Audacity 1.3.13beta - Exporting As MP3

[ChrisCoaster]

HOW do you select a higher bitrate???

I'll be damned if I'm going to export my hard work at 128kbps when
exporting certain projects as Mp3s!

The Audacity wiki is of NO help, and I DID properly install the mp3
lame thingy.

thanks for any/all suggestions.

-ChrisCoaster

[Nil]

On 02 Jul 2011, ChrisCoaster > wrote in
rec.audio.pro:

> HOW do you select a higher bitrate???

When I choose Export | Save at type | mp3 , I find an Options button
where I can choose bitrate and other options.

I assume you have already installed the LAME mp3 encoder...

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/2/2011 11:09 AM, ChrisCoaster wrote:
> HOW do you select a higher bitrate???

When you export and select MP3 as the file type, you'll see
an OPTIONS button. Click on that and there's a pulldown
window where you can select the bit rate. It looks like this:

http://i.imgur.com/1eVgM.jpg

> I'll be damned if I'm going to export my hard work at 128kbps when
> exporting certain projects as Mp3s!

128 kpbs isn't all that bad. If you really care about
quality you won't be using MP3 at all.

> The Audacity wiki is of NO help, and I DID properly install the mp3
> lame thingy.

Seems to me that it's pretty much automatic unless you tried
to install it manually. You should have (in Windows, anyway) a
Program Files \Lame for Audacity folder with the file
lame_end.dll in it. If you go to Preferences, Libraries and
click on the MP3 Library button. It should point to that
folder.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Scott Dorsey]

ChrisCoaster > wrote:
>Why is MP3 so trashed on here??

Because it doesn't sound good.

>And anyhow I've said it in numerous threads on R.A.P that I can't
>hear squat above 12-14kHz anyhow!

Irrelevant, many of the artifacts are at much lower frequencies. In fact,
what mp3 encoding does to the bass is one of the most annoying things to
my mind. Worse than the space monkeys.

>And being that my hearing has actually gotten better with age -
>flatter within my personal range that is - mp3 fits the bill just
>fine.

Try encoding something multiple times.... say three times to begin with.
Get a sense of what artifacts get created. Once you get the hang of listening
for them, you'll start hearing them when you go through a single encoding
pass.

The AES also has a CD-ROM for sale which provides examples of the various
standard perceptual encoding artifacts in samples of varying degrees. It is
also a very good tool for learning what to listen to and what all of the
artifacts are called.

>As a kid my right ear audiogram looked like the Swiss alps, ditto my
>left ear - but that was down 15dB below references, and 10dB below the
>right! The doctors shoved eartubes in my ears, powerwashed out what
>wax they could, and still the first 10 years of my life was one long
>ear infection after the other. LOL! Hell knows, they probably did
>more damage in there with eartubes & **** than there was already!
>
>Now, execept for a moderate HF dip at 8kHz, they are withing a couple
>dB of each other and nearly flat.

Your brain is an important part of your hearing also. You can survive with
very suboptimal ears if your brain is well-trained to listen.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

ChrisCoaster wrote:

> And anyhow I've said it in numerous threads on R.A.P that I can't
> hear squat above 12-14kHz anyhow!

There is zero correlation between upper limit of hearing at a given spl and
the ability to hear clarity and detail.

> And being that my hearing has actually gotten better with age -
> flatter within my personal range that is - mp3 fits the bill just
> fine.

There is no such thing as a frequency response for the sense of hearing, it
is all auto eq and aurocorrelation once you are above the threshold.

> As a kid my right ear audiogram looked like the Swiss alps, ditto my
> left ear - but that was down 15dB below references, and 10dB below the
> right! The doctors shoved eartubes in my ears, powerwashed out what
> wax they could, and still the first 10 years of my life was one long
> ear infection after the other. LOL! Hell knows, they probably did
> more damage in there with eartubes & **** than there was already!

Which is to say that you haven't grasped which fight they fougth on your
behalf, for them it was about avoiding that the ear infections destroyed the
hammer and anvil mechanism.

> Now, execept for a moderate HF dip at 8kHz, they are withing a couple
> dB of each other and nearly flat.

