Tutorial: MP3 From Start to Finish... [Archive]

kittykat

07-11-2003, 05:55 AM

From Start to Finish...mp3 To WAV or WAV To mp3....

This maybe "old" info for some, but there are many new users that don't know the ins and outs of working with or creating there own mp3's. Believe it or not some people have never even heard of an mp3!

MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3) is a standard technology and format for compressing a sound/audio stream into a very small file (about 1/12 the size of the original file) while preserving the original level of sound quality when it is played. The extension ".mp3" is used to identify these audio files.

I have found that many people confuse an audio CD with the mp3 format. They are NOT the same. Audio (music) CD's are capable of being played on ANY CD ROM (computer based) or external CD Player device (auto, home stereo receiver, etc.) MP3's can only be played on a computer or an external device that is capable or reading/interpreting the "mp3" data format. If you are planning on purchasing an external device, ensure that it is capable of playing the mp3 format. Most newer home stereo's and DVD players are capable of playing mp3 "data" CD's. There are also several 3rd party units available for automobiles, but they are very expensive. The advantage of creating your own mp3 data CD's (burning them) is that you can usually put well over 150 or more (depending on the size) mp3 data files on one standard 700MB CD! Thats one heck of a music collection......

Creating an mp3 file is a very easy process. You can "rip" (ripping is nothing more than extracting the RAW data from an audio CD and converting it into a WAV file) songs from audio CD's (which is the most common). It is possible to do the same with tapes or vinyl recordings, though the process is a bit more complicated and requires external hardware to be interfaced with your computer.

There are many programs/applications "Rippers" that are capable of extracting audio tracks from a CD. Too many to list them all here. Some are capable of extracting and converting the audio data track into an mp3 in one process, without user intervention. These are great in most instances, however, there are times when you might want more control over the extracting process. An example is when you have an audio CD that is scratched or damaged. (A word of CAUTION: Attempting to play a severely scratched/damaged CD can cause damage to your CD ROM/CDRW device, specifically; the laser unit could get knocked out of alignment, making your device virtually useless. The distance between the head of the laser unit and the surface of the CD disc is paper thin!)

Basically, the process is as follows....The CD audio data stream is read, then is converted to a WAV file and then is compressed and converted to the .mp3 format.

Its not an easy task to edit an mp3 file directly, therefore if you desire to edit the audio sequence data, you must convert the data into a WAV file first. Then you can use a "WAV Editor" to fix any imperfections (pops, clicks), or remove unwanted sections, etc.

NOTE: There is one nice little FREE utility that I know of that can "fix" basic things in an .mp3 file without having to convert it to a .wav file first. It is called... "mp3Trim".... It works rather well for simple editing...
Link: Here
(Thanks to Roadblock for the heads-up on this one..)

(End of Part #1) Sorry, had to break it up into two parts due to the thread length restriction.....Part #2 below....

kittykat

07-11-2003, 05:56 AM

Part #2........
Here is a brief explanation of the entire process. I will use a simple, easy to use "Ripper" as an example. ( Nero CD DAE ) This utility is included in the Nero Toolkit, however, can be downloaded separately as a standalone (CDDAE 99) It is a free utility.
Link: Here

1. Load your audio CD into your drive. Then open CD DAE. The program will read the contents of the audio CD and list all the tracks. You can choose to extract all or individual tracks from the CD. Choose a default location/path to save the files and click Start.

2. The program will read the data from the CD (and will verify it - 2 passes, if you enabled that option) and when finished, will create a WAV file of the data in the folder you choose. This will be done for each track. NOTE: Remember WAV files are large, on average, a 3 minute audio track will create a WAV file of about 30MB's (30,000 KB's) so you must have available HD space to accommodate these files. The same holds true for applications that create an mp3 directly from an audio CD. (WAV files are STILL created temporarily in cache, they are then deleted automatically once the mp3 is created.)

3. Now you have your audio WAV files and can edit them in any WAV Editor if you desire.

4. Next you want to convert the WAV's into mp3's. Again, there are many programs available to do this. Just about all popular media players have this capability, Windows Media Player, MusicMatch, WinAmp, to name a few. Or, you can use an application specifically designed to convert WAV files to mp3's. Personally, I prefer to use an application specifically designed to convert WAV's to mp3's because you have more options in how the mp3 is created.

5. There are also many mp3 encoders available, some are free, some are not. Media players that have mp3 encoding capability have a "built-in" encoder. The drawback with this is that some use encoders that may not produce a good, high quality mp3. The alternative is to use a program specifically designed to encode mp3's that have the capability to use a built-in or an "external" encoder (codec) that you have installed on your system. The bottom line is, "not all mp3 encoders are created equal".

