why are my songs so large in file size?

[jconradi]

whenever i export a song out of my DAW, after doing vocals and everything, the file size is like 50 MB per song. When a normal song from the itunes store (I took a kanye song for example) and it was only 9 MB. how do I make my song file sizes smaller without diminishing the audio quality?

 

[Steenamaroo]

Hi jconradi,

From the file sizes it sounds like your bounce is uncompressed wav/aiff.
iTunes uses m4a, I believe, but mp3 is another option.

Audio quality is always diminished with any compressed format. The question, though, is can you hear the difference.
Try mp3 at 320k and see how that sounds to you.

 

[jconradi]

Hi jconradi,

From the file sizes it sounds like your bounce is uncompressed wav/aiff.
iTunes uses m4a, I believe, but mp3 is another option.

Audio quality is always diminished with any compressed format. The question, though, is can you hear the difference.
Try mp3 at 320k and see how that sounds to you.

in my DAW, reason 9, its only possible to export an audio file as AIFF or Wav. how do i get it in a format like Mp3 at 320k?

 

[Steenamaroo]

Oh, really? Damn.

If you already use iTunes it can do mp3 conversion for you.
Import your track and go to file > Convert > Create mp3 version

If it says something other than mp3, go into general settings > Import settings > and set it up for mp3, then repeat the previous steps.

 

[joey2000]

in my DAW, reason 9, its only possible to export an audio file as AIFF or Wav. how do i get it in a format like Mp3 at 320k?

There are tons of freeware/shareware software applications you can download online. My fav is Goldwave, which also has various other abillities.

 

[Massive Master]

I -- and keep in mind that I'm still flabbergasted by the fact that Reason doesn't export to MP3 on its own (as much as I'm not a big fan of MP3 and most lossy formats) -- if you search the Goog for "export Mp3 from Reason 9" you'll find some sort of plug that'll help. Can't remember the name, it's come up before.

 

[ecc83]

But why do you feel the need to reduce file size? An 8G USB stick is peanuts and you could get well over 100 50Mb songs on one.

For .wav to MP3 (it will do most others) conversion I use the free MAGIX Samplitude Silver but as said there are many other such utilities.

Just a thought, you are not inadvertently recording at 96kHz are you? Lot of debate about it always but I think most folks are more than happy with 44.1kHz?

Dave.

 

[joey2000]

But why do you feel the need to reduce file size?

Could be various reasons, like email services have size limits on attachments if he wanted to email it to someone, or just not take up as much space when the diff is so massive, regardless how cheap storage is, or how others may balk at being sent a 50MB song file when most of theirs are 10MB or less. We're not talking a small diff here.

 

[ecc83]

Could be various reasons, like email services have size limits on attachments if he wanted to email it to someone, or just not take up as much space when the diff is so massive, regardless how cheap storage is, or how others may balk at being sent a 50MB song file when most of theirs are 10MB or less. We're not talking a small diff here.

Yes, I get that Joey, I often smash talk files down to mono and very low bit rates to attach to son's emails. I also have to turn .wav to MP3 to attach even a 10 sec sound sample here (why!?) But my query was, why save to a lossy format IN GENERAL when even 1TB spinners are cheap as chips these days?

Dave.

 

[rob aylestone]

I always have both - the wav and the mp3 version just in case I need the full quality. MP3 is still a licensable format, so some manufacturers don't wish to pay the licence feee, so don't include that codec. A third party one probably doesn't bother to pay.

 

[joey2000]

Yes, I get that Joey, I often smash talk files down to mono and very low bit rates to attach to son's emails. I also have to turn .wav to MP3 to attach even a 10 sec sound sample here (why!?) But my query was, why save to a lossy format IN GENERAL when even 1TB spinners are cheap as chips these days?

Dave.

? I was speaking in general; those are reasons why, esp if you can't hear the diff (and despite the insistence of many otherwise, I think in most cases by far we can't). Personally I'd rather not have to buy additional space if I don't need to, no matter how "cheap" it is. I aint that rich. That said, out of paranoia if nothing else, I can see keeping a mega .wav file around anyway, esp if you don't have a ton of songs such that it's making a huge diff on your hard drive.

 

[Steenamaroo]

The reason for requiring a compressed format on the site is almost certainly bandwidth and storage.
I get that wav would be nice given that we're an audio forum but I suspect it'd be impractical and require pruning over time.

