Pro Tools Mp3 Option

MP3 Export Option for Pro Tools 5.0 (Macintosh Only) MPEG Layer-3 audio compression technology licensed by Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson multimedia. Introduction The MP3 Export Option for Pro Tools 5.0 and later lets you export or bounce audio to the MP3 file format. MP3, which stands for “MPEG Layer 3”, is an audio compression format that utilizes perceptual audio coding techniques to compress audio while retaining high quality. MP3 has become a very popular audio format on the Internet. The MP3 Export Option features the very latest encoding technology from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, offering dramatic improvements in processing speed, enhanced processing quality and support of constant bit rate (CBR) and variable bit rate (VBR) encoding at bit rates of up to 320 kbps. Playing Back MP3 Files There are a number of free and/or shareware applications available on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms that can playback MP3 files. Popular MP3 players on the Mac include the “QuickTime 4 Player” and “MacCAST”. Popular MP3 players on the PC include “WinAmp”, “RealJukeBox”, and “Windows Media Player”. MP3 Encoder Files In order to compress files to MP3 format, Pro Tools requires that a particular file called “MP3.dll” be present in a particular location. Pro Tools looks for this file inside a folder called “MP3” which in turn resides inside the “Codecs” folder inside the “DAE Folder”. This “MP3.dll” file contains the actual MP3 encoding engine. 1 Exporting To MP3 To export to the MP3 file format, select the “MP3” option from the file format popup in the Output Options dialog (see Figure below). This dialog is accessible when you select either the “Export Selected As Files” menu item or the “Bounce” command. When this option is selected, the resolution and sample rate popups are unavailable. This is because “MP3” stores audio in a compressed format and hence sample rate and bit depth are not applicable. Output Options Dialog You select whether you will be compressing mono files or stereo files by using the “Channels” popup. Selecting “Mono” in this popup will result in all selected regions being individually exported as mono MP3 files. Selecting “Stereo From .L/.R” from this popup will result in only selected .L/.R region pairs being exported as stereo MP3 files. Regions which don't have matching .L/.R pairs won’t be exported. When you select “MP3” in the Output Options dialog and hit “OK”, a secondary dialog appears. This secondary dialog is titled “MP3” (see Figure below). 2 MP3 Dialog The MP3 dialog allows you to specify a number of settings regarding how the file will be compressed and what information the re…