What audio formats are there and how are they different?
When recording sound, the question arises which audio format to choose for disk storage. Almost all of today’s recording programs offer a multitude of options here, from highly compressed MP3 to uncompressed WAV files.
However, it’s easy to lose track in the jungle of different formats. We clarify what audio formats are available and what are the differences between the formats. FROM MP3 TO WAV, EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AUDIO FORMATS When you save your audio recordings digitally, they are in a specific format.
Describes the structure of the file and contains all the audio signals. A distinction is generally made between two variants: uncompressed audio formats, which contain all the data, and compressed. With these, certain information is cut from the file. Compressed music formats can also be divided into lossless and lossy.
Uncompressed formats include the following: PCM (Raw Data) AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) WAV CDDA (Compact Disc Digital Audio) The main compressed formats are: MP3 WMA (Windows Media Audio) / Lossless WMA AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
This is what defines lossless formats. Uncompressed audio formats store all data in an audio file, including what the human ear cannot or can barely hear. This takes up a lot of storage space on the data carrier, but the sound quality is excellent. Lossless files are compressed to a certain extent to reduce file size.
However, this is done in such a way that no noticeable loss of quality can be detected. All original data is preserved, only the layout of the data is changed. These are lossy formats. One of the most popular lossy formats is the MP3 music format. Parts of the original file are removed to reduce storage space. Ideally, only information from the file that is not perceptible to humans is removed.
The higher the compression level, the smaller the file, but the quality also suffers with each further reduction. PROCESS YOUR AUDIO FILES EVEN MORE – SAVE STORAGE SPACE AND COMPRESS The most common uncompressed music formats are WAV and AIFF. If you record audio files on a digital audio workstation, you typically export them in one of these two formats and then process them.
If you want to save the data without any loss, but the original data must be preserved, first compress the files with an appropriate audio program in a lossless format, for example as a FLAC file. This takes up less space on the data carrier, so you can save a lot on external media and transmit the data.
Since all the information is still contained in the file and is simply unzipped when you open it, you can process these music files optimally: cutting, adding additional effects or soundtracks, or splitting the file, and all without the quality of the sound is affected. If you want to share your music and audio files, upload them to the network, send them by e-mail or if you want to save many files on a data medium, compression is essential.
You can also do this by using a corresponding audio program, some of which you can download for free from the Internet. Compression reduces the file size to a greater or lesser extent depending on the degree. At the same time, the audio file information that cannot be restored is lost. Be careful when compressing. Bit rates – this is what determines the quality of an audio file
Bit rate describes the amount of data that is processed in the music file per second. The higher the value, the higher the quality of the file. Uncompressed files typically have a bit rate of 1411 kilobytes. For example, if you convert a WAV file to MP3 format, you can set the bit rate, for example, to 192 or 320 Kb per second. THE DIFFERENT AUDIO FORMATS AT A GLANCE
What music format is suitable for what purpose and what are the sound differences?
Here you can find out when you should ideally use which format. Uncompressed formats: PCM, WAV PCM describes the raw data of an audio file. The format allows very high bit rates and therefore very high quality. The data is in the original and the sound corresponds to that of an audio CD. However, the PCM format consumes a lot of memory and cannot be played with all common audio programs that are designed for the MP3 format, for example. Therefore, you need a special program to process the flat file.
