I have no experience with digital audio formats and am looking for some
tutorial info or other guidance.
If I wanted to store large numbers of
audio tracks on a harddrive, would I want to use mp3 format?
I read somewhere that mp3 with a 128 bit rate would have "near CD quality".
Would this be true? overkill ? not enough?
The usage would be in a tavern, i.e. fairly loud playback (big equipment)
with pretty much background noise?
Thanks for any help.
Bill

some good tips to look into..
thanks dan
bill

"Dan K" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:42262ce4$0$44632$(E-Mail Removed)...
> MP3 is the only way to go. Its about 10 times less hard drive space than
> a
> WAV file with no real noticeable difference in quality. I bought a used
> P3
> computer for a couple hundred and use it exclusively as an audio source.
> Works great. I've converted all my records to WAV files (using audacity -
> free) and then to MP3 files (using cdtomp3freeware) and ripped all my CD's
> to WAV files (using EAC - exact audio copy - also free) and again
> converted
> them all to MP3's. The only real problem I've had was with the player I
> was
> using to play the MP3's and manage the media library. I was using windows
> media player 9 and it has a HORRIBLE clipping problem. The graphic
> equalizer and volume control don't work together right (2 different
> software
> designers???) so if you set the volume low and turn up the graphic
> equalizer
> you get tremendous clipping even though the volume is way down. I think
> windows media player 10 is out now, and maybe they fixed their problem,
> but
> I'll never go back to it. Use winamp, its free and it works great.
>
> Dan
>
> "bill a" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:Ea%Ud.20296$(E-Mail Removed) om...
>> I have no experience with digital audio formats and am looking for some
>> tutorial info or other guidance.
>> If I wanted to store large numbers of
>> audio tracks on a harddrive, would I want to use mp3 format?
>> I read somewhere that mp3 with a 128 bit rate would have "near CD
> quality".
>> Would this be true? overkill ? not enough?
>> The usage would be in a tavern, i.e. fairly loud playback (big equipment)
>> with pretty much background noise?
>> Thanks for any help.
>> Bill
>>
>
>

"bill a" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Ea%Ud.20296$(E-Mail Removed) om
> I have no experience with digital audio formats and am looking for
> some tutorial info or other guidance.

> If I wanted to store large numbers of
> audio tracks on a harddrive, would I want to use mp3 format?

At some cost in sound quality. As your application evolves, this might be a
good choice.

> I read somewhere that mp3 with a 128 bit rate would have "near CD
> quality". Would this be true? overkill ? not enough?

On the edge, or not good enough.

> The usage would be in a tavern, i.e. fairly loud playback (big
> equipment) with pretty much background noise?

128k bit would probably be good enough.

"bill a" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in news:Ea%Ud.20296
$(E-Mail Removed):

> I have no experience with digital audio formats and am looking for some
> tutorial info or other guidance.
> If I wanted to store large numbers of
> audio tracks on a harddrive, would I want to use mp3 format?
> I read somewhere that mp3 with a 128 bit rate would have "near CD quality".
> Would this be true? overkill ? not enough?
> The usage would be in a tavern, i.e. fairly loud playback (big equipment)
> with pretty much background noise?

Given the circumstances, your best bet is OGG format (there are no licensing
issues for the ogg codecs; MP3 has some issues which have no, so far, been a
problem for most users, but why risk it?). Sound quality is excellent and
compression is about the same as MP3.

You can find just about any codec you need at http://www.codec-download.com/

--
Tired of spam in your mailbox?
Come to http://www.spamblocked.com
Who is Brad Jesness? http://www.wilhelp.com/bj_faq/
To the spammers, my motto: FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC.

re mp3 licensing issues: are there issues with licensing of content or use
of some software?
Thanks
Bill

"The Open Sourceror's Apprentice" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Xns96126D66981E4MorelyDotesspamblock@216.99.2 11.247...
> "bill a" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in news:Ea%Ud.20296
> $(E-Mail Removed):
>
>> I have no experience with digital audio formats and am looking for some
>> tutorial info or other guidance.
>> If I wanted to store large numbers of
>> audio tracks on a harddrive, would I want to use mp3 format?
>> I read somewhere that mp3 with a 128 bit rate would have "near CD
>> quality".
>> Would this be true? overkill ? not enough?
>> The usage would be in a tavern, i.e. fairly loud playback (big equipment)
>> with pretty much background noise?
>
> Given the circumstances, your best bet is OGG format (there are no
> licensing
> issues for the ogg codecs; MP3 has some issues which have no, so far, been
> a
> problem for most users, but why risk it?). Sound quality is excellent and
> compression is about the same as MP3.
>
> You can find just about any codec you need at
> http://www.codec-download.com/
>
> --
> Tired of spam in your mailbox?
> Come to http://www.spamblocked.com
> Who is Brad Jesness? http://www.wilhelp.com/bj_faq/
> To the spammers, my motto: FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC.

"bill a" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
newsS8Xd.1538$(E-Mail Removed):

> re mp3 licensing issues: are there issues with licensing of content or
> use of some software?

The compression technology has been patented (or some such similar nonsense,
I don't pretend to understand Lawyerese), resulting in licesning issues with
all sotware using MP3 compression. Most end-users tend to simply ignore the
problem, but I didn't survive 23 years of active duty in the US Army by
ignoring potential problems, and I don't plan to start now.

--
Tired of spam in your mailbox?
Come to http://www.spamblocked.com
Who is Brad Jesness? http://www.wilhelp.com/bj_faq/
To the spammers, my motto: FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC.

I use two formats, MP3 and Windows Audio Lossless.

For most of my library I use MP3 at 192 kbps. For CD's where I need a
bit extra audio quality, I'll go 256 kbps. What datarate you use depends
on your speakers and your ears, experiment with 128, 192 and 256. As
well, encode at 96 kbps. At that datarate you'll hear audio artifacts
from MP3 compression and begin to learn what to listen to when
evaluating one datarate over an other. My feeling is 192 kbps is the
best compromise between space and quality in regards to MP3.

BTW, MP3 is a world standard and most compatible with MP3 players, Ipods
and so forth, if you wind up using an exotic audio codec you might run
into compatibility problems down the road when going to an MP3 player.

For special CD's where I want to show off my audio system or where I
need the very best audio quality, I'll use Windows Audio lossless. I'm
not concerned about going to an MP3 player with these, I just listen to
them on my home sound system.

I also had problems with Windows Media Player 9, but v10 I found to be
great. The digital output from my PC to my Yamaha amp and using some of
the audio enhancements in WMP10 gives me awesome sound quality, superior
to Winamp or any other player I've tried (I'm sure you can get Winamp to
sound as good with plugins, but right off the shelf I found Windows
Media Player 10 better sounding.

A couple of last points:

- go digital out from your PC's audio card to digital in of your amp if
possible, besides better audio quality it's the only way to shield the
PC from your amp properly, no hums, BG noise or anything -- clean as can be!

- consider encoding speed as a factor in selecting a ripping format,
when you have hundreds of CD's to rip to your computer, speed is a
factor as well as quality.


Hope this helps.