected, press DELETE on your keyboard. FILE ... SAVE ALL. Just make sure you save it using a different filename.
[/quote]

Yeah, what he said.

The music you listen to is the soundtrack of your life.

[i]but he only had them in m4a format.
and ive never used and have no need for ipod itunes stuff.[/i]

And there's no need to start now [:D].

WinAmp 5 has a plug-in to play M4As, so you can just tell it to output the file to .wav, and then use your favourite MP3 software to encode. Maybe it can transcode also. Don't know, since ...

I use WinAmp 2, and I think this is the plug-in I use for M4A:
http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/files/in_mp4.zip


I've heard good things about Foobar, although I've never used it:
http://www.foobar2000.org/
Can play/transcode various file types.



[i]BUT it sucks when I try to use it for cutting out quick "fucks", "shits", etc. to make my songs work-friendly when I listen at the office. It always seems to be off by a split second or so. I recently tried cleaning up 'Bodies' by The Sex Pistols and the finished mp3 was, well, a screaming fucking bloody mess. Any suggestions on a more accurate cleaning method?[/i]

Don't know, but since you're already hacking up the MP3, why not just use a wave editor to make accurate cuts. You can have fun with it and overdub with your own words like they did with movies on TV back in the 80s [:)]. Or do some special effects, like on Sigue Sigue Sputnik's radio version of Love Missile F1-11. Instead of "mondo teeno giving head", they changed it so that something plays backwards on "head", and the second time, it goes, "mondo teeno giving, giving ..."

You can always try MP3DirectCut. It's been fairly accurate whenever I've used it. You can drop the levels of the offending bits instead of cutting it out completely.


edit// If the files are VBR, it's difficult for the software to get the frames positioned accurately, especially if you rwd and ffw.

You can burn your mp4s as a wavefile or mp3 from iTunes or other audio program and then reimport them as mp3s.

As far as editing selected explicit words, use Audacity to select the segment of the song and then use the "reverse" option so the segment plays backwards. If it is still recognizable (as some words sound surprisingly the same backwards), select and use one of the many filters Audacity offers to "tweak" it. The time line of the song remains intact so there is no tempo interruption.

Another way which is a bit more work but cleaner, is to use Audacity, Garage Band or other program:

Create two tracks. One with the whole song.

Find a measure of the song that is instrumental but still has a beat. Copy and paste this into track #2.

Slide this piece along the track and line it up with the part you want to cut on the other track. Make sure the beats line up.

Drop the volume of the offending phrase on track #1 so only your instrumental piece on track #2 can be heard.

Experiment until it sounds good. Again, the time line of the song remains intact so there is no tempo interruption.





<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>