Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

[Longblades]

I've been happily using db for some time now to convert WAVE to mp3. A few months ago I tried poweramp, it did not do what I wanted so have not bought it and the trial has expired. Now, this is very strange, but all CDs written in mp3 since then have had the echo problem.

Here's what I was doing, before and after poweramp. Moved a bunch of files to mp3Gain to volume normalize, then to audio cleaning lab 3.0 for final rice crispies check, then to a new folder in WAVE, then converted with db to mp3, then to audio cleaning labs CD burner to burn in mp3.

Many songs have an echo on playback and the vocals are the worst, particulary noticeable with one voice on high notes. But instrumental sections also echo. Get the same playback phenomenon on the computer as on the JVC mp3 player. Does not matter if the JVC player is set to POP, Classical or nothing, still get the echo although it can be reduced somewhat. The nothing setting is preferable as songs being recorded are a mix of genre and most were recorded by me from LPs.

Any ideas what could be causing this?

[Spoon]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

The only way to be sure is to listen to the tracks at each stage, echo can come if the source was 44.1KHz and was downsampled (without professional frequency conversion option on), anyway just a guess.

[Longblades]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

Huh? Most songs were converted from LP at 44.1KHZ. Is that what downsampling is? But the songs on earlier CDs were done this way too, although not the exact same song, and those CDs are OK.

What is professional frequency conversion option? And do you mean it should have been on, or should it have been off?

I have listened to songs at each stage, on the computer - no other option till they're burned. The echo is not apparent till after burned on the CD. I have a virus checker on but could some kind of virus, or something have corrupted my burner? Or the program I use to burn? I downloaded a freeware burner, (can only do WAVE), last night and made two new test CDs in WAVE from my old burner and the new one - same echo.

I really think the poweramp expiring is co-incidence but is the only thing I can think of that stands out as a before and after.

[ChristinaS]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

Ok, let me get this straight. You say the files play fine on your computer, as wav or mp3. They sound bad once burnt to cd. Is that an audio cd or an mp3 cd????

You listen to the cd on your pc and it sounds bad. I'd say perhaps your Voume control settings are not right. Open that and make sure that for playback you don't have something like microphone or auxiliary on.

Maybe your sound card and/or speakers are also faulty.

Burner problems will usually result in skips or totally unreadble disc, not altered sound. Unless mayeb you also have very poor quality blank cd's, but I've yet to run into anyhting that bad. Usually they just don't play or skip. If you burn at a high speed, that can easily happen.

What I don't get is why your JVC mp3 player is also showing the same problem, unless it too has hiccups.

Downsampling actually refers to a lowering of the frequency in conversion, like going from standard audio at 44.1KHz down to 22KHz or lower, maybe also combined with going down from 16-bit audio to 8-bit audio, etc.

If you compress a lot, like say making an mp3 or a wma at 32kbps from a good 16-bit stereo, 44.1KHz wav, you will notice a distinct deterioration, usually a metallic or water gurgling sound. But you'd hear that on your pc as you play the file from the hard disk as well, not just once it's in a cd player.

[xoas]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

I am a bit confused about the process here. As I understand it, you:
1. Are recording lps to your hard drive,
2. converting them to mp3 (although from your interface it may look like you are recording them to mp3),
3. you are using mp3gain to normalize the volume;
4. used audio cleaner 3 to further improve the files;
5. take the resulting wav files and using dBpowerAMP Music Converter (dMC) to convert them to mp3 again;
6. then using audio cleaner to burn these mp3 files to disc.

Is this essentially correct? If so, what program do you use to record the lp to your hard drive and do you record first as wav and then convert to mp3 or do you let the program do this in a virtual one-step operation? Do you convert your mp3 files to wav before their pass through audio cleaner 3 or not?

It does seem to me that were I in your shoes I would prefer to record lp to wav, polish up the wav files with audio cleaner, convert them to mp3, use mp3Gain to normalize the volume and then burn the mp3 tracks. This would reduce some of the back and forth transcoding that appears to be taking place here. It would also reduce the risk of having successive layers of gain and other digital manipulation interact in non-productive ways. I think ChristinaS. is right to suggest looking at your mp3 bitrate and frequency settings.

I do think that Spoon has a good recommendation regarding systematically trying to single out the source(s) for your problem. You could first start by burning some wav files. Then try converting the files to mp3 and burning them. Then try converting them to mp3, applying mp3Gain and burning them. Then cleaning the wav files, converting to mp3, applying mp3Gain and then burning them.
Then, if you can identify a particular stage at which this distortion begins, start backing off the previous measures (but not the most recently added). So if you followed the process I suggested and the distortion only appeared AFTER you cleaned up the wav files, first take out mp3Gain, then take out the conversion to mp3. This would help identify any interactive effects (say mp3Gain alone and audio cleaner alone may be ok but not in combination).

Since you did have the trial Power Pack and it expired, do you still have a spot on your dMC window for DSP effects? If you should (you may well not), click on this and make sure that no DSP effects are selected (since you cannot use them anyway). I would also take a look at your mp3 settings (frequency, bitrate, number of channels) and I would look at any settings you have enbled in audio cleaner for your cleaning and/or for your burning to make sure you have not enabled effects that you had forgotten about.

