Our church digitally records its services, which ultimately end up in MP3 format. I cannot find a way in n-Track (demo) to access or convert these files to anything that can be edited. Am I overlooking this function or is there just no way to work with MP3s in n-Track?
NOTE: I am not responsible for what gets recorded or how. I am just trying to take what’s been given me and produce a useable, edited track.
Thanks
audacity.
google it.
Two thumbs up for Audacity. Great program. I use it in combo with nTrack, for doing precise edits.
The best program for converting among audio formats is dBPowerAmp Music Converter (dMC). Right click on a file in any supported format and convert to any other supported format. All kinds of formats can be supported based on downloading codecs from “Codec Central” at that site.
You can even right-click on a file in a file browser window (e.g., “Open …”) from any application – handy when you’re going to open the file and forgot to convert it first. I’ve been using it for years with never any problems.
To use MP3 after an initial trial period, you have to pay a $12 fee required by the folks who own the MP3 technology. Evidently the dBPowerAmp folks don’t have much choice about this if they want to stay legit.
Not to take away from Audacity, which is still a great program, but not the most convenient for doing format conversions. Great for noise reduction and other special-purpose edits, though!
Is there any way of getting the recording before it is converted to mp3? Chances are that it is recorded as a wav file, then converted to mp3. No hurt in asking…
Most of the time you will have to convert the MP3 to .wav, edit it then convert back to MP3 or whatever. This double conversion is problematic and you would be better off if you could get hold of the original files (which are probably in .wav format). MP3 is a “lossy” conversion process and the signal is degraded with the first conversion from .wav to MP3 and the third conversion back to MP3 from .wav is likely to further degrade the signal. The conversion from MP3 to .wav does not degrade the signal per se but just “reveals” the degradation (unless you have a codec which does a poor job of conversion) since the playback format for MP3 is always linear PCM (which is the basis of the .wav format).
Jim
Thanks for all the replies. I think the files are captured as .wav files and then transferred to a server where they are stored as MP3s. Not sure where the conversion takes place, but I will look into the possibility of gaining access to the original audio.