How to use MP3

Ross MacIver

MP3 is the most popular compression format for audio files. In this article, we will take a look at how MP3 works and how you can make your own MP3 files.

Uncompressed audio files are very large. A 1-minute CD quality stereo song requires approximately 10 MB of hard disk space. Without compression to reduce this size, relatively few songs would be able to be stored on a computer hard drive, and compact devices like portable MP3 players would not exist, or would cost thousands of dollars.

The same one-minute audio file can be encoded in MP3 format and only require about 1 MB of disk space. This amazing reduction in file size is accomplished by discarding some of the audio data that is outside the hearing range of the typical listener. An MP3 file will sound almost as good as the original CD but the file size will be about one-tenth.

There is a balance between how much audio data can be removed and the quality of the sound. The most common MP3 compression uses 128 kilobits per second (kbps), but many people claim there is a noticeable amount of distortion at this setting. For people with critical listening requirements, 160 kbps is the minimum setting - it produces files which are slightly larger than 128 kbps but the sound is closer to CD quality. Lower settings such as 96 kbps or 64 kbps introduce noticeable noise into the audio. They are suitable for spoken voice recordings but not for music.

You can encode your own MP3 files using any of the hundreds of software packages on the market today. Many of them are free, and you can use them to rip music from CDs and encode them to MP3 in one step. To decide which settings to use, start by encoding a piece of music you are familiar with. Save three files - 128 kbps, 160 kbps and 192 kbps, and then compare the original CD to these three files. This simple test will help you choose which setting is suitable for your own listening requirements.

About the Author

Ross is an enthusiast audio professional take advantage of his knowledge about MP3, AAC,OGG, FLAC SHN and other compression techniques

MP3 News


Yahoo! News Search Results for <?=mp3;?> New Music: Black Lips: "Starting Over" [MP3] (Pitchfork) Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell So, 2008 is history and we're back. During the break Black Lips released an mp3 of "Starting Over", a new track from their forthcoming album 200 Million Thousand . It starts off as a jangly, "There She Goes"-ish kind of thing, but then those slack voices... Chinavasion's plug-in MP3 player / FM transmitter / etcetera seems surprising... Chinavasion 's latest piece of steaming trash is actually very un-trash-like, as it thoughtfully meshes a number of in-car technologies into one single cigarette adapter doodad. The Plug-In Car MP4 Player with LCD Display manages to bundle an MP4 / MP3 player, 1.5-inch LCD and 4GB of memory into a d... Premiere: Tim Hecker: "Sea of Pulses" [MP3/Stream] (Pitchfork) It's somewhat of a strange thing to pluck a track from a Tim Hecker album and listen to it on its own, as his records tend to flow one piece into the next. But "Sea of Pulses", the second cut from his forthcoming An Imaginary Country , works well on its own and also gives a good idea of wha... Recording Industry Drops MP3 Spies (CBS News) Recording industry trade group reportedly drops the company responsible for gathering evidence against those accused of sharing copyrighted music. WMP 12 toxic to certain MP3 files (ZDNet) A cautionary note to those using Windows beta 1 build 7000. Hype Machine Zeitgeist: Listen in Full to the 50 Most Blogged Albums of 2008,... Music mashup site shows how User Experience is done. MP3 blog aggregator Hype Machine launched a new microsite today called the Music Blog Zeitgeist . There you can listen, for free, to entire albums from the most blogged-about musicians of 2008. Bringing together a whole host of different tec... Download the MP3 or listen to the Lana Carson interview. (The Muskegon Chroni... Grand Haven historian Wallace "Wally" K. Ewing has donated one of the largest and best preserved Civil War collections of correspondence in the nation to the Archives of Michigan. Calexico sweetens a tee (USA Today) I'm a little behind on my seasonal surfing, so I just came across this gem Threadless dropped during the holidays: an exclusive track by Calexico. Yes, the T-shirt site has posted an MP3. The song was actually inspired by a... Ultimate Ears intros MetroFi range of earphones (MacNN) Ultimate Ears, owned by Logitech, announced on Monday the upcoming release of its MetroFi line (not pictured) of noise-isolating earphones. The MetroFi 170 and MetroFi 220 are compatible with iPods, iPhones and more generic music phones and MP3 players thanks to their 3.5mm stereo jack and are desig... Wal-Mart worker charged (The Sault Star) A Wal-Mart employee is accused of pinching merchandise from the discount department store. He allegedly took nine MP3 players Saturday, police said. John [...]