[vox-tech] Mp3 Stereo to mono

[Nick Schmalenberger]

> Message: 6
> Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 22:24:37 -0700
> From: Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>
> Subject: Re: [vox-tech] Mp3 Stereo to mono
> To: lugod's technical discussion forum <vox-tech at lists.lugod.org>
> Message-ID: <4494E395.6040102 at dcn.davis.ca.us>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> Re: [vox-tech] Mp3 Stereo to mono
> Alex Mandel wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > Any suggestions on this are quite welcome, keep in mind that these audio 
> > files are for analysis of bird songs in a scientific setting so any 
> > alteration of the actual original audio is unacceptable as we might lose 
> > valuable information from filters and adjustments.
> 
> If authenticity is so important, why are you using MP3 in the first
> place?
> 
> It seems you have already accepted some level of filtering ... so the
> best you can do is avoid changing the encoding.  I am pretty sure that
> stereo encoding combines the channels to maximize compression, so the
> resulting mp3 of one channel will have to be re-compressed, which will
> inevitably lose information.
> 
> Anyway, Audacity should be able to do what you want, though I am not
> sure how scriptable it is.
> 
I agree that mp3 seems somewhat inappropriate. As for the editing,
audacity can do this easily, but it may not work well for large files
because it keeps the entire audio data uncompressed while you are
working on it. You should look at sox, which will also be helpful if you
have many files because it is a command line tool.
Nick Schmalenberger

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