Everything musicians need to know about audio file formats
Get the right knowledge and choose the format that suits your song.
Which audio file format is better? This is a frequently asked question, and I think you once had that question.
Unexpectedly, the answer to this question is simple: everything can be formatted according to your needs. But whether you’re sending a sound source, delivering your own music, or archiving your own tracks, it all depends on the format of your files.
Here you will find everything you need to know about audio formats to find the best format for your music.
The important thing is to learn each format and its characteristics, and to acquire knowledge about the correct format.
Compression: First impression
Understanding file format means understanding compression.
I am not referring to the compressor applied to the track in the DAW, but to the compression of the file.
Compression reduces file size, which reduces storage space and time for streaming, downloading, and storage.
What happens if I compress the file?
There are three types of music file compression:
Uncompressed (you’ll want to put in the tagline that “uncompressed” would not be a compressed format, but keep in mind that uncompressed makes all sounds clearer), lossless compression, and lossy compression.
Lossless, uncompressed compressed files retain their original amount of information. However, Rossy compression removes some of the information from the original data to reduce file size.
Lossie compression to reduce the amount of data does not remove the entire drum track from the song, but removes only the sounds that would otherwise be unrecognizable to the ear (dog-only sound).
In any case, if you want to know what was removed by file compression, see Hear sound lost when converting to MP3.
Understanding Music File Compression Formats
It’s surprisingly easy to understand the difference between music file compression formats.
The uncompressed file is an exact copy of the original. There is no loss of information. It’s helpful to think of the uncompressed file as an image file of the original painting.
Lossless files are compressed to reduce the file size as much as possible, but retain the original amount of information. As for the painting, it is the same as the original image, but imagine that it is stored except when you want to see the image.
Rossy compression is the format with the highest compression ratio. Since the amount of information in the original is removed somewhat during the compression process, Rossy’s compressed file will be a smaller (smaller) version of the original. There is a painting itself, but the details are lost.
