Codecs & Containers
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WAV is the container for uncompressed audio. It’s very big and takes up a lot of space, but it will sound the best.
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MP3 is a lossy audio codec that was created for music back in the 90s. At high enough bitrates, it can almost sound as good as a WAV file without needing the same amount of space. This is what your MP3 player would use.
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OGG is a container for Vorbis or Opus audio. Which are two lossy audio codecs released under open licenses and are common used in Video Games or real-time audio communication.
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FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. It uses lossless compression to preserve the original audio of a WAV recording without needing to take up the same amount of space. Currently, it’s the best format to listen to music on as it supports metadata along with it’s high-quality sound.
Technical Specifications
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Sample Rate is the rate at which analog sound is sampled when recording to digital audio. 48 kHz means the audio is sampled at 48,000 cycles per a second. This means a sound wave can support frequencies up to 24 kHz. 96 kHz gives us double the head room. However, we mostly hear up to 20 kHz. Which is why CDs are mastered to 44.1 kHz.
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Bitrate or Data Rate is how many bits of data the audio file is allocated per a second. The more bits, the less distorted the sound. High-quality algorithms such as Opus need only 192 kbps to reach “transparency” in perceived audio quality.
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Bit Depth is how much information a sound wave can hold. You will mainly hear the different in dynamic range. 16-bit and 24-bit audio will clip and get distorted when it goes about the base 0 dB in the digital mixer. However, 32-bit audio can go above and not get distorted, thanks to it holding information past the baseline.
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dB is a unit of amplitude in terms of decibels. This follows a logarithmic scale. 1 dB either doubles in amp, or halves it.