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I used Audacity to record and have 3 questions.

1-Are you able to save Audacity to a WAV file and put it directly onto a compact disc? When I do that, the music is distorted on the CD, has a funny metallic sound. So I first save the Audacity file to WAV, then WAV to MP3 format. Burn the MP3 onto the CD. Is this happening to any of you out there also? It would be so much easier if I could just save Audacity files to WAV, without having to also save it to MP3.

2-Is a WAV file burned to CD better sound quality vs. MP3 burned to CD? I understand converting files to MP3 compresses them.

3-When you use "Change Tempo" in Audacity, does it distort the music? It creates echoes, so it's basically useless, unless you want to add this special effect.

Jeanne W

1) I haven't encountered this problem. There's many settings involved plus different ways to burn CDs. Perhaps the first thing to check is your Project rate (default sample rate): try 44100 and see if that helps.
2) WAV is better than MP3 because, as you noted, MP3s are compressed using a method that causes loss of data. MP3s take up a lot less space and are used with many portable devices right now simply because of that.
3) Changing tempo can be used best with single-note instruments or to give an idea of how a song would sound at different tempos.

Thanks hugo.

I'll have to check out the settings for burning CDs.

Re: tempo, I played something the (recorded actually) other day thinking I was clipping along at a FINE tempo, only to learn when I listened to the recording of it, it was way too s-l-o-w. I recorded a 2nd version, playing faster, thinking as I played, "This is WAY TOO FAST." - - - it WASN'T way too fast.

Your suggestion of using the "Tempo" feature to test different tempos, I never thought of doing that. It will come in VERY handy.

Thanks.

Jeanne W

A cd is burned as uncompressed wave file, 44.1 khz, 16bit, stereo. Make sure you export your tracks as such, you don't want to have them downsampled by your burning program. Also, normalize your tracks before making a mixdown: select the entire track, and select normalize from the effects menu. Check both boxes and hit ok, any clipping created after the recording was made is now gone. If there is still clipping then lower the input gain while recording.

MP3 files can actually be almost identical to wav files but you do want to burn wav files: since a discplayer cannot usually read MP3 files your burning program will convert it back to wav files, so you convert it twice, once to mp3 and once back to wav. The quality loss that occured when converting to MP3 won't be restored when converting back to wav, so you're now stuck with a big wav file with all the downsides of MP3 files.

Using the change tempo function is tricky. With tracks that have small changes in pitch (guitar, vocals, violin) these minor changes will be stretched out, causing the track to sound out of tune. As said above it is best used with tracks that only contain one voice at a time at a constant pitch. A simple melody line on a synth and stuff like that. Changing tempo of a piano track when using the damper pedal will usually result in useless crap.

Try to burn the CD at a slower speed (4x for example), and see if that helps.