quality control

[lawless]

Hello everyone, I was wondering if the process of encoding a wave to mp3 (352kbs) and then decoding it results in a loss of sound quality. Also, if one encodes a wave and then archives it ( RAR or Zip) then unpacks and decodes it...any loss of sound quality ? The reason I ask is because Im on a small label and they sent me a test master of my song they are releasing for me to okay ( check the quality of the master) via mp3 (352kbs) archived (rar). Can anyone shed some light on this subject for me ?


-Lawless

 

[tarnationsauce2]

A 352kbps mp3 is of lesser quality of the 16/24 bit .wav file used to make the mp3. But 352kbps isgoing to be quite good for a compressed lossy format.
A zip or rar'd wav file once uncompressed will not have any difference at all from the original wav file.

 

[TexRoadkill]

Converting the audio file format from .wav to anything else will change the audio for the worse.

Compresing the file with a file format program like Winzip does not change the original file.

Unless they are mastering for MP3 then I would tell them to send you the final 16bit 44.1 Khz file. The whole point of mastering is that it is being mastered for a specific format so to check the master in a different format would be silly.

 

[MessianicDreams]

Unless they are mastering for MP3 then I would tell them to send you the final 16bit 44.1 Khz file. The whole point of mastering is that it is being mastered for a specific format so to check the master in a different format would be silly.

i second that.

 

[gordone]

Read up on "lossless" vs. "lossy" compression.