mp3 or wav

[topspin]

im staring my own label and my music is only going be on my website. so when people download my music should it be wave or mp3?

thanks

[Linear Phase]

Flac... or AAC?

Anybody who is online, and shopping for music.. Probably has high speed net. Mp3 is really week. Flac or AAC is nice, and wav is overkill

[condra]

forget flac and aac

high quality mp3 is all good.

[topspin]

but doesn't mp3 kill some of the quality of the music it kills some of the low end i heard. so is wave not the better option? since the quality of wave is pretty good.

[Tone Deft]

dude, you want to start a label and this is what you know about audio? "quality of waves is pretty good."??? ummmm, it doesn't get any better, they're pure PCM.

do the experiments, you owe it to your clients and customers.

mp3s can screw up in all kinds of ways, it's not just the low end or even generally the low end.

there are many many many online music stores, do what they do, they've trained your future customers on what to expect. in fact I'd make the purchasing methods the same as your competitors because that's how your customers will be trained to buy stuff and you want to make it easy for them to buy stuff.

is it gonna be a dubstep label?

[just_in]

WAV doesn't make sense for distribution. If you want to offer lossless, use something like FLAC.

Also, you should at least learn the basics of these formats before doing anything. I suggest hydrogenaudio.org as one of the places with relevant information.

[looprication]

WAV doesn't make sense for distribution. If you want to offer lossless, use something like FLAC.

Also, you should at least learn the basics of these formats before doing anything. I suggest hydrogenaudio.org as one of the places with relevant information.

Learning the basics = good point.

However, I'm not sure what you mean by "WAV doesn't make sense for distribution." Beatport offers WAV files (at exorbitant prices) and so does Juno. Actually, I can't name an electronic dance music site that doesn't offer WAV downloads.

While I agree that FLAC is a great option for lossless, I think a lot of people don't know what it is, and I'm not 100% sure what the support is like out there. People are comfortable with the options they've already been given, e.g., HQ mp3, lower quality MP3 (yuck) and WAV. Anything else and you're bucking the trend.

Definitely check out other, similar sites, and consider what they're doing. And hopefully you're not doing yet more dubstep music. I was at Coachella last weekend and I've heard enough to last a lifetime.

Cheers,

-ix

[Tone Deft]

.wav means more bandwidth for downloads. ISP bandwidth is part of his business overhead. lower the overhead and your margins go up.

agreed in the end, like I wrote before, do what the other services do, it's what people expect.

[just_in]

WAV doesn't make sense for distribution. If you want to offer lossless, use something like FLAC.

Also, you should at least learn the basics of these formats before doing anything. I suggest hydrogenaudio.org as one of the places with relevant information.

Learning the basics = good point.

However, I'm not sure what you mean by "WAV doesn't make sense for distribution." Beatport offers WAV files (at exorbitant prices) and so does Juno. Actually, I can't name an electronic dance music site that doesn't offer WAV downloads.

While I agree that FLAC is a great option for lossless, I think a lot of people don't know what it is, and I'm not 100% sure what the support is like out there. People are comfortable with the options they've already been given, e.g., HQ mp3, lower quality MP3 (yuck) and WAV. Anything else and you're bucking the trend.

What I mean is that WAV is simply not an adequate format for delivery. In addition to the larger file sizes it also lacks metadata support (title, cover art...).
There are many websites which offer FLAC, it's not that unknown. Bandcamp, HDtracks, Boomkat, Zunior, Bleep, Addictech.. probably most of those that sell lossless offer FLAC as an option. Although it's true that WMP and iTunes can't play it without installing additional codecs (while every other player supports it out of the box). But I think people interested in lossless would generally know that already.

[volx757]

i would agree that .wav is too large. honestly, 99% of people who listen to music either don't have speakers good enough to tell the difference between mp3 and wav or they aren't audiophiles. try listening to a song in both formats and see what difference you hear.

I suppose making mp3 your standard and offering wav as an option would be a good choice.

[synnack]

You could charge more for wav (or lossless in any format) than mp3. That way you offset the cost of more bandwidth for larger file downloads and still give us "audiophiles" the choice.

Personally I prefer the bandcamp model. Buy it, and download any format you want. For a small label why not just use bandcamp anyway. You can embed it in your own site.

[H20nly]

i'm going to be a mastering engineer, which compressor should i get?

[icedsushi]

People are comfortable with the options they've already been given, e.g., HQ mp3, lower quality MP3 (yuck) and WAV. Anything else and you're bucking the trend.

Huh? iTunes is AAC & ubiquitous for music downloads...

[patrick.olson86]

i'm going to be a mastering engineer, which compressor should i get?

hahah

Ok, here's a serious answer. You're going to want to bounce your files in WAV format because that's the highest quality file you can have. You don't sell wavs to people unless you're in the looping business, selling loops to people who use Ableton Live. Your customers, on the other hand, for listening purposes would do well purchasing high quality AAC files. AAC files are what iTunes store sells. You're going to want to convert your wav files to AAC to at least 256 khz. Here's info on AAC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

Now, some of your clients may prefer high quality lossless formats (meaning there isn't a loss of quality during the compression when you convert your wav to a different format). This is called a FLAC file. Many DIY sites (the first that comes to mind is the Black Crowes website where they sell all their live shows) have FLAC options at a premium price. So you could sell your music for 4.99 in AAC and 9.99 in FLAC format. What? You didn't think you were going to get $9.99 for AAC did you? You can buy physical established pro's music for less than 9.99... but that's a topic for another day.

Hope that helps

[stonee]

imo, there's nothing wrong with a 320 mp3. its just going to get converted to that eventually anyways.
you cant load a pile of .flacs onto your ipod.

aac is alright too, but you're not gonna be able to load that into windows media player, or burn it to an mp3 cd.

you should have a master copy of all your track in wav ready tho.

the best labels offer a choice of formats though.

I have to agree with the others though, if you don't know the ins and outs of these different codec's, then you should probably take some time to do your homework. and you will also have to pay a mastering engineer to go over your tracks. If you're asking these questions, i can assume that you probably don't know much about loudness maximizing, etc.

i hope im not too discouraging, but certain things aren't worth jumping into unless you have the experience.