MP3 to WAV Loop conversion problems -- added silence!!

[Marvin]

When I convert MP3 loops to WAV format for use in certain programs, unwanted silence is added to the begining and end. This of course throws off the whole timing and I have to manually tweak the loop to work using Cooledit/Audition.

1. Does anyone know why this happens?
(it seems to do this with all converters I've used).

2. Is there a way to avoid this?
(ie. a loop friendly converter, a batch script, etc.)


I've tried trimming the digital silence, but that often cuts too much.

Please help. I'm growing tired of manually fixing every loop.

Thanks!!

[MDMAchine]

Hey whats up,

First off when dealing with mp3's they always get a silence added onto the front and end of each one.

Only way to correct this, you need a sample (or loop) that is double the amount of bars so you can "chop" it out. Otherwise your wasting your time.

Rule #1 - Dont use mp3's, it is sub par in sound quality, and as you already have learned it has silence spots.

I would trash every single mp3 "sample" you have, and start getting/making WAV/AIFF samples.

If your worried about size look up FLAC for compression.

MD

[bleebsen]

MP3s are encoded in frames rather than single samples. So there is always some zero-padding occuring. This makes MP3 a bad choice for (perfectly cut) loops.

Personnaly I would not say that MP3 is not suitable for samples quality-wise.. it's more of a convenience-problem.

Best solution: get a bigger harddrive and stop worrying about compression

[Sascha Franck]

Old and wellknown problem.
Well, sometimes you can't avoid using MP3s (downloaded netstuff, collaborations, etc.), so you need to re-trim those loops.

However, in case you ever want to do some collaborations and lossless file compression (rar, FLAC, whatever) would still result in too large files, I can only recommend using either WMA or OGG - both of them won't add silence to your loops but keep their timing intact.