Saving MP3s with Mac versus PC

[-J-]

OK, dumb questions, I know. Did a quick search, didn't find what I was looking for.

When working with a mac and, say Garageband or Logic Express, will I need to save/upload my MP3s in a manner that will be able to be read by a PC and a Mac, or maybe two versions? I don't mind, I just don't want to post stuff that will only be accessible by one or the other.

The reason I ask this is because a bunch of MP3s I saved onto a disc with my PC aren't being fully read by my Mac (it's cutting off several minutes of music for some songs). I had previously thought that mp3s were universal, but I guess not. I don't know if the problem stems from the fact I burnt a data disc on a PC and I'm trying to have a Mac read it, or if they really save MP3s in a different manner.

 

[SocialNumb]

Don't know what you did, but there working for me on both platforms. Nothing special done either.

 

[-J-]

Don't know what you did, but there working for me on both platforms. Nothing special done either.

hmmm. must be how the pc saved the data. i'll probably have to go the route of burning music/WAV discs and importing that way. time consuming, but oh well.

 

[MetallyGuitarded]

I don't think there is anything OS specific about MP3's at all. If the mac isn't reading them right, it could be a codec issue ( fraunhofer vs LAME? ) or maybe the mp3's themselves are corrupt ( scratched disc, bad cd burn, etc ). My Mac-using buddy and I swap mp3's all the time. He uses iTunes as his media player these days but I'm pretty sure it won't make any difference what player you use.

 

[-J-]

I don't think there is anything OS specific about MP3's at all. If the mac isn't reading them right, it could be a codec issue ( fraunhofer vs LAME? ) or maybe the mp3's themselves are corrupt ( scratched disc, bad cd burn, etc ). My Mac-using buddy and I swap mp3's all the time. He uses iTunes as his media player these days but I'm pretty sure it won't make any difference what player you use.

thanks for the input.

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

I have a mac and a PC and I exchange mp3s between them all the time no problem.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Yeah this is odd. .mp3 is and mp3 no matter what here.

I just make sure they are the right bit rate and off they go!

 

[MetallyGuitarded]

About the only other thing I can come up with is that the mp3s might be either 24 or 32 bit or the Sample Rate won't work with the sound card on one machine ( ie. 44.1khz sound card and 48khz mp3s ). That would be prettu unusual but it's possible. I owuld think most media players would auto-convert them on the software level.

I would suggest looking at how you make the MP3's. Are you rendering out of ProTools/Cubase, etc? If so, see what the sample rate, etc are. The bitrate shouldn't matter but check the other two things I mentioned.

 

[SpewChunks]

Your pc stuffed up. MP3 is universal, it's layer three of the audio and video compression standard created by the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group.). So basically Mp3 was designed to be used for movies, but also proved to be useful for other applications i.e. low bandwidth connections and small storage capacity devices.

Try re-encoding them in different software, or you could cross check your MP3 filesize - encode them all both to the hdd and cd, if they are the same filesize the info is all there so the problem is elsewhere (maybe the mac dosen't like the cd brand 100% or maybe it didn't burn properly).

 

[SpewChunks]

About the only other thing I can come up with is that the mp3s might be either 24 or 32 bit or the Sample Rate won't work with the sound card on one machine.

- this is not the problem, if this was the case the song wouldn't cut out, instead the entire thing wouldn't play at all.

 

[-J-]

i went into the pc and converted the mp3s to typical wavs and created a music cd that the mac did read OK. it's just going to be time consuming to do that for a bunch of albums - but oh well. beggars can't be choosers, ya know?

but it's good to know that when I put up my own stuff, I won't have to worry about formats.