Converting mp3 to .wav----sounds shrill afterwards

Ronald1973

Ronald1973

8-trackin', Hank, Sr. man
A while back a friend gave me a ton of old radio shows-mainly Grand Ole Opry, Louisiana Hayride, and Country Music USA type stuff. Each show was one mp3 file; I wanted to break them up into tracks, so I used Polderbits Sound Editor, a program I've used for years. Instead of saving them again as mp3, I decided to go with .wav so as to avoid further degrading the sound. Yikes! What I got was a shrill sounding mess that is practically unlistenable! Any suggestions?
 
I realize this is kind of against the spirit of what you're doing... But if they're already in mp3, might as well keep them in their native format (as you received them). Codec conversations could be an unnecessary complication
 
As long as you don't change the bit rate leave them as MP3 files. You can't get back what isn't there anymore. Saving them as wav files is a waste of space.
 
Ronald1973 said:
A while back a friend gave me a ton of old radio shows-mainly Grand Ole Opry, Louisiana Hayride, and Country Music USA type stuff. Each show was one mp3 file; I wanted to break them up into tracks, so I used Polderbits Sound Editor, a program I've used for years. Instead of saving them again as mp3, I decided to go with .wav so as to avoid further degrading the sound. Yikes! What I got was a shrill sounding mess that is practically unlistenable! Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Don't upconvert. Keep the files in mp3 format.
 
JoeESP9 said:
As long as you don't change the bit rate leave them as MP3 files. You can't get back what isn't there anymore. Saving them as wav files is a waste of space.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I understand you're not going to "replace" anything that is no longer present. I have heard mp3's that were saved again as an mp3 file and it sounded terrible. I will try saving them as an mp3 file and see if I lose any sound. If I do, I guess I'll leave them as is.
 
If they are already MP3 files why are you re-encoding them as the same type? Leave them as they are. Just play and/or copy them wherever you want.
 
Not familiar with that software but it wouldn't surprise me if they are trying to add in something to supposedly make it sound better.

I agree with the others to leave it as is if you want to listen to it on the computer. If you want them in WAV format to listen to them on another device that doesn't play MP3s, something like CDex doesn't add anything in doing MP3 to WAV conversion and the WAV files sound just like the MP3 files.
 
If you're burning them to CD you can EQ out the sound somewhat before saving as a wav. It should be under the advanced tab in your editor.
 
cratz2 said:
Not familiar with that software but it wouldn't surprise me if they are trying to add in something to supposedly make it sound better.

I agree with the others to leave it as is if you want to listen to it on the computer. If you want them in WAV format to listen to them on another device that doesn't play MP3s, something like CDex doesn't add anything in doing MP3 to WAV conversion and the WAV files sound just like the MP3 files.
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You can choose to equalize if you want to, but I choose to leave it natural.
 
Hrmm... I don't know then. I have converted many MP3s to WAV and burned them to CDs using CDex and all of them sounded exactly as they did as when they were in MP3 format. None were brighter or harsher or more shrill after the conversion.
 
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I would think any CD burner that can rip tracks and reassemble and burn a CD could do that. My Windows laptop can do it with no problem. Is there something special about mp3DirectCut?
 
It allows you to cut a large MP3 file into smaller segments without any conversions.
 
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Let me restate what I'm trying to do before I give anything else a try. Obviously "live" radio programs would have been a combo of talk and music. I want to separate everything into tracks, not segments. If Roy Acuff is introducing Hank Williams who is going to sing "Move it on Over," I want to split off the intro and the song itself into one track. If Minnie Pearl is telling a joke, I want to to break that off into its own track.
 
Use Audacity. Import the files. Edit them and split them up as desired (visually, as well as audibly). Export the tracks to whatever format you wish.

Enjoy,
Rich P
 
pustelniakr said:
Use Audacity. Import the files. Edit them and split them up as desired (visually, as well as audibly). Export the tracks to whatever format you wish.
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But the source files are MP3. Audacity and any other normal audio editor cannot do that without either saving to a lossless format like WAV or FLAC and thus wasting disk space, or re-encoding into MP3 or another compressed format again, causing a loss of quality.

Being able to losslessly edit MP3 files is the best choice in this case, but only a few applications can do it, such as:

mp3DirectCut: http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html
mpTrim: https://www.mptrim.com/
X-Wave MP3 Cutter/Joiner: https://x-wave-mp3-cutter-joiner.en.uptodown.com/windows
WavePad Sound Editor: http://help.nchsoftware.com/help/en/wavepad/win/losslessmp3.html
MP3 Trimmer (for Mac): http://deepniner.net/mp3trimmer
Rogue Amoeba Fission (for Mac): http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission
 
I use program called Easy CD-DA Extractor (Version 9.0.2) to convert mp3 to wav (for music which I can only find as mp3, unfortunatelly). I tried many programs in last 17 years, Easy CD-DA is the best for me. After converting to wav, I record it to CD on 2x speed. I use very old (made around 1999) TEAC recorder in my PC and a final result is excellent. If the mp3 is of the highest quality, after I convert and record it, it's often indistinguishable from original CD.
 
vwestlife said:
But the source files are MP3. Audacity and any other normal audio editor cannot do that without either saving to a lossless format like WAV or FLAC and thus wasting disk space, or re-encoding into MP3 or another compressed format again, causing a loss of quality.
Click to expand...
I use Audacity to master my 2 daily radio shows. I am familiar with its capabilities. If your version does not understand MP3 (not likely), install the appropriate plug-in. In any case, import the mp3 file, edit as desired, and export back in the format you wish. I import 10 large mp3 files per week, edit them, and export them as wav files, so it can be easily done.

Rich P
 
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