Feature Request for Recordings

[go2ldook]

Arlo:
I have a feature request that would greatly help with a long-standing issue. You added a Delay Audio setting, but there is still an issue and I have traced it down to a quirk of mp3 files. Apparently mp3 files, when created, always have .02-.03 sec of silence at the beginning of the file that supposedly contains metadata. You cannot erase it. If you manually remove it in an editor, it gets added right back when you save the new mp3.

This is a problem when we run MIDI files in parallel with the mp3 to control functions of our gear (looping, program changes, etc), as those changes will always be a tad early.

Could you add the ability to put in Delay Audio times separately for Recording 1 and Recording 2? This would allow us to delay the MIDI file start a couple of ms to line up better with the mp3 tracks. It would also be nice if the delays could be tweaked to .001 sec for us OCD people.

Currently I handle the issue by having to shift every CC in my MIDI file for each song a little bit, which is a pain. Being able to put these commands in without that shift would be so much faster as they "snap to grid" naturally in the MIDI Editor. Yeah, will have to go back and fix this for a lot of files if you provide this function, but honestly worth it in the long run!

[arlo]

Have you tried a different audio editor? I'd be surprised if this is an inherent limitation of the MP3 format. It would make more sense if this is a bug in your audio editing app.

[go2ldook]

Arlo, I have researched this topic and from multiple sources I have learned that a feature of the mp3 format is this metadata gap at the beginning of about 0.025 sec. I have tried editing the mp3 drum tracks I have created in FL Studio in other programs, and always, when saved, the space returns. Here is a quote from one of several sources I read on this issue:

"One of the limitations of the MP3 format is that it always has a bit of silence at the beginning.
You can trim this off in Audacity by selecting the silence and deleting it, but if you Export as MP3 there will be a new bit of silence at the beginning of the exported track. This is not a limitation in Audacity, it's a limitation of the MP3 format.
Most other formats don't have this problem."

I have attached 2 screen grabs. One is the original mp3. The section at the beginning, highlighted in white, was deleted from this file, and the new one exported as an mp3 file. As you can see from the 2nd screen grab, a section of silence has been added in creation of the mp3. This was in Audacity. When I save it I deleted all the metadata fields.

[arlo]

I can put separate Delay Audio settings on my wish list, but meanwhile, have you tried converting your audio files to AAC instead of MP3?

[go2ldook]

I guess I could try that, but honestly probably just as fast to adjust the CC commands on the MIDI file timeline per song rather than reburn 100 backing tracks and load them into BH. Similar level of convenience.

Anyway, was just a thought. My MIDI issues do seem to have magically resolved though. No more MIDI crashes, though now other issues with my set-up...for another post

[arlo]

There is probably a way to batch-convert your MP3 files to AAC, and then you can batch-upload them into BandHelper to replace your MP3s, as long as the filename before the extension is the same.

What I read about the MP3 gap is that it's not from metadata, it's from basically rounding to a number of frames. That suggests that the delay is not the same from one file to another, which sounds annoying.

[arlo]

In the new version 2023-09-10 released today, you can enter a separate Delay Audio setting for each recording on the Settings > Audio & MIDI page.