6. Again, there are many mp3 encoders (codecs) available, to name a few:

* Fraunhofer IIS: (one of the most popular and comes in many variations. It is used in many of the media players as a built-in encoder. It is a proprietary encoder)

* LAME: (Is a freeware mp3 encoding engine that is capable of producing high quality audio mp3's. It can be used as an external encoder in many encoding applications.) Also, there are many free front-end interfaces available that use the LAME encoder. Link: Here

* Xing: (The Xing encoder used to be one of the most popular encoding engines because of its speed. It is a proprietary encoder. The Xing technology was purchased by RealNetworks several years ago (1999) and is now included in the RealJukeBox software. It is also the encoding engine used in AudioCatalyst. There a Xing standalone mp3 encoder application available, offered by Real, however, the encoder has not been updated in quite some time.)

* Blade: (BladeEnc is a freeware encoder. This encoder is no longer under development, however, it is still available for download. Its advantage, (claims) is that it is fast without sacrificing quality over speed. There are several free front-end interfaces available that use the BladeEnc encoder.)
Link: Here

7. Ok, back to creating your mp3's. Using an mp3 encoder application, you want to take the WAV file and encode it into an mp3. For the sake of simplicity I will use MusicMatch as an example. Most encoders work the same way, but I would recommend that you thoroughly familiarize yourself with the functions of the application you desire to use.

8. Open MusicMatch, Go to File/Convert Files.......

* On the accompanying pop-up screen (File Format Conversion) select the Source Directory where your WAV files are stored. Then select the Destination Directory where you want the created mp3's stored.

* Select (Highlight) the Files you want Converted. Then the name of the mp3's .(NOTE: Unless you choose otherwise, the mp3 file's will keep the same name as the WAV file.)

* The Source Data Type is the format that your source file is in, i.e., WAV. (NOTE: MusicMatch does have the capability to convert WAV to mp3, or mp3 to WAV, or mp3 to mp3) A nice feature if you want to do some editing to an existing mp3. Choose the Source Data Type, then choose the format it will be converted, the Destination Data Type.

* Then move the Slider (below Destination Data Type) to the desired bitrate that you want to encode the mp3. (BITRATE denotes the average number of bits that one second of audio data will consume.) MusicMatch is capable of encoding from 8kbps up to 320kbps. For near CD quality encoding you should use at least 128kpbs (kb's per second). The higher the bitrate, the better the quality of the encoded file. This does not mean that you can take a low quality audio stream that contains errors, pops, clicks, cracks, and by encoding it at a high bitrate you will get a high quality mp3. What you will get is a high quality mp3 that contains, errors, pops, clicks, cracks. Those need to be fixed/removed first with a WAV Editor prior to encoding. You also need to choose whether you want to encode in "Constant Bitrate" or "Variable Bitrate".

Constant Bit Rate (CBR) encoding means that you encode a file at a fixed rate, such as 128 Kpbs. For many people this is a common method of encoding mp3's. You can usually tell CBR files because they have consistent sound quality.

Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding is a method that ensures high audio quality bit-allocation decisions during encoding. Simply put, VBR encoding looks at the audio file and chooses what bitrate to encode based on how much audio information is present at any given moment. If VBR is selected as the encoding method, most applications will give an option as to the variable bitrate range you desire, such as, from 160Kpbs to 320Kpbs.

Using either CBR or VBR is more of a user preference. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. In general, in CBR encoding you specify your compression by space, where in with VBR you specify it by quality.

* Another thing to take into consideration is "Normalizing". Normalizing checks for the loudest sound ONLY and then will increase the overall volume of the WHOLE WAV file OR mp3 file so that the "old" loudest volume will be dynamically as loud as possible with all of the rest if the dynamics of the wav file intact, as to there relationship to the loudest sound. Normalizing basically finds the parts of the WAV that don't have as much amplitude as the other parts, and boosts them up to the rest. Also, something to consider when normalizing, if there is any residual or mechanical/analog noise present in the unaffected/prenormalized wav file, is that after normalization, the NOISE will increase right along with all of the SOUNDS that you want. MusicMatch does this automatically. Other applications may give you the option to enable/disable Normalization and to set the percentage of normalization. The default is usually 97%.

9. And FINALLY, click the Start button, and after a minute or two you will have your mp3 that you can enjoy.

10. After converting the WAV's to mp3's you can go back and delete the WAV files to reclaim the harddrive space. NOTE: The "original" WAV or mp3 file is NOT changed during the conversion process (unless you choose to delete the original after conversion, some applications offer this option), a "new" file with the appropriate extension is created. An exception to this is that if you create an mp3 from an existing mp3, and save it in the same folder as the original file with the same name, Windows will overwrite the original file with the new file in this case.)

Whew, that sure sounds like alot to do and take into consideration, but after you get the hang of it you will find out that you can create your own favorite mp3's in just a couple of minutes. And don't forget to share them!

(This thread is dedicated to feenies-wife who requested the info... )

Note: This Tutorial was orginally wrote by gbread49 and reposted with his consent.