Need to edit a MP3, what software?

Magic_x_uk · 21 Mar 2011 at 22:24

Hi need to edit a couple of MP3's, basically want to trim parts of them here and there.

Any good free software out there please?

thank you

aaron333 · 21 Mar 2011 at 22:26

Try Audacity.

MarcLister · 21 Mar 2011 at 22:40

aaron333 said:
Try Audacity.

This. Fantastic bit of software. And its free! Make sure you download the LAME MP3 plugin so you can export your finished file to MP3.

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

Magic_x_uk · 21 Mar 2011 at 22:41

aaron333 said:
Try Audacity.

did the job fine,thank you

CaptainCrash · 21 Mar 2011 at 22:46

Audacity will decode your MP3s to PCM format for editing purposes before re-encoding them back to MP3, so you'll lose quality through second-generation lossy encoding.

If you just need to perform basic trimming operations, use an editor that can work on the MP3 frames directly without having to re-encode, eg mp3DirectCut - by necessity it doesn't have Audacity's feature set, but it should be fine for your requirements.

Magic_x_uk · 21 Mar 2011 at 22:54

just a couple of songs i wanted as 'ring tones' for my mobile. Audacity sorted it. God enough for my use on this type of occasion.

Thanks you everyone

MikeHunt79 · 21 Mar 2011 at 22:57

CaptainCrash said:
Audacity will decode your MP3s to PCM format for editing purposes before re-encoding them back to MP3, so you'll lose quality through second-generation lossy encoding.

If you just need to perform basic trimming operations, use an editor that can work on the MP3 frames directly without having to re-encode, eg mp3DirectCut - by necessity it doesn't have Audacity's feature set, but it should be fine for your requirements.

+1 MP3directcut is ideal, do you know if there is a similar tool for OGG files?

CaptainCrash · 21 Mar 2011 at 23:06

MikeHunt79 said:
+1 MP3directcut is ideal, do you know if there is a similar tool for OGG files?

musiCutter apparently supports oggs, although I've haven't used it personally so can't vouch for its effectiveness.

EniGmA1981 · 22 Mar 2011 at 06:15

This brings me back round to why I use JetAudio as my media player... it has an mp3 editor built in

can trim the start/end / crop sections out of the middle / change the bitrate (useful as my old SEM-C510 couldn't play anything over 128kbps and my mp3 collection is mostly 320kbps lol) and you can save it as many different formats too

Gamefreak501 · 22 Mar 2011 at 10:22

I use Audacity - especially useful when I create a music track on Ableton Live, export it as WAV then Audacity will allow me to fade etc. before I can save as an mp3 to make it more portable.