Mp3DirectCut
Encyclopedia
mp3DirectCut is a lossless editor for MP3
(and to a degree, MP2
) audio files, able to provide cuts and crops, copy and paste, gain and fades to audio files without having to decode or re-encode the audio. By modifying the global gain field of each frame of MPEG audio, the volume of that frame can be modified without altering the audio data itself. This allows for rapid, lossless MP3 audio editing that does not degrade the data from re-encoding.
mp3DirectCut provides audio normalization and pause (silence) detection, and can split long recordings into separate files based on cue points in the audio, such as those provided by pause detection. mp3DirectCut can also record audio directly to MP3 from the computer's sound card input.
All audio operations are performed using frame manipulation so, as such, mp3DirectCut is not a waveform editor. Audio clean-up such as click, hiss and noise removal is not possible.
Unimplemented features
Possible introduction of error
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
(and to a degree, MP2
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II
MPEG-1 Audio Layer II or MPEG-2 Audio Layer II is a lossy audio compression format defined by ISO/IEC 11172-3 alongside MPEG-1 Audio Layer I and MPEG-1 Audio Layer III...
) audio files, able to provide cuts and crops, copy and paste, gain and fades to audio files without having to decode or re-encode the audio. By modifying the global gain field of each frame of MPEG audio, the volume of that frame can be modified without altering the audio data itself. This allows for rapid, lossless MP3 audio editing that does not degrade the data from re-encoding.
mp3DirectCut provides audio normalization and pause (silence) detection, and can split long recordings into separate files based on cue points in the audio, such as those provided by pause detection. mp3DirectCut can also record audio directly to MP3 from the computer's sound card input.
All audio operations are performed using frame manipulation so, as such, mp3DirectCut is not a waveform editor. Audio clean-up such as click, hiss and noise removal is not possible.
Features
- An MP3 file can be edited without the data loss that would occur by expanding it to WAV format, editing, then recompressing it to MP3
- Cut, copy, paste, and volume change operations are provided; edits can be previewed, including a command that plays a segment without a selected region (previewing a cut)
- Audio normalization and pause detection
- MP3 recording with ACM or LAMELAMELAME is a free software codec used to encode/compress audio into the lossy MP3 file format.-History:The name LAME is a recursive acronym for "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder". Around mid-1998, Mike Cheng created LAME 1.0 as a set of modifications against the "8Hz-MP3" encoder source code...
encoder (not bundled) - Fast MP3 visualization
- Supports Layer 2 (DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
/DVB audio) - Includes a tag editorTag editorA tag editor is a piece of software that supports editing metadata of multimedia file formats, rather than the actual file content...
for ID3v1 tags - Cue sheet support with auto cue (track division by time values)
- Track splitting with filename and ID3v1.1 tag creation
- VU meterVU meterA VU meter is often included in audio equipment to display a signal level in Volume Units; the device is sometimes also called volume indicator ....
, bitrate visualization - Supported on all versions of Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
from 95 through 7; certain modes can be invoked from the command line - Unobtrusive: The installation file (as of February, 2009) is 190 Kbytes; the installed program occupies a single directory (with one subdirectory for non-English help files, which can be deleted if not needed); the program does not modify the Windows Registry; a user's manual and a page of Frequently Asked Questions is included in the installation
- The edited file can be used as a ringtone on mobile phones
Limitations
Granularity limitations- Edit positions in the file can only be placed at the start of an MP3 frame (of which there are typically about 38 per second).
- Gains and fades are limited to 1.5 dB steps, as they are achieved by modifying the value of the MP3 frame's 8-bit global gain field.
Unimplemented features
- ID3v2 tags cannot be read, and if they are written out, they contain the incorrect song length if the length is modified.
- The documentation warns that navigating a song does not, in all cases, land on the start of an MP3 frame. The documentation does not guarantee correct results in all cases.
- The documentation is adequate but does not cover all cases.
Possible introduction of error
- Increasing the audio volume can lead to distortion if, on playback, multiplying the audio data by the global gain may increase the volume past its clippingClipping (audio)Clipping is a form of waveform distortion that occurs when an amplifier is overdriven and attempts to deliver an output voltage or current beyond its maximum capability...
threshold. Audio recordings that use Compressed audioAudio level compressionDynamic range compression, also called DRC or simply compression reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or "compressing" an audio signal's dynamic range...
to cap the overall volume may have already adjusted the global gain field. This may limit the ability to further amplify the recording with MP3DirectCut without causing clipping.
See also
- MP3GainMP3GainMP3Gain is an audio normalization software tool. The tool is available on multiple platforms and is free software. It analyzes the MP3 and reversibly changes its volume. The volume can be adjusted for single files or as album where all files would have the same perceived loudness...
, a lossless MP3 normalizer for Windows and Mac OS that uses the ReplayGain algorithm - mp3spltMp3spltLibmp3splt is a free digital audio splitter library that runs on Linux, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The source code for libmp3splt is released under the GNU General Public License. Libmp3splt is a library based on mp3splt...
- mp3 splitter