@Rae-Stonehouse

Hi,

the system says I need to have Premium installed, which I do. 

Just how did you install Premium Edition 2023? There is no Premium program.

See this tutorial:

Did you activate Premium Edition 2023 in the program as I indicate in the tutorial?

Does it show on the Welcome Screen that Premium Edition 2023 is activated?

Did you download and install everything under Downloads?

I suggest that you remove your email address as it could be useful to spammers. You must be from Western Canada.

John CB

Thank you John for your video. I had done everything in your video before my initial post. I uploaded the instruments and features as you suggested. As I had said, I'm trying to upload an MP3 media file to the tracks so I can compress it. It is an audio book that I need to compress to meet the requirements of an online audio book store. When I click on File, I see Import from a CD and Export links. I don't see an Import button as in other audio/visual programs. I was able to drag a MP3 into a track and it froze the system. After several attempts I found out that it is very slow in importing files from my computer. I then found that it took a couple hours to render the audio file and compress it. The compressed file actually ended up being three times the size of the original file. I don't think MusicMaker is going to meet my needs. It should be a lot easier to compress an audio file.

@Rae-Stonehouse

Can you explain more fully what you mean by need to compress this file? Compression normally means to reduce the size of the file whilst keeping the actual content identical in all respects. That is essentially not possible with an audio file, especially an mp3. Or do you actually mean to reduce the resolution of the file, as in export the mp3 at a lower bit rate? The effect of this is to reduce its overall size but that is achieved at the expense of some loss of quality.

Jeff
Forum Moderator

@Rae-Stonehouse

Hi,

I, too, am wondering about your compression and also why you would be using Music Maker for this. Also, MP3 is not a format that one would use for an original.

In MM, open the File Manager (Shortcut F) and try to navigate to your file. From there you can preview and load it. Of course, drag and drop from Windows Explorer also works, as you found.

There may be a problem with the MP3 itself. What is the file size?

John CB

@emmrecs I am an author of a dozen or so self-help, personal professional development books. The e-book versions have been narrated by a Google artificial intelligence and saved as MP3 files. Most on-line book distributors want the audio book to be a series of mp3 files. In some cases, there may be 50-60 individual files i.e. one for each chapter. I'm working with one venue who wants the whole book to be in one file only. That means I've had to combine all the files into one larger mp3 file via Audacity. The book I have been working on is 130 mb. They have a limit of only 60 mb, hence the need to compress my book down to less than 60 mb. Yesterday, I purchased a program called Wondershare UniConverter which managed to convert my file in a matter of minutes and I was able to upload my file to the venue. In reviewing the file, as it is only the spoken word, I didn't notice any appreciable degradation in the sound, but I am far from being an expert.

I have a related question to the mp3 files: I am attempting to publish my audio books to an online venue called PublishDrive. They utilize multiple MP3 files to compile an audio book.

The idea is that the chapter headings need to be exactly what the narrator says at the beginning of each chapter. Each file is supposed to be a 'chapter.' My books have Parts and/or Sections which triggers error messages in their program.
I've tried researching a solution but have been unsuccessful. Here is what they send to me. Any thoughts?

<<

Your audio has failed our automated loudness normalization and it does not comply with the requirements of our store partners. Please reconvert the following files: Section-0001.mp3

Reconvert your audio to match the requirements listed in our audio HC: https://go.publishdrive.com/e/583913/80-How-to-publish-an-audiobook/s59zt/873650685?h=Og7MLeHVvWavTW3yk8FrUY6j2ujyFAMeJrh7tuiAwsM

192kbps CBR stereo mp3

From the output of this command: sox {file} -n stats

Overall Pk lev dB <= -6.0

Overall RMS lev dB <= -14.0 and >= -24.0>>

I have a related question to the mp3 files:

What you need is a proper audio editor. Magix has the paid for Sound Forge although a free version was included with Music Maker recently. Otherwise you can use the free Audacity. Besides being able to covert audio files it has various effects like a limiter that can reduce peaks in volume as well as other things like a compressor which reduces overall variation and other useful audio tools.