5 dB above threshold they are flat, 5 dB below there is no detection except
in case nearby (in frequency) sound energy acts as a bias. This is why you
can hear treble frequencies that are above the single frequency upper limit
of hearing. The recruitment also means that in the zone near the dection
threshold obviousness of a sound increases drastically once it moves a wee
bit up in level from below detection to above detection. This is why it is
required to match playback level of things you compare to within say a fifth
dB.

An audiogram is not a frequency response curve, it is threshold curve for a
frequency dependent multiband gating function.

> -CC

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/3/2011 8:39 AM, ChrisCoaster wrote:

> Why is MP3 so trashed on here??
>
> And anyhow I've said it in numerous threads on R.A.P that I can't
> hear squat above 12-14kHz anyhow!

Frequency response isn't the problem with MP3 files. That's
a linear function. If you have something with irregular
frequency response, like an analog tape deck, or a
loudspeaker, a given frequency is treated the same no matter
what it comes from - a voice, a violin, or one instrument in
an orchestra. The algorithm that creates the MP3 version
looks at every sound in context and decides whether it will
be heard or masked by other sounds. If it determines that a
particular frequency at a particular time will be masked, it
leaves it out. But sometimes it eliminates things that we
can hear. And then there are the artifacts that, when too
pronounced, make music sound like it's being gurgled through
water.

But as I said, much of the time, an MP3 at a reasonably high
bit rate sounds acceptable to most people, even me, most of
the time. But that's not a justification for not doing
better quality work than is delivered to the mass market.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Bill Graham]

Peter Larsen wrote:
> ChrisCoaster wrote:
>
>> And anyhow I've said it in numerous threads on R.A.P that I can't
>> hear squat above 12-14kHz anyhow!
>
> There is zero correlation between upper limit of hearing at a given
> spl and the ability to hear clarity and detail.
>
>> And being that my hearing has actually gotten better with age -
>> flatter within my personal range that is - mp3 fits the bill just
>> fine.
>
> There is no such thing as a frequency response for the sense of
> hearing, it is all auto eq and aurocorrelation once you are above the
> threshold.
>> As a kid my right ear audiogram looked like the Swiss alps, ditto my
>> left ear - but that was down 15dB below references, and 10dB below
>> the right! The doctors shoved eartubes in my ears, powerwashed out
>> what wax they could, and still the first 10 years of my life was one
>> long ear infection after the other. LOL! Hell knows, they probably
>> did more damage in there with eartubes & **** than there was already!
>
> Which is to say that you haven't grasped which fight they fougth on
> your behalf, for them it was about avoiding that the ear infections
> destroyed the hammer and anvil mechanism.
>
>> Now, execept for a moderate HF dip at 8kHz, they are withing a couple
>> dB of each other and nearly flat.
>
> 5 dB above threshold they are flat, 5 dB below there is no detection
> except in case nearby (in frequency) sound energy acts as a bias.
> This is why you can hear treble frequencies that are above the single
> frequency upper limit of hearing. The recruitment also means that in
> the zone near the dection threshold obviousness of a sound increases
> drastically once it moves a wee bit up in level from below detection
> to above detection. This is why it is required to match playback
> level of things you compare to within say a fifth dB.
>
> An audiogram is not a frequency response curve, it is threshold curve
> for a frequency dependent multiband gating function.
>
>> -CC
>
> Kind regards
>
> Peter Larsen

There is also another, lessor known hearing defect, which I have, and which
was inhereted from my father. It is the ability to interpret the sounds you
hear. If there are two people talking at the same time, I can't understand
either one of them. this has nothing to do with the ability to hear sounds
and frequencies. It is an interpretive problem. If I am watching the TV, and
my wife starts to speak to me, I have to mute the box before I can
understand anything she says. I can watch more than one thing at a time, but
I can't hear more than one thing at a time, if there is any mental
interpreting necessary to understand it.

[bob[_5_]]

On Sun, 3 Jul 2011 12:59:15 -0700, "Bill Graham" >
wrote:
>If I am watching the TV, and my wife starts to speak to me, I have to mute the box before I can
>understand anything she says.

is that really a 'thing' or is that just being human? i hope it's
thing! that would be amazing to finally have an excuse! ;-)

[Scott Dorsey]

bob > wrote:
>On Sun, 3 Jul 2011 12:59:15 -0700, "Bill Graham" >
>wrote:
>>If I am watching the TV, and my wife starts to speak to me, I have to mute the box before I can
>>understand anything she says.
>
>is that really a 'thing' or is that just being human? i hope it's
>thing! that would be amazing to finally have an excuse! ;-)

It's a failure of the cocktail party phenomenon. This can be the result of
poor high frequency hearing thresholds, or it can be the result of linearity
issues (where the hearing threshold stays low but the ability to pick out
levels at a given frequency is degraded) or it can be the result of damage
to the auditory cortex of the brain.

