Choosing Min/Max VBR bitrates in dBpowerAMP

[radunn]

I am working with LONG MP3 files. What I am doing is making cuts to create seperate songs. My questions concerning using min/max bitrates in dPowerAMP. Should the maximum be equal to the orginal MP3 bitrate; what about the minimum?

Also, should I convert the MP3 to WAV before making the cuts or does it not matter? In advance, thanks.. :blush:

[xoas]

Re: Choosing Min/Max VBR bitrates in dBpowerAMP

Also, should I convert the MP3 to WAV before making the cuts or does it not matter? In advance, thanks..

This may depend upon the program you are using to split up your long tracks. Some programs may only do this with wav files, other programs may be able to do this directly with the mp3 files. If this works, I would recommend not converting to wav first if you don't have to.

As for the bitrates, if you can split the long mp3 files without converting them I would recommend you try leaving the bitrate as is. If you have to convert, try converting to same bitrates as source. If you have to convert your mp3 to split them, then it should not make a difference whether you convert to wav first or not.

You will not improve quality by increasing the bitrate but you will decrease quality by reducing bitrate (although depending on a variety of factors, this decrease may be meaningless).

BTW, what program are you using for your splitting?

Best wishes,
Bill Mikkelsen

[radunn]

Re: Choosing Min/Max VBR bitrates in dBpowerAMP

This may depend upon the program you are using to split up your long tracks. Some programs may only do this with wav files, other programs may be able to do this directly with the mp3 files. If this works, I would recommend not converting to wav first if you don't have to.

I'm using Cool Edit Pro for splitting the files. The reasoning for converting is that I was told that reencoding an already compressed file is not best. So I figured that WAV is lossless.

You will not improve quality by increasing the bitrate but you will decrease quality by reducing bitrate (although depending on a variety of factors, this decrease may be meaningless).

The uncut MP3 was encoded via VBR; averaging 141kbps. After cutting/converting the MP3 to WAV and back to MP3 initially I used VBR at 112min/160max. Although it was encoded as VBR it remained at 160kbps throughout. Not until I encoded at 128min / 224max did it flucuate resulting in a higher range kbps average. Hope this made/makes sense :komisch9:

radunn