whats a good program for playing with mp3's?

[pheonix561 2080]

so, I want to play with some mp3s I have. But I don't know any programs for doing so. I'm trying audacity, but its not making alot of sense. If anyone wants to help me out here, that'd be great.

[Padraig! 103]

what do you mean by playing with?

[pheonix561 2080]

editing, mixing, etc. disk jockey stuff.

[Aethix 129]

The problem is, mp3s are a proprietary format, so there aren't many free programs out there that can manipulate them. You might have to just learn how to use audacity. Open source utility programs tend to have a steep learning curve, but there are a bunch of audacity tutorial videos on Youtube.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Audacity is actually one of your most coolio bets right now.

I mean, you have to learn how to use it. It's like Photoshop, or 3D modeling programs. Yous gotsta' learn the ropes or you won't have any alternatives that are good and end up like Specever who uses websites to edit his stuff. (No offense, Specever, on the off chance you actually look at this thread.)

If you look at YouTube, there are loads of really cool music/remixes done in Audacity.

Sahaqiel

[pheonix561 2080]

I know, thats where I learned how awesome mixing was and that I wanted to do it.

More importantly, whats the best way to learn how to use audacity?

I think the main problem I'm having is that all the songs I want to edit are on mp3's. Everytime I import an mp3 all that plays is static, no matter how I import it. Whats the best way to get those songs to play on audacity, since they won't play because of the fact they're in mp3 form? how do I make this work?

[Sahaqiel 1232]

They should be working fine?

Right click your mp3s and select "Open with..." and choose Audacity.

Or rather than importing, click "Open" under File and choose an mp3.

That's what I do.

Sahaqiel

[pheonix561 2080]

wait, so how do I get to the mp3 file, then? because apparently Itunes library is not the same thing.

and whenever I open songs like that it does the same thing it does when I tell it to import.

[Arcane 12]

Maybe it's because they're .m4a? That's the format that iTunes uses when you download from it or rip music from a CD.

[pheonix561 2080]

dang. is there anyway to get .m4a's to work, then?

[Arcane 12]

I have no clue. Sorry.

[pheonix561 2080]

dang. well where do I get stuff in m4a format?

[Chase 390]

Convert it to .mp3 with onlinevideoconverter.com, dude. It will take a while, but it will get the job done. I think itunes can do it to, or it used to be able to. Now it only creates AAC versions, I believe.

[DragonBottles 2]

Mixcraft.

[Aethix 129]

You can also use VLC to convert the audio. It's also a pretty good media player.