Using Royalty Free Muisc, Part 3 - Audio File Formats
Using Royalty Free Music in Multimedia Projects: A Tutorial
Assuming you've done a search for your royalty free music or sound effects
tracks, and you've found the perfect match for your project, listened to
it, verified the length, you probably have a few options to choose from
when getting ready to make your purchase. Most music sites will offer you
a choice of possible audio file formats. These options can vary from site
to site, but for the most part, you will find that most offer either MP3
downloads, WAV file downloads, or AIF File downloads, or some combination
of these. Many have started offering AAC (Apple Audio Codec), which is
a lossless compression supported by many common Apple music programs. Staying
with our example, Productiontrax.com offers many different format choices
for your music. Here you can select from either MP3, WAV, or FLAC as the
delivery method for your royalty free music. Productiontrax has a decent
audio file
tutorial to bring you up to speed about how their delivery works. Here,
we'll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each file type to help
you make an informed decision.
MP3 Downloads
Downloading MP3 files is the easiest, most common way of receiving royalty
free music. MP3 files are compatible with every operating system, and there
are many MP3 Players (software programs that playback MP3 files) out there
for download. Included in this list are iTunes and Windows Media Player,
among others like WinAmp. MP3 stands for MPEG-Layer 3, which is a type
of audio compression and encoding. MP3 files are typically smaller in size
than uncompressed audio files, making them perfect for storing in large
numbers on your hard drive. Their smaller file size also allows for easy
and faster usage in online settings such as streaming from your website,
using in Flash, or as parts of sophistacted online games and applications.
But MP3s smaller file size comes at a price. To achieve such a small file
size, MP3 encoders remove bits (pieces of audio information) from the original
file. This is called lossy encoding. Depending on how much was removed,
the quality of sound on MP3s can vary from very poor, to near CD-Quality.
If you are purchasing MP3 files for your multimedia project, you should
make sure your files have been encoded at 256kbps or better. Otherwise,
you will notice a significant drop in sound quality in the form of audible
artifacts.
WAV and AIFF Files
Perfect for broadcast use, WAV files are the PC-equivalent of master-quality
audio files. These are the original mix files used by the musician or producer
on their PC mixing programs. This means that they will have the best quality
of sound you will be able to get.
Similarly, AIFF (or AIF) files are uncompressed, master-quality files.
AIF files are typically used on Apple/Macintosh-based editing systems,
and are popular outputs of Apple's Logic. AIF and WAV files are virtually
interchangable, and most programs support importing of both. AIF files
tend to have a higher file size than WAVs.
Productiontrax.com offers instant downloads of WAV files for several
thousands of their tracks, while for AIF files, you'll have to wait for
them to arrive on CD. However, you can easily download a FLAC file, and convert
it to WAV or AIF (or any other format for that matter. A FLAC file is a
lossless audio file that has been "zipped" resulting in smaller file sizes
and ease of transfer online. Productiontrax.com offers many of its royalty
free production music tracks in this format. The only catch is, once you
download a FLAC file, you need to "un-compress" it using a free software
program like xAct. Check out Productiontrax.com's support page for free
audio software downloads that will help with file conversions.