Keep us posted. I'll be interested in knowing how this mystery plays out.
Best wishes,
Bill Mikkelsen

[Longblades]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

It has been a while but I am still having this problem. In the meantime I have recorded several hundred songs from tapes into wave format using Audio Cleaning Lab 3. Recorded in stereo at 44.1 kHZ. Cleaned out the rice crispies, stretched and shortened some times while in wave. Files sound great, even better than the original tapes, some of which were old and dirty and stretched. Played on WMA media player 10 and on jukebox supplied with audio cleaning lab. Did not make CDs.

Converted to mp3 with following settings: Min 192 kbps - max 320 kbps, stereo, 44100 Hz, Not vol Normalized, Yes preserve ID tags, variable bit rate, quality high, set bits- original. Saved in new file and did not destroy original wave files. Then applied mp3 Gain to 86 db.

If anything the echo is even worse when played as above than it was when recording from LPs. Is very noticeable on Windows player. Have echo before and after applying mp3GAin. This is old skating music I'm copying for a friend. Some songs have been copied over many, many times and were poor quality to begin with, particularly some of the old organ recordings, and they sound the worst after conversion to mp3. Now instrumentals sound just as bad as vocals. Or maybe my ear is just more attuned to this phenomenon.

No doubt there is some glaring error that I am making in my procedure. Does the above give anyone enough information to help pinpoint a cause and a cure?

[neilthecellist]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

erm.....Did you follow the LONG DETAILED procedures to troubleshoot your problem in the 4 posts posted above?

[Longblades]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

Yes. That's why I specified what steps I am taking.

Everything is fine in wave in the first recording. Sounds great.

Convert to mp3 - get echo. Run mp3Gain on mp3 files, still have echo. Am not downsampling.

[ChristinaS]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

Yes. That's why I specified what steps I am taking.

Everything is fine in wave in the first recording. Sounds great.

Convert to mp3 - get echo. Run mp3Gain on mp3 files, still have echo. Am not downsampling.

Do you have some equalizer settings in your player? Like maybe meant to compensate for possible loss of bass?

[Longblades]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

I do, but they are turned off. Am not using bass boost on the JVC player either. Have not tried this latest batch of songs on the JVC yet.

Some songs had heavy bass and I suspect it was boosted when the tape I used was made. Boosting the bass makes the beat easier for skaters to hear when played in an arena. I was not able to achieve many modifications on these songs without boosting the bass even more so did not tamper with them as much. Even so, those songs are in the minority and it is just about every song that has noticeable echo.

[ChristinaS]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

You'll have to face the fact that maybe conversion to mp3 does not work too well on those audio files, for whatever reasons. Why don't you just keep them as wav and burn audio cd's with them? This way you get and preserve the best quality that you can from your audio transfers.

I am concerned that maybe you have DSP effects that you may have forgotten all about, sneaking up on you when you attempt the conversion.

[neilthecellist]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

Speaking of which, ChristinaS is right in her last post (post #11) by saying that you should not convert to MP3 and then burn it to audio CD. It would be much more wise to keep the WAV and burn that to audio CD; this is because like what ChristinaS said above:

This way you get and preserve the best quality that you can from your audio transfers.

True. Totally true. When you convert it down to mp3 you lose quality (a LOT since mp3 is just a piece of s t codec ) and burning those mp3s just makes them convert to WAV again temporarily (even though you don't see it during the burning process) without increasing quality.

Conclusion: Stick to the WAVs originally and burn those to cd.

[Longblades]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

Thanks all, for your help. Guess I will have to increase my hard drive space and find a cheap source of CDs in order to store all those wave files. One thing I have yet to try is converting the wave files to WMA files. There is no mp3Gain program for WMA files though, at least I haven't found one. That's not true, I did find one but I read reviews that said it did not work very well. I don't know if WMA will play at the arena, even if I take my own player.

It is nice to have all the 2,000 (and growing) music files at the same volume so playlists can be arranged by people without access to the computer. My goal was to have all the music on CDs in mp3 format so our music man could just copy songs from CD to tape without having to make volume adjustments. Does anyone know if there is a boombox type player that allows dubbing from CD to tape and allows the individual song files on the CD to be boosted in volume, if needed? My JVC does the dubbing but not the vol. adjustments.

[iTunesIsEvil]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

Guess I will have to increase my hard drive space and find a cheap source of CDs in order to store all those wave files. One thing I have yet to try is converting the wave files to WMA files. There is no mp3Gain program for WMA files though, at least I haven't found one. That's not true, I did find one but I read reviews that said it did not work very well. I don't know if WMA will play at the arena, even if I take my own player.

If you're thinking about a format outside of MP3, and youre looking for something with a Volume-Normalize or gain feature, then check out iTunes. There are options in it to normalize volume for burning a cd, importing cds, and for individual songs themselves. You could also save yourself some space by using the AAC or M4A formats, both of which play in iTunes. Since a 128kbps M4A/AAC is roughly (IMO) a little better quality than a <192kbps MP3 you'll save maybe a couple MB per song. Which if you've got a couple hundred songs would be helpful.

[neilthecellist]

Re: Echo in Vocal mp3s after conversion from WAVE

Whoa wait a minute iTunesIsEvil, your user name says it all; iTunes is evil! Why mp4/aac?

You should also try the ogg vorbis codec for your CD burning.