compressing a sound file ?

Mark Krutke · Post by **Mark Krutke** » 16 Dec 2003 1:23 pm

Can anyone tell me what program to compress a sound file more effectively than what I'm doing no? I want to send a clip about 2.5 megs, and I can zip them to about 1.5 or so. Is there any way to compress them more?
Would a different format help?

Thanks for any info.

Mark

Mark Krutke · Post by **Mark Krutke** » 16 Dec 2003 1:27 pm

I think I just found the answer. Converting a wav file to an MP3 seems to help alot. Any other suggestions?

Dave Boothroyd · Post by **Dave Boothroyd** » 16 Dec 2003 11:40 pm

Zipping a file is a form of lossless compression. All the original data, good and bad is still there- only the gaps and pauses are left out.
MP3 ( and mono recording) are "lossy compression". They discard data which is considered to be "masked". Quiet sounds which happen at the same time as louder ones would be an example. A good MP3 encoder is supposed to equivalent to CD quailty at a rate of 128. In practice, on a good system you will notice a slightly higher noise level and a vaguer stereo image. On the other hand the file is only a twelfth of the size.
Cheers
Dave

Mark Krutke · Post by **Mark Krutke** » 17 Dec 2003 3:04 am

Thanks Dave.

Scott-I've been using CD Creator 5 for the converting. I'm not sure if I have the capability to convert from stereo to mono, though.