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Topic: Audacity - file formats i can edit ? (Read 20376 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #50 –
I think it is less cumbersome to manually decode your files to WAV in any GUI frontend such as Foobar2000, edit them, and then re-encode them using a GUI and refalac.exe. You don't have to wait for the encoding after every track, and don't have to enter a command line, or use ffmpeg which is very big.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #51 –
yes, that is an option.  i was gonna try that out, and see how big of a deal it is.  i would need to enter all my metadata again.  most of that is done automatically when i rip the cd.

at least i can lop off at the front end or back end very easily with directcut, and keep my lossless.

one question i had, and you have possibly answered it - am i gonna need to key this command line every time i run it ?  or can i do it once, and have it remember it.

so my options are
1) try to get the command line to work, so that audacity spits out a lossless file for me

2) let audacity code it to a wav, and then convert it with foobar, and key in the metadata

3) just be satisfied with aac for my tempo changes - at this point, this is my simplest option.  i already have it going. 

tempo changes are interesting, both vocally and instrumentally.  usually you can go 10% either way, without affecting anything, but the tempo.  once you go further than that, it all depends.  the more vibrato there is, the less you can go.   some instruments and voices have a lot of vibrato, and if you change the tempo too much, it no longer sounds the same.

one instrument that has almost none is the fiddle, when played country western style.  the notes are all very quick and succinct.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #52 –
You can copy metadata in Foobar without entering it by hand. Select the fields in the properties of the source files and then paste them. I wouldn't trust for Audacity to keep all metadata, considering how complex MP4 tags are.

In case you want to delete a fragment and do nothing else, you should disable dither. Modified parts do need dither.

I don't think mp3directcut can work or would be useful with lossless at all. The purpose of it is to avoid lossy recompression. You have more freedom in a general editor.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #53 –
so far the lossless direct cut has been working very well for me.  i have no idea what dither is ?  from what i can tell, there are very few options.  all it does is cuts off sections of the file.  there is no mention of dither in the program, disable or enable.  the name of it is losslesscut.  it was recommended by others on this thread.  you may be interested in looking at it ?

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #54 –
I was thinking of dither in Audacity.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #55 –
i see.  i could not find it.  but audacity is a huge program, with a million options.  i only use a very small amount of what it can do.

where is the dither option located ?

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #56 –
Quote from: HA-User on
i see.  i could not find it.  but audacity is a huge program, with a million options.  i only use a very small amount of what it can do.

where is the dither option located ?

Edit - Preferences - Quality

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #57 –
the real time conversion had sample rate converter at medium quality and dither at none

the high quality conversion had sample rate converter at high quality and dither at shaped

i placed both of them with sample rate converter at best quality (slowest) and dither at none

so i am guessing it will take longer to convert the file ?  any other comments about the choices that i put in ?

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #58 –
here is a pretty good article.  i dont have anywhere near the experience in it, to fully grasp the meaning of it.  but here is one statement that may be the most important for me and most people to understand.

Only dither when you render your audio to a lower bit-depth.

so i have 2 questions

1) am i rendering my audio to a lower bit depth ?

2) someone mentioned using 24 bits instead of 16.  is this an option for me ?  and would it be worth it for me ?

https://www.waves.com/audio-dithering-what-you-need-to-know

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #59 –
Turn dither off, as you seem to be only doing a bit of file cutting; but I can't see it making much of a difference either way.
As your files are most likely 16bit, no 24bit will be of no use to you.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #60 –
thanks irish,  left my settings as above - highest quality, lowest speed, no dither

on audacity - i dont plan to do any file cutting - so much easier with lossless cut

i do plan to do some tempo changes.  also some fade-outs IF i can get an alac file out of audacity

or is there another program i can use to do fadeouts that will give me an alac file ?

i kinda like these simple programs that only do 1 thing.  they usually do it very simply.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #61 –
does anyone know if there is a way to have lossless cut play only the portion of the music that one intends to save ?

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #62 –
Shift+ left arrow sends you to the beginning of the segment and Shift+ right arrow to the end, but I am not aware that it can stop at the end.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #63 –
thanks porcus,  that is helpful in that it is difficult to move the pointer back to the beginning.  so shift left arrow does that for me. 

i am sure i will learn a few more things as i continue to use the program.  i like the way it works.  it will export the file right back to the same folder that my original song is in. 

i just delete 3 files and rename the new one back to the original name.  itunes doesnt know that the file was even changed !!

