> BTW, I was surprised at how big the MP3 files were for the movements of > a piano trio--6 MB each, on the average. I thought the big advantage > of MP3 was its compactness. > > Andrew Stiller
It depends on the data rate the files were encoded at. There's a tradeoff between sound quality and file size (i.e., data rate). The difference between a 64 Kbps mp3 and the original uncompressed file is usually easy to hear, while a 256 Kbps mp3 is likely to be indistinguishable from the original; but the latter file will be 4 times the size of the former. There is also variable bit rate mp3 encoding, which will usually produce a smaller file size for the same quality compared to a constant bit rate mp3. Which is to say, there are many flavors of mp3 and a range of possible file sizes. Maybe your 6 MB files were made with very little compression (if you're comparing them to the typical sizes of RealAudio files, note that Real uses a fairly efficient compression scheme). Personally, I find 128 Kbps mp3's to be quite adequate quality for web purposes, and have used as low as 40 Kbps mp3's to reduce download times for dial-up users (at a 16 KHz sample rate, these are pretty low quality, not much better than listening over a phone line). As with anything else, if you want to work even semi-seriously with audio, you need decent tools -- reading and writing different file formats, encoders with bit rate options, some kind of minimal editing, etc. Lee Actor Composer-in-Residence and Assistant Conductor, Palo Alto Philharmonic http://www.leeactor.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
