How to create and edit MP3's

MP3 is a type of compression. The term has been used so much with music files
that it is synonymous with them: MP3 players, MP3 music, iPod's etc. What MP3
really is; is a method that allows sound files to be compressed down to a size
that allows them to be used, and stored on computers.

The basic format for sound files is a .WAV file. If you take an average song
from a CD and turn that song into a .WAV file so that it can be played on your
computer without the CD having to be in the drive, the size of that file will
be a little more than 40 megs. An album gets up to 480. Three albums and you
are over a Gig. Doesn't take much math to realize that WAV files are not the
way to go. Even for digital recorders, for dictation notes, in .WAV format are
simply too large to be of much use off our own computers. Five minutes and the
file is 50 megs. Can't send that through the email, and you can't store many
of them on your computer.

Compressing that 40 meg .WAV file brings the size down to about 4 megs. We
can use files of that size. We can record the kids reading a story to send to
relatives, compress the file into an MP3, and post it on a web site, or even
email it to them. Saving the file is also less of an issue.

There are plenty of articles on the web about the copyright issues involved
with creating MP3's from music CD's. I strongly suggest reading them.

I own, literally hundreds of music CD's, however being able to create music
lists which are days long is much more appealing than most CD players can manage.
So I rip the songs into MP3's and play them on my computer. There are several
good programs available for accomplishing this task. The one I use is called
CDex



CDex is an OpenSource
project distributed for free. Download and install the CDex software on to your
computer, and you are ready to begin creating MP3 files. It is a very easy software
program to learn, but we will go through some of the features here. There is
also some detailed instructions on this
website.



The first thing we want to do is to setup the CDDB. This is a public database
of thousands of CD's, and the names of the songs or tracks that are on them.
This will save you hours of time. Without this database, we would have to type
in all of the information ourselves.

The database is free, all they ask is that you put in a valid email address.
This is not used for spam, but if you are skitish on this issue, give them a
free email address from hotmail or something of that nature.

Here is the setup.

As you can see, you simply go under Options->Settings and select the Remote
CDDB tab. Here you put in your email address, and send the ping to the web site.
You don't need to put in the SMTP information. Once this is setup, you can click
the CDDB button, and the program will query the database, and download the song
list for each track. Sometimes you might get two or three choices. This is because
the database is created and maintained by public voleeters. If there is not
a listing for the CD you have, it is good form to fill out the information and
submit it to the database, so that others can use your efforts as well.

Once we have this information, we can then choose the songs we wish to create
MP3's for. You don't have to do all of the songs. Since the process is very
resource intensive, it is probably better that you don't, and simply choose
the songs you really wish to have. If you want the whole CD, choose them all,
start the MP3 compression process, and sit down to diner with your favorite
show.

The MP3 files, by default, are placed inside your My Documents folder, under
My Music->MP3. From there, by default, they will be under Artist Name, then
Album, under which you will have the songs. This is a pretty good system, but
you can change it to various other methods. If you only have a small collection,
it won't matter much, but when it grows to as many as I have, then a good folder
system becomes a necessity.

Now that we have MP3 files, lets look at editing them, or creating files of
our own.



I've talked about Audacity before.
It is a great sound editor, and I find it easier to use than SoundForge, or
some of the other software packages out there on the market. Much less expensive
as well.

Audacity doesn't come with the
LAME library however, so we need to set that up for editing and saving MP3 files.
We'll do that, and set up our speakers and microphone as well.

Under *Edit->Preferences we find the File Formats Tab. Near the bottom of
this tab sheet we see the MP3 Export Setup. What it wants here is the location
of our LAME library file. Lucky for us, we just happen to have this file, it
was installed with our CDex software. So we point to that file, and now we can
work with MP3 compression.

Going to the Audio I/O tab we can set our In-Put and Out-Put requirements.
If you don't have a microphone, then you won't be able to record anything. I
use my USB headset microphone for recording, but prefer to hear the edited files
with my external speakers. Your settings may be different. The rest of the features
we will leave alone for another day.

*Note: Under previous versions the Preferences option was
located under the File Menu. In the New version, the Preferences is under the
Edit menu. This is why you will see in the demo I go under File, but the written
instructions say to go under the Edit. The rest of the instructions are exactly
the same.

Now that we have Audacity setup, we can start using it. You can import an MP3
file from under the File Menu, or just drag one over the program and drop it.

The file I have here is a song that is in the public domain (Snake Like Charm::
Responsible For), and I really like the beginning blues/bayou rifts that compose
the intro to the song. I want to use this as the beginning of some of my Pod
Cast files on my website, where I talk about various Internet Marketing subjects.

I only want the beginning of the song. So I'm going to edit it, by cutting
out the parts I don't want. After that I'm going to use the Effect "Fade
Out" to have the song segment from where I cut fade the song out, rather
than just ending abruptly.

Now that I have this segment, I'm going to save that as intro.mp3 so that I
can import it later, to put at the beginning of my voice lectures and pod casts.

I then record a voice segment. Add my intro.mp3, Match them up, and save the
whole file, which of course you have been listening too if you have speakers
on right now (replay the flash demo if you missed that part).

You will notice that saving files as MP3's and working on them takes quite
a bit of time. Having a good amount of RAM is always nice. Otherwise, edit files
and work on them during periods of time where you aren't rushed ('cause, its
going to take some time).

The way you line up tracks is to go under the Project menu, and Align them.
You can use your cursor as the alignment, or a numeric alignment. I find it
is easiest to click on the track, where I want to sound to begin, then choose
Align to Cursor.

Tracks have their own sound file, and their own volume controls over on the
side, so if you want some type of back ground music behind your vocal track,
go to Project, Import and Import the sound file you want, then use the volume
slider to turn the sound down.

There are several effects, which I encourage you to spend some time getting
to know. They are very helpful at times it getting a sound file to that point
of Just Right.

Last Halloween I purchased a sound effects CD, and then mixed the screams and
howls with the music we were going to have at the party. Using the effects I
turned some rather dull screams, into some rather horrifying ones. So get in
there and learn them.

Something we need to also be aware of is the Bit Rate.

Bitrate : Average number of bits that one second of audio
data will transmit.

A good sound file, in MP3 compression is going to be 224kBits , however an
MP3 file that we are going to use for the Web (because we want the smallest
file possible) is probably going to be rendered down to 32 kBits. This is gong
to make a smaller file, but the sound quality is also going to take a hit. If
you are using MP3's for Flash projects, again you are looking at using 32kBits,
to 128kBits. Any more than this, isn't going to come across very well.

The difference in size we are looking at here is 3 Megs vs. 1/2 meg. The flash
player up there is playing at 32kBits, This file (right click and Save As to
download) is set at 224kBits, so you can check the sound quality. The Bit Rate
Compression is set in the Preferences area, in the File Formats tab, right where
we set the LAME library earlier.

While the sound quality for music will suffer a great deal (as you experienced
with the intro music coming through the Flash file), voice quality is still
pretty good down at 32kBits. This also allows very small files. You really don't
want music compression any lower than 128kBits. I don't mind it so much for
my intro music, because bluesy guitar and scratchy sounds go together.