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Extract a portion of a song and make a new MP3 |
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I have a CD by Return to Forever
that has a great bass solo by Stanley Clarke on the the song Sometime Ago. I wanted to put this on my website as an MP3
(back when that was allowed), but the entire song is 23 minutes long, which would produce a rather large MP3, so I made an MP3 of
just the bass solo.

First I created an MP3 of the entire song with the CD ripper AudioGrabber. Then
the following steps were taken to create the extraction.
- Open up the MP3 in an audio editor (I used GoldWave).
- Locate and mark the beginning and ending positions of the portion to extract.
- Copy this portion to the clipboard.
- Paste it as a new song in the editor.
- Clean up the beginning and ending (trim, fade in/out, etc.).
- Save it as a new MP3 of just this extraction.
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Convert a record or tape to MP3 |
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Many of my generation have extensive collections of records and tapes, which can be
ripped directly with AudioGrabber or
LineRipper, converting analog to digital.
- Connect the headphone jack or line-out of the stereo system
to the line-in of the PC's sound card.
- Play the song on the stereo and record in AudioGrabber on the PC, outputting as an MP3.
- Do any cleanup (trim, noise reduction, etc.) with an audio editor like GoldWave.
- If you want the MP3 to contain song info, update the ID3 tags.
After I have created one of these MP3s I sometimes find it necessary to reduce noise, primarily hiss. I listen
to a lot of jazz, where the drummers use a lot of cymbols, and normal noise-reduction methods would remove some
of this, so what I do is "Dolbyize" it in GoldWave, i.e., I increase the high
frequencies with the equalizer, then slightly filter off the high hiss.
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Shrink an MP3 file |
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MP3 is a lossy data compression format but the files can
still get rather large. The size of an MP3 is directly proportional to its bitrate, the most common rate being 128 kbps. If I obtain an MP3 with a higher rate, even as high as 320, I convert it
to 128, sometimes getting a huge reduction in size without any noticable deterioration in sound quality.

The easiest way to convert MP3 bitrates is using an audio editor like GoldWave.

-- or --

You can do the following steps using Windows Sound Recorder.
- Create a WAV file from the MP3.
- Open up the WAV file in Windows Sound Recorder (look in Programs » Accessories » Entertainment).
- On the File menu select Save As...
- In the Save As window, locate the folder where you want to save the MP3.
- at File Name: type in the name with an ".mp3" extension
- at Save as type: select "All Files (*.*)"
- Click on the Change... button to open up the Sound Selection window.
- under Format: select "MPEG Layer-3"
- under Attributes: select the bitrate you want
- you might want to save these settings under a name like "MP3" for future use (click on Save As...)
- click on Save to close the Sound Selection window
- Click on Save in the Save As window to create the MP3 file with the above settings.
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Create a WAV file from an MP3 |
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The easiest way to do this is to open an MP3 in an editor like
GoldWave where you can simply save it
as a type WAV file.

But if you don't have GoldWave here is a more
elaborate way you can do it using Winamp.
- Open the MP3 in Winamp.
- Click on Options » Preferences...
- Under Output, select "Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in...".
- Click on the Configure button to direct the output to a specific folder.
- Close Preferences.
- Play the song (no music is heard).
- it is best if you do not have Repeat set on
Remember to switch the Output in Winamp back to "Nullsoft waveOut plug-in...".
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Suppress MP3 download prompt |
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If you are always prompted to Open or Save when you click on MP3s on
websites and you find the checkbox for "Always ask before opening this type of file"
grayed out, it is controlled by a registry setting.

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Key: DWORD: Data: |
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions
AlwaysPromptWhenDownload
1
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If you play around with this (make it 1 or 0) you can enable the checkbox again and get rid of this prompt.
Use caution when editing the Registry. Another factor in this is the default Action setting for MP3
files in Folder Options » File Types. There is more information on this
at
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 238723.
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Stream an audio file |
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Streaming allows an audio file to start playing as soon as it arrives, rather than waiting until it is completely
downloaded, which makes the size of the file irrelevant. It is fairly easy to set up. All you need to do is
create a simple metafile, which is nothing more than a text file containing a link to an audio file
on a server. Put the following line in the metafile and save it with an extension of .m3u (for MP3 files),
.ram (for realAudio files), .wmx (for .wma files), .wvx (for .wmv files), or .asx (for .asf files).

http://...URL-on-server.../audiofile.mp3 (or ./folder-name/audiofile.mp3
if on same server and even just audiofile.mp3 if in same folder)

You should replace any spaces contained in your MP3 filename with %20 (% plus the hex value for
space) in your metafile link because URLs cannot contain spaces and some music players will not handle them. (Current
browsers perform this substitution so it is unnecessary to do it on your webpage links.)

http://...URL-on-server.../The Song Title.mp3
becomes
http://...URL-on-server.../The%20Song%20Title.mp3

Multiple audio files can be streamed in a single metafile with additional lines (this is generally referred to as a 'playlist').

http://...URL-on-server.../audiofile1.mp3
http://...URL-on-server.../audiofile2.mp3

On your webpage, link to the metafile file to produce the streaming. A metafile does not have to be on a server to
produce streaming; you can play a metafile on your PC and it can stream from a remote server. The various protocols
that can be used in metafiles are "http", "rtsp", and
"mms". I haven't figured out which is used for which type of audio file so I tend to use
"http" most of the time.

Here is a more elaborate way to code a Windows Media metafile script:

<asx version = "3.0">
<entry>
<title>Song Name</title>
<ref href = "http://YourWebServer/Path/YourFile.wmv"/>
</entry>
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Save song info in ID3 tags |
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ID3 tags can be used to store information about a song (artist, song title, album, etc.) and display it when the MP3 is played.
Winamp is a good way to update these tags (right-click on the playing song in the Winamp playlist and select View
file info...). Some players don't display this information when an MP3 is streamed. If you put the file
info in the ID3v2 tag (I always update both the ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags) it will display in Windows Media Player during streaming.
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