More MP3 questions

[lefthando]

This was touched on in another thread but I thought I'd start a new one anyway for those who have the same questions.

How and when should I be using VBR (variable bit rate)?

What are the advantages to VBR?

Can and should we convert to MP3's from 24bit vs. 16bit?

I know we all love to hate the MP3 format but I'm trying to be realistic about it. Most of my work gets converted to this format almost immedietly upon delivery. I'd like to try to optimize the coversion process myself thereby preserving the best of my productions.

Thanks,

[lefthando]

Bump

[lefthando]

Wow! It seems incredible that nobody can answer these questions.

Are we all really that ignorant about the most commenly used format of our listeners?

[mipearson]

Originally Posted by lefthando

This was touched on in another thread but I thought I'd start a new one anyway for those who have the same questions.

How and when should I be using VBR (variable bit rate)?

What are the advantages to VBR?

All the time. Some of the older encoders have quite poor VBR logic, but these days if you get the settings right VBR is your best quality/space tradeoff. If I'm publishing for web, I'd use VBR centered around a 160 or 128kbit rate, with filtering. If I'm encoding for myself, I'll use .ogg or .aac. Wait. If I'm encoding for myself _and still stuck with using that ancient technology_, I'll VBR at about 224k.

VBR means that your silences get no love, your clean FM/electric piano solos get a bit of love, and your crunchy distorted bits covered with hihats get lots of love.

Using CBR in the above example means wasted space on the silences, really detailed solos, and terrible distortion/hissing hihats.

Can and should we convert to MP3's from 24bit vs. 16bit?

From whatever the source medium is. Doesn't matter either way. It's still going to be lossy.

I know we all love to hate the MP3 format but I'm trying to be realistic about it. Most of my work gets converted to this format almost immedietly upon delivery. I'd like to try to optimize the coversion process myself thereby preserving the best of my productions.

Thanks,

USE A GOOD ENCODER!

Fraunhoffer is the standard, but only the professional for-money version is worth using. The open source 'lame' encoder is excellent and these days may even be better than Fraunhoffer. Can't vouch for the various in-built encoders. Unless you really know what you're doing with mp3, use the VBR presets they provide.

[lefthando]

Thanks mipearson,


That's a really big help. It's not so much about playing back tracks for myself, it's about folks who listen to my tracks. I know they're going to rip them anyway so I might as well do the conversion myself and be sure it's done well.

And the filtering is worth while? What, exactly is it doing?

[danasti]

Originally Posted by lefthando

This was touched on in another thread but I thought I'd start a new one anyway for those who have the same questions.

How and when should I be using VBR (variable bit rate)?

What are the advantages to VBR?

Can and should we convert to MP3's from 24bit vs. 16bit?

I know we all love to hate the MP3 format but I'm trying to be realistic about it. Most of my work gets converted to this format almost immedietly upon delivery. I'd like to try to optimize the coversion process myself thereby preserving the best of my productions.

Thanks,

I like to use a non variable bitrate. If it's for streaming on the web to anonymous users I use a lower bitrate like 64 or 128.

If it's for someone to check out new stuff or for something like a track pre-approval I use 192 or 256.

I use Sony Soundforge and all my stuff now starts as wav 24bit. At 256 and 384 it can sound pretty good.

[astronmr20]

Basically, the filtering is "rounding off" even more bits of data (removing data) it dosent think you need. Most of this happens in the very low to very high frequencies.


You obviously have figured out that no matter how much we want people to listen to our cd's, and how much space they have on their massive hard drives for .wavs, they will still settle for this crappy lossy format, and that's not gonna change. (:

Therefore, I encourage you to experiment. Take a song of your favorite mix from your music, and try it a few different ways. play it on a few different systems, including ipod headphones and your car. See if you noice a difference. Ive found that different genres seem to translate better with different encoding techniques. Also, if you are not paying for mastering (it pains me to say it), but xperiment with squashing it a bit with compression. In my opinion, rock n roll MP3's tun our better with less dynamics on the original file. ouch. (: