Mp3DirectCut

Infobox Software
name = mp3DirectCut



caption = Editing audio in mp3DirectCut
developer = Martin Pesch
latest_release_version = 2.09
latest_release_date = May 30, 2008
operating_system = Windows
genre = Digital audio editor
license = Freeware
website = http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html

mp3DirectCut is a lossless editor for MP3 (and to a degree, MP2) audio files, able to provide cuts and crops, copy and paste, gain and fades to audio files without having to decode or re-encode the audio. By modifying the "global gain" field of each frame of MPEG audio, the volume of that frame can be modified without altering the audio data itself. This allows for rapid, lossless MP3 audio editing that does not degrade the data from re-encoding.

mp3DirectCut provides audio normalization and pause (silence) detection, and can split long recordings into separate files based on cue points in the audio, such as those provided by pause detection. mp3DirectCut can also record audio directly to MP3 from the computer's sound card input.

All audio operations are performed using frame manipulation so, as such, mp3DirectCut is not a waveform editor. Audio clean-up such as click, hiss and noise removal is not possible.

Features

* Lossless MP3 cut, copy, paste, and volume change operations
* Audio normalization and pause detection
* MP3 recording with ACM or optional LAME encoder (not bundled)
* Fast MP3 visualization
* Supports Layer 2 (DVD/DVB audio)
* ID3v1.1 tag editor
* Cue sheet support with auto cue (track division by time values)
* Track splitting with filename and ID3v1.1 tag creation
* VU meter, bitrate visualization
* Command line usage
* Portable operation

Limitations

* Time granularity is the MPEG frame length
* Gains and fades are limited to 1.5 dB steps due to the granularity of the 8-bit global gain field
* ID3v2 tags cannot be read, and if they are written out, they contain the incorrect song length if the length is modified
* Increasing the audio volume can lead to distortion in playback, due to premultiplication against global gain pushing the audio past its clipping threshold. Compressed audio that keeps the overall volume down using the global gain field cannot be easily increased in volume due to the clipping that would result.

See also

* MP3Gain, a lossless MP3 normalizer for Windows and Mac OS that uses the Replay Gain algorithm

External links

* [http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html mp3DirectCut homepage]