Do you have the latest build for BIAB (found here)?
I just tried to make an mp3 and it didn't work. I could make a wma file, though. I'll continue to have a play around with this to see why I couldn't get the mp3. (I know I have made mp3s in BIAB in the past. Personally, I prefer to save as a WAV file and then use another application to convert to mp3. I use Free Audio Converter to do the job.)
Personally, I never export as MP3. I prefer to export waves.
Once it's exported, I use a 3rd party wave editor called WAVEPAD to process it further. I trim it front and back, normalize it, and save it, then I convert it to MP3.
The conversion is the last thing I do.
I save to wave since if I ever decide to burn it to CD... the last thing I want is a CD made from mp3 due to quality issues with the mp3 files vs waves.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
For Band in a Box to be able to export as an mp3 file, your Operating System must have a Windows compatible codec installed.
Most come with an mp3 DEcoding codec, so that the Windows Media Player and other programs can play an mp3 file, but it is often the case where the ability to ENcode has been left out due to the cost of licensing the codec (Fraunhofer, typically).
Never fear, though, for there is a much better codec available and a better way to turn your BB work into mp3 files.
The LAME encoder is free and actually works and sounds BETTER than the Fraunhofer. There are good reasons for that, Fraunhofer stopped development a good while back while the open-source LAME project continued on with development.
I use the LAME encoder along with the free Audacity.exe Audio Program to convert my BB stuff to mp3, not only getting the better sounding codec, but also the ability to Edit, Change Amplitude overall, plus many other easy and professional features.
1) Visit the Audacity.exe site, read the directions first and then download the Audacity program plus also the LAME encoder available there, installing according to their instructions.
2) When in need of saving a BB project into an mp3 file, use BB only to create a .wav file.
3) Open the Audacity program and use its File -> Open command to navigate to where you stored that BB .wav file and open it in Audacity.
4) Once opened in Audacity, you can do things like chop off the BB countin if desired, hit ctrl-A to highlight the entire file and use the Plugins -> Amplify command to set the overall loudness of the song to some "musical" level, such as peaking at -1.8dBFS or so.
5) Then use the Audacity File -> Export command to export the results as an mp3 file. Along with the conversion, Audacity also asks you for easily entered meta data, such as filebname, artist, album, date, etc. which will show up when the mp3 file is played on a lot of players. You can also embed copyright information in the meta data as well.
The Audacity.exe program and the LAME encoder are available at the following hotlink:
Powerful tool for anyone who is in the game of producing audio files, Audacity is also available in a Macintosh version as well as the Windows version linked above.
I do have Band-in-a-Box for Windows Version 2013 (366).
I do not want to have another program doing the conversion to MP3. I just want to use Biab.
Hi Mac,
thanks for the hint. I did download the LAME converter, unzipped it and clicked on the LAME.exe. Nothing happened. BiaB is reacting the same as before. BiaB stays for about a minute in a working process, saying "rendering file". Than this prozess is stopped and nothing is done. No file nowhere. This is very strange.
By the way: when I try to quit BiaB a message appears and says: "cannot creat file "f: .... access denied." I can only quit the program with the task manager.
When opening BiaB an other message appears which says: Can't find the file G/bb/_JGTGRFS.STY.
When I did work with BiaB 4 monthes ago all these messages did not appear. It is not very comfortable right now to work with BiaB.
Maybe better play the piano without playalong and concentrate on the music. There is to much technique not working properly.
If BIAB is not installed in the "Program Files" folder, the below might be worth reading through.
I successfully created an mp3. This is how I went about it.
1. Generate the song by hitting the GenPlay green arrow.
2. Once the song is generated, I then did the following (shown on the image below). Clicked on "Wav" (#1), selected "Export song as audio" (#2) and then selected "Export as mp3" (#3).
3. I navigated to the directory where I wanted to say the file, hit OK and then the below yellow box appeared. I had to wait for around 60 - 70 seconds for the WAV file to be generated at this point in time. (BIAB first needs to create a WAV file which it then converts to mp3.)
