New user questions

[Hanna]

Hi! Here are some additional technical questions I have while learning to navigate wavepad!!!

 

If someone is taping audio lectures using an irivers digital recorder, are there any tips for recording that will ensure the highest quality sound. I will later be editing these audio lectures, and obviously I can’t make the edited version sound better than the original. This may sound like a funny question, but in which format do these digital recorders record the audio, is it in an uncompressed form, is there such a thing? Or it that an action you can do to the audio file (using a program) after it has been recorded in whatever format it records….

 

If I edited an audio file in an uncompressed format, and then saved it as an mp3, and subsequently realized that it needs more editing, should I resave that mp3 file as a PCM file to do the edits, or once it was already compressed as an mp3, converting it back to a PCM will also reduce quality? Which way would be most ideal to do the editing on this mp3 file?

 

Is applying noise reduction considered an editing action. In other words, if I am planning to use the noise reduction feature, is it best to do it on a file that is uncompressed. Also, would you apply the noise reduction as the first action you would do on an audio file prior to any cutting of material, or would you do it after?

 

Thank you in advance for responding to all of my queries.

[Guest nchto]

For the highest quality of sound possible from your device it's best to get an external microphone and place this close to the speaker. I'm not sure on what specific settings the iRiver digital recorders use, but it will probably save the recording as an mp3 (which is compressed audio).

 

You can open the compressed mp3 file and edit it, but if you wish to save it for further editing then you should save it as a PCM encoded WAV file (uncompressed audio) using the highest settings available. Any conversion between format types results in some audio quality loss (because the different compression algorithms will alter different sections of the audio).

 

Noise reduction is considered an editing action, yes. You should do it first (unless you are massively trimming the file, then you could it after and save yourself some computational time).

[Hanna]

Hi Nchto,

 

You wrote "You can open the compressed mp3 file and edit it, but if you wish to save it for further editing then you should save it as a PCM encoded WAV file (uncompressed audio) using the highest settings available."

 

I'm not sure I understand correctly. Shouldn't I do any editing only in PCM format. What do you mean when you write that I can edit it in mp3 format and only for further editing save as a PCM?

 

And I'm still not clear about the audio files that I already worked on - that I wrote about previously I edited them in an uncompressed format, and then saved it as an mp3, and subsequently realized that it needs more editing, should I resave that mp3 file as a PCM file to do the edits, or once it was already compressed as an mp3, converting it back to a PCM will also reduce quality? Which way would be most ideal to do the editing on this mp3 file?

[Guest nchto]

WavePad automatically converts any audio file you open to our own internal uncompressed audio format, so doing this conversion yourself is not needed. If you know you are going to work on a file again you should save it in an uncompressed (lossless) format, but if you're confident that the file you're saving is the final version then save it as whatever you wish (such as mp3). Opening a mp3 file, making changes and then saving it again as a mp3 file will result in a loss in quality, but only very minor. Doing this repeatedly however will result in a greater loss, and should be avoided.