about those MP3's...

[davem]

Listening around in here, I hear some pretty sweet sounds. My MP3's often sound, um, way too MP3-ish, if you will. My mixes sound good to me, and then when I create it as an MP3, a bit of yuck gets in there. I have a version of "cool edit" , with an XP system. Is it that? Or do we have some tricks to make the mp3's sound better in general? What do others use to create mp3's? Thanks in advance for any help! Dave.

[ernstinen]

Hey Dave!

We posted at about the same time. See my take above. Sorry if I hijacked your thread!

Best,

Ern

[davem]

hijack, schmi-jack! It is kinda eerie though...

[Len911]

are you posting them 192k? That seems to be the biggest differences as far as mp3 quality goes. I make my mp3's from cubase, but at first I was using the default which might have been 54k? After changing to 192k which is the highest allowed by taxi, they were a lot better. I see cool edit uses fhg or fraunhofer, which seems to sound a hair better than the lame I have in wavelab, Ihave the fraunhofer in cubase. If your mixes sound fine before mp3 that is the only thing I can think of.

[mazz]

The bit rate you choose will have a huge impact. Also the lower the bit rate, the more the average level of your mix will influence the quality. One library requested 128 Kbps versions for their audition function on their website. That's fine because it's understood that it's for auditioning, but for Taxi submissions, obviously you want the highest resolution possible and allowable.

I use iTunes for my mp3 conversions and I convert my mp3s directly from 24 bit stereo mixes. The other reason I use iTunes is it helps me keep track of my pieces, the smart playlist function is really helpful.

[ernstinen]

The bit rate you choose will have a huge impact. Also the lower the bit rate, the more the average level of your mix will influence the quality. One library requested 128 Kbps versions for their audition function on their website. That's fine because it's understood that it's for auditioning, but for Taxi submissions, obviously you want the highest resolution possible and allowable.

I use iTunes for my mp3 conversions and I convert my mp3s directly from 24 bit stereo mixes. The other reason I use iTunes is it helps me keep track of my pieces, the smart playlist function is really helpful.

Hey Mazz,

Speaking of iTunes, a common friend of ours wants .aif files through iTunes. Could you explain how to go about that? I've actually done my 3:00 masters onto DAT @ 48/16, but don't know if that's a .wav file or an .aif file. What's the difference? My computer savvy sister says "no compression" on .aif files. I didn't even know that .wav files ARE compressed. But .wma files that I make on my laptop running Vista sure sound compressed to me.

Thanx,

Ern

[mojobone]

AIFF files are big-endian and WAV files are little-endian. Or vice-versa, I can never remember. It's actually the same PCM data, the difference is in whether the the least significant bit (LSB) or most significant bit (MSB) is read first. I think this is only in the file headers, IIRC. HTH