It also can be the result of hearing loss in only one ear, since the brain
uses imaging effects to pick one voice out of the clutter.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Bill Graham]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> bob > wrote:
>> On Sun, 3 Jul 2011 12:59:15 -0700, "Bill Graham" >
>> wrote:
>>> If I am watching the TV, and my wife starts to speak to me, I have
>>> to mute the box before I can understand anything she says.
>>
>> is that really a 'thing' or is that just being human? i hope it's
>> thing! that would be amazing to finally have an excuse! ;-)
>
> It's a failure of the cocktail party phenomenon. This can be the
> result of poor high frequency hearing thresholds, or it can be the
> result of linearity issues (where the hearing threshold stays low but
> the ability to pick out levels at a given frequency is degraded) or
> it can be the result of damage to the auditory cortex of the brain.
>
> It also can be the result of hearing loss in only one ear, since the
> brain uses imaging effects to pick one voice out of the clutter.
> --scott

In my case, its not hearing loss in oine ear, because I have good hearing in
both ears. Also, I have no trouble singling out one instrument in a group. I
can just listen to the bass, for example, and suppress the other instruments
in the group. but with speach, I can't do this. There is a name for this
type of hearing defect, but I don't know what it is. It can be helped with
devices that make the voice tinny or they suppress the low frequencies, but
I wouldn't want to wear something like this all the time, on the off chance
that two people try to speak to me at the same time, so these devices are
generally useless to me.

[ChrisCoaster]

On Jul 3, 6:56*pm, "Bill Graham" > wrote:
>
> In my case, its not hearing loss in oine ear, because I have good hearing in
> both ears. Also, I have no trouble singling out one instrument in a group.. I
> can just listen to the bass, for example, and suppress the other instruments
> in the group. but with speach, I can't do this. There is a name for this
> type of hearing defect, but I don't know what it is. It can be helped with
> devices that make the voice tinny or they suppress the low frequencies, but
> I wouldn't want to wear something like this all the time, on the off chance
> that two people try to speak to me at the same time, so these devices are
> generally useless to me.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
______________________
Bill: Ever heard of a "supervisor"???

I can single out one sound from many occurring simultaneously, but
with SUPERVISORS - particularly ones who think they know it all or are
God's gift - I can't do this....

;)

-CC

[bob[_5_]]

On 3 Jul 2011 17:04:01 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
>>is that really a 'thing' or is that just being human? i hope it's
>>thing! that would be amazing to finally have an excuse! ;-)
>
>It's a failure of the cocktail party phenomenon. This can be the result of
>poor high frequency hearing thresholds, or it can be the result of linearity
>issues (where the hearing threshold stays low but the ability to pick out
>levels at a given frequency is degraded) or it can be the result of damage
>to the auditory cortex of the brain.
>
>It also can be the result of hearing loss in only one ear, since the brain
>uses imaging effects to pick one voice out of the clutter.
>--scott

that's interesting stuff! i have some loss in my right ear (bass
player, too many years standing to the left of the drums...). i'm also
unfortunately missing the right eye, so living in london was a bit of
a challenge after a few pints and crossing roads... i wonder if one of
the sides of my brain is just entirely underdeveloped or something??
you should hear the left channel of my mixes! ;-)

[Mark]

>
> Irrelevant, many of the artifacts are at much lower frequencies. *In fact,
> what mp3 encoding does to the bass is one of the most annoying things to
> my mind. *Worse than the space monkeys.
>
>

really?

what do you hear wrong with the bass?

Mark

[Scott Dorsey]

Mark > wrote:
>
>> Irrelevant, many of the artifacts are at much lower frequencies. =A0In fa=
>ct,
>> what mp3 encoding does to the bass is one of the most annoying things to
>> my mind. =A0Worse than the space monkeys.
>
>really?
>
>what do you hear wrong with the bass?

With the LAME encoder, it sounds like frequency-dependent gating, although
I am pretty sure that's not what it really is.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."