Q: What bit rate should I use for balance between quality and filesize?
A: Depends oh how sensitive ur ears are. But if u want my suggestion, 192kbps (constant) is a good setting.
Q: What bit rate should I use for best quality? I don't care about the filesize!
A: U can always use 320kbps if u really don't care how big the mp3 file gets. Question is, can u really
hear the diff between 256kbps or lower bit rates and 320kbps mp3 files? If so, then go ahead and encode at 320kbps. If you
want my suggestion, 256kbps is enough!
Q: Will converting my low quality mp3's to wav then encode it back to mp3 at
a higher bit rate increase its sound quality?
A: Nope! B'coz there's not enough samples to fill the
additional bit rate u specified.
Q: What encoder should I use?
A: I highly recommend
that u use "LAMEenc".
Q: Should I or should I not normalize my mp3's?
A: I
do not recommend normalizing. It might cause ur mp3's to sound muffled or produce clipping sounds/distortion. But if u know
exactly what ur doing, or have a software that normalizes files w/o clipping (eg. Audiograbber) or able to detect whether
clipping will occur (eg. MP3gain) then go ahead.
Q: Is there a better mp3 player than winamp?
A: Non
that I could think off. But I personally like "WMP 7's" Bass amplification quality, it's better than winamp IMHO! But of course
its ur ears that should decide w/c player is better in terms of quality.
Q: What 'burning program' burns mp3's directly to cda format?
A:
Nero and Adaptec are two of the most popular.
Q:How do i remove gaps between tracks when encoding mp3's?
A:
I don't recommend that u edit/remove silence with mp3's since we all want to have a 'exact' replica of the original song.
But if u really want to have the gaps between tracks removed, simply dl "gapless output" plug-in for winamp.
Q: I have a good quality speaker and sound card. And 128kbps MP3's sound good
to me!?
A: I'm not surprised since some folks are born to have more sensitive ears than others.
Q: Difference between average and peak normalizing?
A:
Peak normalizing is from the word itself, adjusts the peak of the song to the setting/value u want. Average on the other hand
is the total loudness/softness of the song and is IMO better than peak normalizing as long as u do
not enable/use "compression". Avg. Normalizing is not available with most softwares as peak normalizing though,
one software that has Avg. Normalizing feature is Audiograbber.
Q: Why do u recommend VBR over CBR when almost all mp3's I dl off the net is
at a constant bit rate?
A: I recommend that setting for the ff reasons: First is b'coz it saves u
disk space cause it lowers the bitrate on some part of the songs, on soft and silent part of the songs. Second is b'coz u
can ctrl the quality of ur mp3's by specifying the min/max kbps (ABR). Third is b'coz unlike other progs like Audiocatalyst,
CDex (LAME) is optimized for VBR encoding.
Q: Some of my encoded mp3's are stuttering! How do I fix that?
A:
The only way to fix that is to encode the mp3 again and/or encode using a lower cd-read speed.
Q: Is "Joint Stereo" better than "Stereo" mode?
A: Yes, but only if
u'r using LAME encoder. If u'r using an encoder other than LAME (fraunhofer, blade, etc), use "stereo" mode instead. Just
make sure that u'r mp3's are encoded on an at least 192kbps setting, if not, a lot of sound artifacts will be produced.
Q: Does the quality or cd-rom drive speed has an effect
on my encoded file/s quality?
A: Yes, but only if ur source disc is scratched and
causing ur encoded files to contain jitter errors. There are certain brands (eg. Asustek) that can handle and correct
errors due to scratches better than others. You can alleviate the problem by lowering down the cd-rom cache and/or speed
inside control panel's system settings ... or by using EAC. And there are times where CD-RW's will be able to read a heavily
scratched or damaged disc better than a CD-ROM drive.
Q: Is there a loss in quality when I directly copy my
Audio CD's to another disc?
A: It depends ... If ur system is fast enough to write/copy
the disc "on-the-fly" w/o causing the recorded disc to contain jitter errors ... then the answer is No. If jitter errors becomes
a problem, then I recommend saving the source disc/s info on ur HD first as an "image" (if possible) or RIP it (to
wav file and not "encode" it to mp3) before burning as an Audio CD/CDA.
Q: Is there a loss in quality when normalizing MP3's?
A: Yes, that is if ur not using programs that directly
normalize files w/o converting them first to wav. MP3 gain is a very useful "lossless" mp3 normalization software that can
be downloaded here: http://www.geocities.com/mp3gain/
Q: I've heard there's this MAD decoder that produces
better sound quality than Winamp's default decoder. Any info on this decoder?
A: Yes! I also have a guide on how to configure the
said decoder. Please check my "Sound Quality" guide for more info.
Q: Is there an easier way of renaming
and updating/editing my mp3 files/id3tags? I have lots of mp3's and doing it manually eats up a lot of time!
A: Yes there is! There's a program called Tag&Rename
w/c can really shorten the time it takes to rename files and udpate/edit ID3 tags. It has the ability to edit/update/erase
ID3v1 and v2 tags, and automatically "mass" rename ur mp3 files to fit ur liking in a click of a button! U can d/l the program
(shareware) here: http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm
Q: I have downloaded a couple of MP3's using Kazaa,
and some of them have hissing/scratching noises. Is it caused by my media player? I already tried downloading the same file
again but the problem is still there.
A: RIAA is one of the primary suspect on this kind of
problem when downloading music from Kazaa. It is adviced that u do not download
songs when the amount of source is sky rocketing (eg. 50 and up). The more number of sources, the bigger chance of having
one of those faulty MP3's. Alternatively, u may want to try other P2P progs or better yet mIRC.
Q: I have normalized multiple songs comin' out from
different albums, but some of them still sound lower than the rest. I have already used average normalizing and it still didn't
do the trick.
A: Some songs/albums juz doesn't sound as good/loud
as the others. You may have increased the volume, but sometimes what ur hearing is not the track having low volume, but its quality.
Some tracks sounds like the band is singing inside a bathroom, some in an open area, some in a studio etc. So even if their
loudness is exactly the same, how u perceive the loudness due to the quality and environmental effect of the recording will
make u feel that they still do not have the same loudness rating.
