OK... I was surprised when MP3 support was not included with AM1. I'm talking import/playback, not encoding. How could this not be part of AM2? It's so incredibly basic.
Not sure why I would need to explain but I have two major reasons for wanting this "feature":
1 -- Most people have lots of MP3s lying around. I like using a commercial mix as an aid in learning about the application and to test out VST effects. With AM1 I converted a couple files to wav for that purpose. But doing that takes up extra file space & time.
2 -- The more obvious reason. Among other things, this application is intended for use as a live performance tool. Many DJ types out there have libraries consisting of at least some (maybe all) MP3 files.
Why am I the only one bringing this up? I'm amazed no one else has mentioned it. There are countless sound mangling apps out there which can handle MP3s (but don't have the other great features of AM).
chrisL
Would be nice to have for sure. Think I would only use it in a potential DJing scenario or for bouncing down very ruff jams but still very useful.
I've never tried them, but there's a few freeware VST MP3 players out there that would presumably play nice in Mulch.
Thanks, I'll check that out. It just seems like this was an oversight in the development -- I actually thought the same thing with v1.
xTal works fine to play mp3's in Audiomulch :
http://www.irdbisa.com/gunshopsoft/xtal/index.htm
Kind regards,
JM.
This has been requested in the past and I have spent a lot of time considering the issue and exploring possible options.
There are two reasons why AM doesn't currently support MP3:
1. MP3 is a lossy low quality format and I'm personally not convinced it has a place in music production and performance. The serious DJ types I know who use (legal) downloaded music use uncompressed wave files -- the main justification is that on a big sound system the bass definition of MP3 just doesn't cut it.
2. There is a lack of clarity about MP3 patent licensing which would expose AudioMulch to significant risk. There is an option to pay upwards of US $15,000 a year to insure against that risk, but to be honest, given my previous point it's difficult to justify.
If you're interested in the patent and licencing issues which surround the MP3 format you can read about it at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 (scroll to Licensing and patent issues). Apparently the key patents expire in 2013 so I could reconsider then.
Cheers
Ross.
I use Mulch for radio DJing sometimes and enjoy not having my entire collection of compressed audio available to me, frankly. I uncompress stuff I think I'll need when I'm getting ready for my shows. It helps me focus.
ChrisL - as Ross says, this issue definitely has been brought up before, on the mulch-discuss mailing list at least.
MP3s sound terrible.
Its doing you a favour not allowing them to be played.
Theres a whole generation out there raised on compressed, non dynamic,tinny music (MP3s) and its a sad thing.
Allowing MP3s is like condoning their use as a musical language and theres nothing particularly musical about them.
my 10cents.
-1 for mp3.
-2 for mp3.
+5 for mp3
Those who consider mp3 as bad sounding should add: at lower bitrates than 256kbps. It looks like the tried mp3 years ago when 128kps were the preset bit rate in many apps. In this stone age of mp3 usage there were also a lot of bad sounding encoders (gogo-no-coda for instance) that were optimized for processing speed (in those days, encoding mp3 was a hard job for computers). The sound is not an argument, a 320 kBps MP3 encoded with a decent encoder (Fraunhofer or latest lame.dll) has no perceptible differences to wav. (There were double-blind test in the respected German compiter journal c't some years ago).
I see some seldom circumstances, when mp3 artifacts interfere with further audio processings, which rely on "natural" audio signals to work (e.g. FFT-based Denoising or time-stretching) and produce bad results.
Regarding the law issues: a lot of recent audio software products include mp3 support by supporting, but not shipping lame.dll. Never heard of any problems with this.
I'd welcome the possibility to mulch the same files, that I listen to in my portable or cell phone. Thats also an argument, why flac or ogg is not really a replacement for mp3 because these are not widely supported by such devices.
+1 for what Mr. Magnifico said!
the lame.dll-thing is the way Audacity does it for example.
or many linux distros that do not play mp3s out of the box.
just download the right thingy to the right place - presto...
mp3 may not sound ideal for some things, but it is very practical for many others.
on the other hand, Xtal and the likes are a fair enough workaround,
so there might be more improtant things than native mp3 support.
for example, how to find /make/take the time to actually use wonderful Mulch and not just dream/theorize about it, grrrrrr :(
;)
wow, let's not debate whether mp3 sounds good or not--this is a feature request, not a referendum on other peoples' production practices.
i do mostly "lo-fi" production (for community radio) and would like to use existing large collections of mp3's, and i don't see how that makes me a less important user than people who are producing from high-quality source material for a more demanding listening environment.
Tried running the above plugin Xtal on my Windows laptop last night during a radio show and had the whole thing completely glitch up on me. Huge stuttering pauses in playback, total nightmare.
Not exactly fun when going live-to-air. I'd tested it beforehand as well, playing back the same MP3 to confirm it'd be OK.
Xtal no worky? hmmmm. sorry to hear, it must have been the other one then, that worked for me? I'll have a hunt for a backup of that VSTFolder...
Until then, you know what they say:
there's no such thing as dead air ;)
OK, tried Xtal again.
It did work, but it tries to determine the BPM of your file,
and if it gets that wrong....it sounds weird.
so something more plug&play would be nicer
i found this
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/604.html
it is a bit ugly, but worked beautifully in my Mulch.
I thought there would be at least a couple more
but not really. this
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/977.html
might be overkill, but also a lot of fun.
Or you could get Deckadance, for about the same price you got Mulch ;)
Drat, Xtal is Windoze only, anyone find a Mac plugin that can play mp3's?
Tried
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/604.html
under Windows, works pretty well and has a *really great feature* which is that you can scrub an entire file with a parameter called "position". lo-fi, but beautiful.
it does seem to crash from time to time, but it doesn't take AM with it--one of the wonderful things about AM2's VST support.
DJing with MP3's!?
woah!!!!, big sound systems with all that digital compressed high end is enough to make one physically sick, honestly....i dont get, and will never understand the attraction, not even if ur a noise performer.
the extra space for a wav is more than worth it.
horses for courses, but please,atleast let everyone know on the flyers beforehand that u will be crankin' it out with MP3's.
Here's a question, and its a good one:
How am I to burn the music on a CD, when not turning it to mp3 with a converter before (I use nero9 Wave.edit.) ?
The sound card on my computer is not hillarious so I cant tell the difference between WAV and mp3.
How about making it possible to directly burn a CD through AM maintaining WAV quality?
Regards,
Azul
Just to rehash my original post, I was more interested in #1 (again for learning and demoing purposes mostly). I would like to see AM capable of decoding, not as concerned with encoding. I am already comfortable using LAME separately if I wish to compress my own work.
In any case, if I was working on a "serious" project, I would definitely not use MP3s. Though I do agree with the other posts about "modern" MP3s with a high bitrate being very very good, once they are decoded, mangled a bit and then possibly re-encoded, things can go downhill fast...
chrisL