Hi,


I am currently working on a remote recording session. My drummer and guitarist send me the tracks they have recorded at home for editing.


After my work is done I send the edited tracks back to them as mp3's via email so they can import them into their DAWs and have a listen before I upload the tracks as waves to Dropbox.


We have encountered a strange problem with the .mp3 tracks not being aligned properly.


So, to check if the problem is caused by Sonar I've created a new one track project with a single snare hit and exported it as a .wav and then as a mp3. I imported them both into the project and the mp3 track has a significant delay...


Is there a setting to compensate for the delay? If not, then it makes the mp3 encoder I've bought from Cakewalk completely useless for me.


Thanks in advance


 
 

This came up recently. All MP3 compression algorithms add some "dead air" to the front of the file. It's unavoidable.

Try Audacity with LAME MP3 Encoder

brundlefly
This came up recently. All MP3 compression algorithms add some "dead air" to the front of the file. It's unavoidable.

This^^

+1, it is the format, not the encoder. If they plan to work to that mp3, it would be easier to insert a transient on the lead of the track to make alignment simpler (bar before the actual start). Other than that "nudge" they should align without issues.

A group I occasionally collab with uses a brief sync tone on the downbeat 2 measures before the start of the tune.
 
Makes it really easy to line things up as we swap/import tracks.

Ever notice how when you convert a live recording that has CD markers in between cuts to an MP3 file there are gaps between the cuts? Same thing. I heard something about Windows 10's media player having a way to get around this on playback, but that won't affect how SONAR deals with MP3s, nor does it alter the file format itself.

Thank you for your replies.
 
 
Well, I'm that kind of guy who likes to dig deep...
 
I spent a few minutes investigating the problem a bit deeper today and came to interesting conclusions.
 
I created a new project, imported a sample and moved it to the second measure.
I started exporting audio in different mp3 bit rates and with different audio quality. Then, I imported the created clips to separate tracks.
 
The delay is the same in 32, 40, 48 and 56kbs. It increases but stays constant in 64-320kbs.
 
The quality setting ranging from 0-5 in the menu has no impact on the delay. Ticking the "variable bit rate" box does not impact the delay either.
 

 
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that some sort of simple algorithm could be developed to compensate for the delay since it's constant across two ranges of bit rates...
 
I would imagine that the delay would be different when using a different encoder.
 
I've paid for the encoder. I've bought Sonar too. Since the encoder is being sold by Cakewalk I expect it to work properly with Sonar.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

For some strange reason the screenshot link has not been included in my previous post. Here it is, so you can see what I'm talking about:
 

As others have said, it's the format, not Sonar.
It's working properly.
Export as a wav, convert it to an mp3 in another program, you'll end up with the same result.
Sonar is working properly...