AUDIO FORMATS EXPLAINED

This post is to help both music producers and artists understand different audio file format and their characteristics.

Audio files comes in different formats. You are definitely familiar with MP3 format as it is arguably the most common. What about WAV, AAC, OGG, FLAC, etc. Why do we have several audio file format?

All audio files falls under three major categories. Once you understand each category, you can easily pick the format that best suit your need.

UNCOMPRESSED AUDIO FORMATS

Uncompressed audio consists of real sound waves captured and converted to digital format without further processing. This type of audio files seems to be the most accurate but they take a lot of disk space - about 34 MB per minute for 24-bit 96KHz Stereo.

1. PULSE-CODE MODULATION (PCM)

PCM is a digital representation of raw analog audio signals. Analog sounds exists as waveforms. To convert a waveform into digital bits, the sound must be sampled and recorded at a certain intervals.

This digital audio format has a sampling rate and a bit depth. There is no compression involved. Digital recording is a close-to-exact representation of analog sound.

PCM is usually used in CDs and DVDs.

2. WAVEFORM AUDIO FILE FORMAT (WAV)

The WAV format is a standard developed by Microsoft and IBM in 1991. It is usually believed that all WAV files are uncompressed audio files, but that's not true. WAV is a Windows container for different music formats. Meaning a WAV file could potentially contain compressed audio, but it's rarely used for that.

Most WAV files contain uncompressed audio in PCM format. The WAV file is just a wrapper for the PCM encoding, making it more suitable for Windows systems. However, Mac systems can usually open WAV files without any issues.

3. AUDIO INTERCHANGE FILE FORMAT (AIFF)

AIFF is similar to how Microsoft and BMI developed WAV for windows. This format is developed by Apple for Mac system in 1988.

It contains uncompressed audio in PCM format. The AIFF file is just a wrapper for the PCM encoding, making it more suitable for Mac systems. However, Windows system can open AIFF files without any issues.

COMPRESSED AUDIO FORMATS

The process of compressing an audio signal is sacrificing audio quality and fidelity for smaller file size. When done poorly, weirdness can be noticed in the audio. But when done well, you can't hear the difference.

4. MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3)

MP3 was released in 1993. It eventually gain popularity, becoming the most popular audio format in the world of music files. There's a reason we had MP3 players but not OGG Players

The main goal of MP3 are:

a. To reduce the quality of sounds that aren't easy to hear

b. To drop all the sound data that exists beyond the hearing range of normal people.

c. To compress all other audio data as efficiently as possible.

Almost all audio playback digital device can read and play MP3 files, which is the reason for it's world wide popularity.

5. ADVANCED AUDIO CODING (AAC)

This format was developed in 1977 as the successor of MP3. The compression algorithm used by AAC is much more advanced and technical than MP3 music file type. Generally, AAC have better sound quality compared to MP3. It is widely used today as standard audio compression method by YouTube, Android, iOS, iTunes, later Nintendo portables, and later Play Stations.

Having the knowlege of different audio formats will help you to decide the right format to use at the right time as a music producer or artist. You now have the basic knowledge of different audio file formats (either you are putting it on digital platforms or CDs or DVDs.)

I will later cover the remaining 5 audio file formats. I hope you fond this helpful. Always remeber to share this free resource with your fellow music producers and artists.

YungproBeatz.