BIAB will render song to .WAV but not further to MP3

I rebuilt my utility system to zippy 8-core AMD, 8 gigs RAM, SSD, and realtek audio built-in to motherboard. I reinstalled BIAB and put back all my BIAB song files from a thumb drive.

I went to change the mix/balance of a playback on a song, and went to re-render it, so that I could get a new MP3 file to put into my ipod world.

I clicked on the WAV button and on the menu clicked on save in other audio format and MP3 (which I recall automatically generates the interim WAV file.

It renders a 33MB WAV file, and prompts for the MP3 in a pop-up window. However after clicking on "save as raw mp3" or whatever in yet another pop-up window, I get an error that reads:

Driver cannot do the requested conversion

and I get an mp3 file in the target directory that is zero bytes.

I thought BIAB had some built-in rendering. I installed ASIO4ALL, but I have it disabled since I'm just playing back on my computer speakers without any MIDI instruments since I use all RealTracks and REalDrums. My sound card drivers are pretty up to date.

What could be my problem?

Jim

Hi Jim,

Sounds like your machine does not have an mp3 codec installed.

The free LAME encoder works very well here, a Bing should bring it up, I got mine from the Audacity.exe home site.

--Mac

Thanks Mac, but I installed LAME and it still didn't work. I still get the same error. Is there something I need to do to tell the OS where it is or something? I ran the LAME installer....

As a work-around, I just have itunes open the big WAV file, which converts it into what my ipod needs anyway. It would have been nice to have a universal mp3 tho...

This has always been a problem in Windows. This is probably due to Microsoft's desire to move the world towards using WMA. Your solution is what most people end up doing. Take the WAV file and use the converter of your choice. Personally, I use open source Foobar which gives me flexibility to use any number of codecs and options.

If you are willing, using the WMA format works very well within BIAB. As far as MP3, I've never had any luck converting to a high bit rate from within BIAB.

Did you install the LAME stand-alone or the LAME ACM file. BIAB does not use an external CODEC like other programs use, so it has to be installed into Windows. You might want to try the LAME ACM CODEC and see if that works for you.

Also, you might try the K-Lite Codec Pack and see if that works for you.

Hi saxguy,

What version of BIAB do you have? When I was running BIAB 2012/2012.5 I couldn't get mp3 rendering to work either. Then, after installing 2013, the process worked fine. I'm not quite sure what happened.

In the older days of BIAB, LAME.dll was needed for rendering. These days, though, I think PG Music's software calls on Microsoft processes. The below quote is taken from a PG Music tutorial on rending found at

http://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_bbwrender.htm

Originally Posted By: "PG Music"

Note 2: If you get a "Driver cannot do requested conversion" error when trying to encode an MP3 file, this suggests that your computer does not have an ACM (Audio Compression Manager) compatible MP3 codec installed. Band-in-a-Box uses the Windows Audio Compression Manager functions to compress files. The types of files and bitrates that Band-in-a-Box can encode depends on the codecs you have installed on your computer. On Windows XP, you can check to see if you have an MP3 codec by going to Control Panel | Sounds and Audio Devices | Hardware | Audio Codecs (Properties) | Properties. On Windows Vista/7, try going to Help | About | Technical Support Information in Windows Media Player. Look to see if there is an "MPEG Layer-3" codec listed there. Also (on Windows XP), select it, click on Properties, and check to see that it isn't a "decode-only" codec. If you don't see an MP3 codec there, or if it is a decode-only codec, PowerTracks won't be able to encode MP3s.

To solve the problem: Due to licensing restrictions and patents on MP3 technology, we can't include MP3 codecs with our software. There are a couple possible solutions - (1) The latest version of Windows Media Player includes an ACM-compatible MP3 codec, l3codecp.acm, which you should find in your Windows\System32 directory, and it can encode MP3's at high bitrates. This codec may or may not be enabled on your computer though. Or, (2) Search online for an MP3 codec that you can download and install. Or, (3) Save your file as a stereo wave file and do the conversion from wave to MP3 in a third party program.

If you follow the above link, the information on this is near the bottom of the webpage.

Hope this helps,
Noel

Wow, thanks for the replies all! I use 2012.5

I guess it really wouldn't kill me to just use a stand-alone conversion software and a few extra clicks. I guess I just got spoiled when my original system (running Windows XP) was able to get it to work WITHIN BIAB.

Saxguy,

My preferred audio convertor is a freeware program called Free Audio Convertor (freeAc) found at the below link. I like using variable bitrate.

http://www.freac.org/

Regards,
Noel

Originally Posted By: Rachael

This has always been a problem in Windows. This is probably due to Microsoft's desire to move the world towards using WMA. Your solution is what most people end up doing. Take the WAV file and use the converter of your choice. Personally, I use open source Foobar which gives me flexibility to use any number of codecs and options.

If you are willing, using the WMA format works very well within BIAB. As far as MP3, I've never had any luck converting to a high bit rate from within BIAB.

What Rachel sez. I use DBPoweramp Converter. I bought it and their dvd/cd ripper software. I do my conversions at a higher quality rate with it and have been happy with the results. I just plan on doing it this way for my BIAB songs unless I take them into Sonar for further editing.

Stan

I mostly use the free Audacity.exe
audio editor for mp3 conversion from the .wav file, the program also is good for a bit of editing before conversion, shaving off heads and tails, even gainchange, etc.

--Mac