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #64 –
right now, i am looking for programs on the net (free or pay) that will accomplish the few things that i want to do.  i downloaded one that i wanted to try, but bitdefender immediately quarantined it.  i already have one that will adjust the volume for me

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #65 –
i have to chuckle.  when things dont mean much to me, they go in one ear and out the other.  i just called up the foobar convert screen.

there is an output bit depth and a dither

the output bit depth default is auto, and dither is never.  the bit gives me a choice of 8, 16, 24 or 32.  that now at least registers with me.  i am guessing that auto stands for automatic, and it picks the right choice based upon the data ?

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #66 –
@HA-User what exactly is it what you need to do though?
If you don't like Audacity, perhaps try Ocenaudio?

And "auto" being "best" is usually not really the case. It's better to think of it as "default". In the case of dithering, it'll probably enable dithering with lower bit depths per sample. De facto though, using dithering is never really a bad idea, but it raises the noise floor above absolute zero, which isn't great for editing.

Oversampling a 16bit/sample file into 24bit/sample will not do anything for you, except if you want to use that audio file for further editing and applying filters and whatnot.

Also, not sure if this is what you meant a couple posts back, but in Audacity, you can click into a track and then Ctrl+a will select the entire track.

Even pro-level DAWs generally don't have a wide range of output formats for export. They just save large RF64s or similar for archiving and using that for further editing down the line; and then using external tools to export to Opus, AAC, FLAC, what have you…
This makes software development and maintenance of things like AVID much more manageable. Offloading encoding and decoding to external tools, and focusing on the signal processing aspect of audio editing, etc.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #67 –
Cutting in a visual editor with a waveform and zoom, and not limited to a frame granularity is much more easy. You can visually find a suitable position with silence and preview from there. And lossless formats enable this freedom without losing quality. If you do editing that changes sample values (fading, speed change, resampling), not just plain cutting, then enable dither. When the sample rate does not change, the accuracy setting will not impact speed. Another reason to use an external (lossy) encoder is that it might produce better quality or be more tweakable than what is shipped with the audio editor. Full audio editors almost work with uncompressed data, and hide the decompression step.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #68 –
Quote from: HA-User on
i have to chuckle.  when things dont mean much to me, they go in one ear and out the other.  i just called up the foobar convert screen.

there is an output bit depth and a dither

the output bit depth default is auto, and dither is never.  the bit gives me a choice of 8, 16, 24 or 32.  that now at least registers with me.  i am guessing that auto stands for automatic, and it picks the right choice based upon the data ?

What are you trying to convert from & why? In foobar if its from a lossless file to WAV then don't change the WAV setting.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #69 –
hi guys,

very simple solution for my needs.  if all i want to do is lop off, i use lossless cut.

if i decide i need a fade out, or want to do a tempo change, then i use audacity, output to flac to keep it lossless.  and then convert it back to alac using foobar.  i currently have an alac file loaded into itunes !!!

if someone knows it ocenaudio can convert directly to alac, i would give it a try.  otherwise i think audacity will do the trick for me.

thanks a lot for all your help,

jimmy

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #70 –
Quote from: HA-User on
if someone knows it ocenaudio can convert directly to alac, i would give it a try.  otherwise i think audacity will do the trick for me.

I say stick with the program you know, or better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #71 –
i am getting ready to rip a cd that says it may have some surface noise, due to using the original 78 rpm recordings.  this cd has used the CEDAR audio noise reduction system.  and it says 24-bit remastering.

since i already figure i am gonna have some noise, i would like to at least limit it.  so i would like to keep the 24-bit throughout the process.

i use eac to rip the cd to wavpack.  foobar to convert it to alac.  and you already know about lossless cut and audacity, if i want to make any edits.

does everything automatically stay with 24-bit mastering ?  or will it turn it back to just 16-bit mastering ?

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #72 –
Unless I'm mistaken, Red Book CDs are all 16bit at 44.1kHz per channel. They might've used 24bit in the mastering process, but AFAIK, all CDs must be converted to 16bit/44.1kHz eventually.

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #73 –
It makes all sense to use higher resolution when processing, than in the end-user format.

(It would make more sense to use floating-point, safeguarding against clipping, but hey ...)

Re: Audacity - file formats i can edit ?

Reply #74 –
Quote from: HA-User on
i am getting ready to rip a cd that says it may have some surface noise, due to using the original 78 rpm recordings.  this cd has used the CEDAR audio noise reduction system.

These recordings are likely to be from the 1920's & 1930's. So the quality is just not there to begin with. So maybe do your edits in 24bit, but when you are saving 16bit will do.