In terms of personal use, there's plenty of reasons for compressed formats.
Streaming/online sharing would be the primary one.

As others are saying, though, I always keep the raw session and a Wav final copy kicking around.

 

[JimmyS1969]

The reason for requiring a compressed format on the site is almost certainly bandwidth and storage.
I get that wav would be nice given that we're an audio forum but I suspect it'd be impractical and require pruning over time.

In terms of personal use, there's plenty of reasons for compressed formats.
Streaming/online sharing would be the primary one.

As others are saying, though, I always keep the raw session and a Wav final copy kicking around.

+1

And I have 6 drives. One for SSD for OS and programs, one for recording files and samples, and all others for backups.

I lost two 1TB drives in the same day once. Still recovering from that bad experience...

 

[ashcat_lt]

Rule of thumb is that CD quality (16bit/44.1K stereo) .wav comes out very close to 10MB per minute. You can extrapolate from there that 24bit stereo would be about 15MB/min, and therefor a standard mono track that we might record into a DAW will take up 7.5MB/min. That's mostly just trivia at this point since storage is so damn cheap, but back when nobody had heard of a gigabyte it was very important information. Still today, it might by useful if you're expecting to record a lot of tracks for a long time and figure out if they'll fit on your thumb drive or the last few chunks on your poorly maintained hard drive.

Back in the day when .mp3 bitrates of 128mbps were considered extreme, we used to figure about 1M/min (1/10 of the .wav you started with), but 320mbps files take up quite a bit more and I haven't needed to figure out the ratio, so you'd have to ask somebody else about that.

 

[CSP]

I do not use Reaper so I do not know if what I am going to suggest will work, It definitely does in Audacity.

Have a look at the Lame MP3 Decoder ( LAME MP3 Encoder ) and download it and install it into the Reaper directory/folder. It must be installed into the same folder as the program that will be using it.

Like Reaper (apparently) in Audacity if you do a Save As, the MP3 option is not present, but with Lame installed, the MP3 option is available.

Can I suggest that if my suggestion works, that you post your findings so that other Reaper users can take advantage of this program.

David

 

[joey2000]

I lost two 1TB drives in the same day once. Still recovering from that bad experience...

Now that's scary.

An advisable backup (or double backup) would be to stash them on google drive or some other "cloud" area.

 

[JimmyS1969]

Now that's scary.

An advisable backup (or double backup) would be to stash them on google drive or some other "cloud" area.

I did use Carbonite for a year after, but it requires being on the web and was the same yearly price as a 3tb hard drive. I just went with multiple drives and a backup regimen now. Two of the 6 are external that don't even spin when not in use. I feel much safer now.

 

[joey2000]

Price? What is this price you speak of

I use google drive (admittedly with a bit of uneasiness...snoopy bastages) - 15GB for free.

 

[JimmyS1969]

Price? What is this price you speak of

I use google drive (admittedly with a bit of uneasiness...snoopy bastages) - 15GB for free.

Well, one of my 1TB hard drives has 800GB of projects on it. Obviously over it's limits.

I record full length rock band records mostly. One project that I lost with the drive failures is itself alone is 58GB. Granted that one is 28 songs and more of a 3 record project... I have at least 20, maybe 30 projects saved and 5 in progress. So yeah, a free cloud service is not an option for me.

Just multiple drives and backup, backup, backup... I'd rather have my own trusted backups than a service who I am not sure I can trust for $100 a year. Plus keeps my recording PC safe from internet, and updates. This is what works best for me. You may have a different perspective and that cool too.

 

[joey2000]

Well, one of my 1TB hard drives has 800GB of projects on it. Obviously over it's limits.

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting you can keep everything in the world out there...just an alternative way for keeping things. Most people don't have near the volume you do (terabytes wow).

I'd rather have my own trusted backups than a service who I am not sure I can trust for $100 a year.

Sorry if this comes out wrong, but if you'd used a service you're not sure you can trust you'd still have that stuff (assuming of course you don't use some small fly-by-night company) you lost on HDs you are calling trusted backups I know, I know, hindsight's 20/20, just something to think about. HDs fail; it's a question of time. But companies are constantly replacing HDs after awhile and have backups to backups as well so the odds of you losing data w/them is IMO much smaller. But there's cost, so trade-offs either way. (And I do backups on external HDs also) I guess I'm lucky; I won't ever crank out anywhere near 15GB of stuff, even at 50MB a pop.