Will editing an MP3 harm the quality?

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I recently recorded something in MP3 — I should have done FLAC, but it’s way too late — and I wanted to edit those soundtracks from 5 minutes to about 2 minutes each. I edit in Audacity. Will loading it, removing about half the track, and exporting again to MP3 harm the quality?

Nick Bailuc

Posted 2015-03-10T05:17:56.020

Reputation: 397

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Related: http://superuser.com/questions/409238/how-do-i-split-an-mp3-file-without-re-encoding-it

– rob – 2015-03-10T05:32:22.803

always keep your recordings in uncompressed or lossless formats: e.g. wav, flac, etc. and encode for publishing. – Uğur Gümüşhan – 2015-04-01T07:05:46.460

Answers

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Yes. MP3 is lossy so if you re-encode the new file to MP3 with Audacity/LAME, you will lose quality. But if you output the cropped file using a lossless codec such as FLAC, the quality should be no worse than the imported MP3.

Some other tools allow you to crop MP3 tracks without re-encoding, such as mp3splt and mp3DirectCut. See How do I split an MP3 file without re-encoding it?

rob

Posted 2015-03-10T05:17:56.020

Reputation: 13 188

Is there a Linux alternative? – Nick Bailuc – 2015-03-10T05:28:06.053

2Alternative to what? mp3splt and mp3DirectCut from the linked question are both available for multiple platforms, including Linux and Windows--as is Audacity. – rob – 2015-03-10T05:31:18.990

Looking at the picture I thought it was a windows program but now I see its an old LXDE theme or something from knoppix. Thanks – Nick Bailuc – 2015-03-10T05:52:42.077

@NickBailuc glad to help! – rob – 2015-03-10T06:00:40.063

Asked: 2015-03-10T05:17:56.020

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