Amazon MP3 Song Problem

[Dennis Cherry]

I had a shortened version of a song and wanted to have a full version of the song. I went to Amazon and downloaded the song.

The sequence I used was downloaded from LORSequences.com. The shorten version worked fine until the end of the song and stopped before the sequences was finished, that is why I wanted the full version of the song.

I downloaded the full version of the song in MP3 format from Amazon. Loaded the sequence and then loaded the new full version of the song. I looked at the waveform and it still looked like the shortened song, but it played the sequence all the way through just fine with the new MP3 song. I saved the program.

Later I reloaded the sequence and this time I got an error that the waveform could not be displayed, tried reloading the song and still got the same error message. The song would play just fine however.

I tried using Audicity and it took forever to load the song file, it played, but everything in Audicity was very slow. I wanted to convert this file to WAV format. Is there anyway that can be done without Burning/Ripping a CD? Tried it and it wanted me to insert a new CD just to burn one song. Not good.

The song is DRM free and had no problem with the download. What am I doing wrong?

[rwertz]

I’ve had no problem with several MP3s I’ve purchased from Amazon in the past. They sounded fine and worked fine with LOR (S2). I don’t remember if I had to convert them from a VBR (variable bit rate) format. But even VBR shouldn’t cause your issues.

Earlier this week I purchased a song from Amazon and I swear it doesn’t sound correct on some of the higher guitar notes. They were very high notes and distorted (old Neil Young), so I figured it was an issue with the notes and the MP3 compression.

After hearing your problem I’m starting to wonder if they are up to something with their files. My Neil Young song was the first MP3 that I purchased through Pepsi Stuff. Any chance this is how you purchased yours?

[Brian Mitchell]

Go into your LOR audio folder and along with your song file there should be a file with a .lpx extension. Delete that file. That is the waveform file.

Then when you open the sequence it will create a new waveform file.

[Dennis Cherry]

Brian Mitchell wrote:

Go into your LOR audio folder and along with your song file there should be a file with a .lpx extension. Delete that file. That is the waveform file.

Then when you open the sequence it will create a new waveform file.

I could not find a lpx file on the song, did find lpx files on other songs.

What could be preventing the lpx file from being generated?

The sequence plays fine with the new MP3 song but still get the error message "Can't Init Conversion"

[-klb-]

With audacity, you should be able to export to .wave, or with LAME installed, even export to MP3, in case there is something odd with how Amazon encoded it. Though I would definitely be careful to preserve your original version...

- Kevin

[evan.a]

dennis, brian ment .lpw

[Dennis Cherry]

Update:

The Bit rate is 256Kb, is that to fast?

If so how do you convert?

[evan.a]

128kb is a good speed, your running twice that. run audacity and change to wav

[Dennis Cherry]

evana wrote:

128kb is a good speed, your running twice that. run audacity and change to wav

Thanks that fixed the problem, however when I tried 1/2 speed S2 asked to convert for changing speed, I did that and everything is working now.

[bob]

Later I reloaded the sequence and this time I got an error that the waveform could not be displayed, tried reloading the song and still got the same error message. The song would play just fine however.

The sequence plays fine with the new MP3 song but still get the error message "Can't Init Conversion"

We've seen this before with MP3s from Amazon (and elsewhere). We have identified the bug and fixed it; the fix will be in the next release of S2.

In the meantime, as you've seen, running the problematic MP3 through Audacity is a good workaround.

[Dennis Cherry]

bob wrote:

Later I reloaded the sequence and this time I got an error that the waveform could not be displayed, tried reloading the song and still got the same error message. The song would play just fine however.

The sequence plays fine with the new MP3 song but still get the error message "Can't Init Conversion"

We've seen this before with MP3s from Amazon (and elsewhere). We have identified the bug and fixed it; the fix will be in the next release of S2.

In the meantime, as you've seen, running the problematic MP3 through Audacity is a good workaround.

OK, thanks

One other question; now there is two WAV files, the converted from MP3 and another file with "Sequence only" in the file name. Does it make any difference in which file to use?

[bob]

Dennis Cherry wrote:

One other question; now there is two WAV files, the converted from MP3 and another file with "Sequence only" in the file name. Does it make any difference in which file to use?

Not really. The two should be basically the same to human ears.

The only purpose of the "sequence only" is when you ask LOR to play at some nonstandard speed (like half speed). For some song files, LOR is unable to do so, and in that case, it will ask you if you want to make a copy that it can play at that speed. If you say yes, it creates the "sequence only" copy.

However, once the "sequence only" copy is there, LOR will automatically use it when you ask to play at a nonstandard speed, even if your sequence is set up to (usually) use the original file. So it doesn't really matter; I would just stick with the original one, and not worry about the "sequence only" one.

[taybrynn]

This has been enlightening to me.

I use a lot of amazon mp3's ... but I always cut them down with Audacity first, so I guess I avoided this problem by accident.