Ableton Forum

Noob here trying to figure out how to properly export my track. The finished track was created at 44100 sample rate and now I want to export it for regular mp3 listening. I don't plan on doing any further mixing or mastering. This is final for, idk.. upload somewhere or just send around to friends.

Should I export at 48000, 24 bit depth, triangular dither?

Should I stay at 44100 and export at 24 bit depth, triangular dither?

Should I leave bit depth at 32 and not dither?

Any help/guidance is greatly appreciated, thanks!

If you're just creating an MP3 and not a wav or aiff file, then go ahead and leave it at 16bit, 44.1kHz and triangular dither. Those are the safest settings for a compressed file still. If you want to create a master wav or aiff file too (you should), then I'd say render one with the same settings above, and one at 24bit, 48kHz, and triangular as well. You could play with the POW-r dither types, but I'll be honest very few people can hear a difference there. Triangular is always a good safe bet.

This way, you get a nice compressed file to give to people, a 16bit wav version if you ever want to put it for sale on Bandcamp etc, and a slightly higher quality (in theory anyway) version to use in the future if standards change.

Awesome, thanks for the response and info., super helpful.

Does audio quality get affected if I "up convert" from 44100 to 48000?

Not neccesarily, you should be fine.