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bit rate , sample rate

Mojosnake	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 4:33 AM okay so i know next to nothing about this stuff hell i'm barely able to record music but if i want a high quality mp3 should the Bit rate be 320kbps ? what about the sample rate, 44.100 kHz ? i have a file already set this way and was wondering if i was on the right track ... many thanks ahead of time
Opossum	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 4:43 AM Yeah, sample rate should be 44.100 kHz (and NEVER lower than that) unless you want whooshy "swimming" high-hats. The bit rate could be a little lower without too much loss of quality. Most of my wave files end up at about 40 meg.
Mojosnake	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 4:47 AM yeah the wave file for this ended up being 44.9 mb and the mp3 10.2 dats the biggest file i've had yet
Opossum	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 4:55 AM I also use WinRar to archive individual tracks (wave format) onto CD for back-up. I found that it compresses so much more than WinZip in this particular task, it is unreal. (In fact WinZip doesn't compress waves at all, it seems.)
DeadraveN	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 5:18 AM your bitrate does a lot to determine your sound quality. I only upload 320kbps here on dm (since they don't limit it) it's true you can go a bit lower without sacrificing too much quality, but why sacrifice any? 320 kbps mp3's are as close to CD quality as you're going to get in an mp3, and aren't too big file-size-wise, esp compared to Wav's.. (which are huge, but have no loss..) though, that said, most sites you can post music on do limit you to 128kbps, which sounds horrible.. and some limit you to 192, (better, but still too much loss in trebles and bass for my liking.) my advice would be to stick with the 320 whenever possible, and upload here. then, if you must post music elsewhere, encode separate versions at lower bitrates as needed. for your own enjoyment, use your 320kbps encoded tracks. they don't take up too much space on an mp3 player, and you'll be much happier with your 'sound'. just my
kingo	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 6:35 AM On 14th Mar 2008, DeadraveN said: for your own enjoyment, use your 320kbps encoded tracks. they don't take up too much space on an mp3 player, and you'll be much happier with your 'sound'. just my I don't know, man. All those ipods and other mp3 players aren't going to hold the "over 27,000 hours worth of music!!!~~!~!!!11!1!!!" that they promise if you encode higher than 128.
leedsquietman	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 8:09 AM It depends on what you your needs are - if you're a non sub, putting up 320 Kbps is more than double a 128 Kbps file. Personally, I find 192 Kbps acceptable in many situations, especially if the music is not that complex with wide dynamic swings (i.e. acoustic guitar plus vocals or a beat trio playing some guitar chords, bass, drums, vocals, etc) if you start adding lots of complex synth sounds and effects into the mix and have quick transitions between quiet and loud, then the encoder starts to have trouble keeping up. For these you should look at using 256 - 320 Kbps. Better still, use Ogg Vorbis or FLAC, except they're not currently supported by Dmusic, even though both are open source. Ogg Vorbis Q8 and 9 are higher quality than 320 Kbps mp3 and FLAC is compressed only in filesize, the audio is lossless. If you planning on releasing a CD commercially, it might not make sense to give away virtually CD quality 320 Kbps mp3's either. Give them a 128 Kbps if that's the case (follow the mixing advice below) And remember the poor buggers still on dial up - this is why I don't upload 320 Kbps, I usually do 192 Kbps as a compromise between quality and downloading time for the end user. You can make a 160 Kbps or less mp3 better sounding by filtering out frequencies below 40 Hz, mixing so it's not quite as loud/hypercompressed and taking out freqs above 13 Khz or so. Narrowing the frequency range and not hyper compressing leads to less encoding errors and those phasey underwater cymbal sounds. You should be able to make a 128-160 Kbps mp3 at least a fair reflection of your music, if not quite as polished on the top end. Also, set your master limiter to -1.2 db - mp3 encoding on 192 Kbps or less can cause conversion errors and clipping up to 1.1 db, which will definately make the sound worse.
Distilled1	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 8:18 AM -1.2 hu... thanks I have always went lower maybe -3.0
pog	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 8:25 AM mmmm flac ownz
leedsquietman	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 8:55 AM -3.0 is better if you don't want to spend a lot of time remixing and have a hot compressed sound.
leflaw	Date: March 14, 2008 @ 10:10 AM how about variable bit rate....
leedsquietman	Date: March 15, 2008 @ 9:44 AM yes, VBR is good, that's why Ogg Vorbis is such a great file format. MP3 VBR is pretty good too.
Thaspian	Date: March 15, 2008 @ 11:43 AM CBR is so 90s VBR is the shizzle. LAME is great.