frequently asked questions
– The process involves mathematical models that are based on human hearing and largely, on the principle of masking. In essence, when an MP3 is created, sounds that you do not hear in the recording are thrown out of the file. – This makes the file size considerably smaller than the original wav file …
How does digital compression, like in an MP3 work? Read More »
– Usually not. When someone refers to ‘analog compression’ they are usually referring to compressing the dynamic range (the difference in volume between loud and soft passages), also known as ‘level compression’ and historically, this has been done using analog compression hardware, or these days, emulated compression via a digital plug-in. – This is …
FLAC is an acronym meaning “Free Lossless Audio Codec”. FLAC is open-source and supports meta-data (i.e. tag information) that is read by media players (artist, track, title, album, and so on). Despite being not as ‘compact’ as various other compression schemes, – FLAC is gaining in popularity for a couple of reasons. First, memory …
What is FLAC? I heard my player supports it – do I need it? Read More »
– Compression is a technique whereby a new version of a file is made smaller by altering its content, thus ensuring that less disk or memory space can be used compared to the original file. – A heavily-compressed file will be only 15% or so of the original file size. A lightly compressed file …
– MP3’s were designed to save file space when storage limits on portable players was comparatively low, and at a time when broadband connections were not as prevalent as they are now. – The fidelity of an MP3 depends largely on the bit-rate used, and a variety of other factors. Additionally, when portable media …
Why did MP3’s and compressed files become so popular?: Read More »
– The word ‘codec’ is a truncated form comprising the words encode and decode. – That is, there is a two-part process when creating a compressed format, the first being to encode the file into the format, and the second, having the file decoded so that you may listen to it.
– The word ‘bit’ is a term that describes one element of a digital value; there are 8 bits to a byte, and two bytes to a 16-bit ‘word’. A 24-bit word therefore comprises three bytes (24 = 8 * 3). – An 8-bit format can assume 256 different values. That is, the signal …
– Just like it sounds, it is the frequency at which the analog signal is sampled by the digital encoder. – Compact disc media use a sample rate of 44.1 kHz (44,100 samples per second). Note that sample rate determines the maximum frequency of the recording. A good rule of thumb is that if …
– Yes. We can provide 16 or 24-bit format wav or BWF, often times at the venue after the performance has finished. – This allows our clients to take the raw material and edit, mix, or whatever they have in mind.
– Yes, in fact, we prefer to deliver wav files rather than MP3 or other compressed format – we take fidelity seriously. – However, we also realize that some clients may have needs for different formats. – Immersifi can work with you to deliver the recordings in the format you most prefer.