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Do Long MP3s have problems?
A friend of mine downloaded an mp3 of a 20 minute audio clip. He said he could hear over modulation that got progressively worse as the piece played on. It wasn’t at the original attack of each word but seemed to follow. It was downloaded from an FTP site but I don’t know the original format. Is there a known problem or something inherent in multiple download/burns of MP3s? I know this is a little vague but maybe someone has heard of this. Kind Regards, Happy New Year! Chris K
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3 Replies
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Length should have no effect on quality.
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Well, since most songs have a build up of instruments over time that would force a higher compression on the overall track gradually, but that would be the only reason.
Vince
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The goal of modern mastering engineers is to create the hottest track possible without clipping. An interesting fact I just learned is that virtually all digital meters do not show all the possible clips since they only indicate the level of specific samples. If a clip point does not occur exactly on a sample point, but between two sample points, it will not indicate. As a result, the meter can look good, but clipping can occur. If the song was mixed by an inexperienced mixer, it’s even more likely this might occur.
In a professional studio, monitoring with oversampling reconstruction filters (the circuits that recreate the audio waveform from the samples) these clips are not heard. However, when the song hits a consumer CD or DVD player it can sound distorted because its playback circuitry can’t handle the clips. The same effect would happen when you make a mp3 from a track with clipping. Perhaps that’s what’s going on. Of course, it could also be a case of a lousy encode.
John
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