4. After about 60 secs, the below box appeared.
I left #1 and #2 exactly as they are shown. All I changed was #3. For #3, I selected 128 kBit/s 44,100 Hz, Stereo.
5. I hit OK and the mp3 was created.
Try the above sequence of events and let us know which one your computer stops working at.
I suggest you try saving it to a directory other than the Desktop because the Desktop directory is found as a sub-directory within the protected Windows directories.
Hope this helps, Noel.
P.S. Once when I tried it, the dialogue box in step 4 was hidden behind the main BIAB screen. This confused me for a while. For the other 5 times I tried it, the dialogue box was visible.
my BiaB was preinstalled on the little hard disk which came with the program. It is connected via USB to the computer. When closing BiaB this message appears -->
I did as you described but after the rendering no box appears which says "please select an audio output format". It is not working. When saving as WAV everything works fine. I don't know what I am doing wrong. Maybe this is an allready known Bug of the program?
Did you check to see if the missing box was actually behind the main screen? As mentioned in my PS, that once happened to me and it confused me a great deal. (This dialogue box seems to get hidden if one clicks on the 'Yellow box' that appears when the wav is being rendered. Did you click on this yellow box to close it?)
To see if it is there but hidden, use ALT+TAB to cycle through the open programs. The dialogue box is the one I've circled in the below image.
Also, try saving as wma and see if that works. The amount of compression is pretty much the same. PG Music prefer to use wma files rather than mp3 files for their Realtracks. There must be a reason for this. These days, I've also been using wma more than mp3.
Have you tried OPTIONS...RETURN TO FACTORY SETTINGS? Doing that often sorts out these strange glitches. Incidentally, I often save as MP3, and it works OK.
One other thought that just occurred to me. If you have lame.dll in the \bb folder, try removing it (with BIAB closed) and then start up BIAB after you've removed the file. Now try saving as mp3.
I usually prefer wma myself, especially when dealing with higher frequencies. True MP3 has issues with licensing, even though many ignore this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME
So many companies stopped improving it years ago anyway. Every time I need to get MP3 to work on a new system, there is a song and dance routine needed to get it to work (Audacity does the job but is another step, so falls in the song and dance category). I've purchased various 'legal' MP3 encoders and they have all fallen by the wayside over the years. WMA just works for over 90% of users right out of the box.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
"Song and dance category" is actually just a personal perception.
I've been using Audacity and LAME for a long time now, creating mp3 files using them is actually very easy to do.
There are times when the mp3 format is a must, a lot of web publishing sites won't do .wma format, most web streaming sites do only mp3 and only at 128kbps, then there's the iPod or other mp3 player crowd to contend with.
Since the use of the built in System codecs is a problem, which I perceive as the "song and dance" of the thing, and apparently rharv really does also from what he says in his post, use of Audacity to convert your wav files to mp3 format using the LAME encoder, which really does exceed the sound quality of the old Fraunhofer licensed encoder$ makes a lot of sense.
As an added plus, Audacity prompts the user every time an mp3 file is exported, to fill in a meta data window. I haven't found any way or program for embedding the meta data, such as song title, artist, album, date, even copyright, that is as easy to use as Audacity.
Should I publish a howto guide on use of Audacity and LAME for making mp3 files?
There are plenty of guides out there, and I do have Audacity/Lame installed. I also can export in MP3 from BB products. But your right, many seem to have a problem doing this. I've posted methods before that have worked for me, from installing Lame Front-End to installing using the inf file and a couple other tricks, but I have seen one work on system A and not system B, so it can be problematic.
To me it's worth the effort to be able to convert inside BB products. If the song/dance of the install works once, it saves doing the Audacity song/dance repeatedly. But my original point was WMA works out of the box and is probably an acceptable solution for most users. Many may not have considered it. Also - LAME Front-End has the tags option too.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
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