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re: MP3->WAV conversion
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| buchnaner |
hey guys, i've been wondering this for awhile:
we all know that wav's are a superior in sound quality to mp3's. Beatport is ahead of the game enough to offer wav's and mp3's, but they tack on a $1 "handling fee" for wav's. that's dandy and all, but if I'm buying 15 tracks, that's $15 extra.
my question is, if I purchase mp3's and use say, Logic, to convert the mp3's to wav's, am I still getting the same quality as if I had purchased the wav's outright?
or to put the question another way: when mp3's are decoded as wav's, does the quality of the audio increase?
much thanks in advance |
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| Project-K |
No. It'll sound just like an mp3, except it'll take more hard drive space.
MP3s contain less infomation than wavs. By converting it you increase the file format's capacity to store information - but where is it going to take that information from if the source file doesn't contain it? |
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| buchnaner |
| so you're saying its best to just buy them in wav format. or just buy the cd |
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| JD8180 |
when the wav is compressed to mp3, that causes data to be lost. it can't be recovered by just converting it back to wav. whether it's worth it to buy wav's or not is an endless argument. i personally buy the 320 mp3s. i don't notice enough of a difference that's worth $1 per track imo.
just buy one track in wav and one in mp3 and see if the difference really bothers you? and if it does, then start buying them all in wav, if not just buy them as mp3s then! :p |
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| Hasneez |
| what if you convert the mp3 to wav, edit the wav, and then bring it back to mp3, do you lose anything from the original mp3? |
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| Project-K |
| quote: | Originally posted by Hasneez
what if you convert the mp3 to wav, edit the wav, and then bring it back to mp3, do you lose anything from the original mp3? |
What's the point of adding needless operations when you could just edit the mp3 directly? |
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| buchnaner |
| quote: | Originally posted by JD8180
when the wav is compressed to mp3, that causes data to be lost. it can't be recovered by just converting it back to wav. whether it's worth it to buy wav's or not is an endless argument. i personally buy the 320 mp3s. i don't notice enough of a difference that's worth $1 per track imo.
just buy one track in wav and one in mp3 and see if the difference really bothers you? and if it does, then start buying them all in wav, if not just buy them as mp3s then! :p |
word. thanks guys |
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| JD8180 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Hasneez
what if you convert the mp3 to wav, edit the wav, and then bring it back to mp3, do you lose anything from the original mp3? |
don't quote me on this, but my guess is that if you keep converting from mp3 to wav back to mp3, you keep losing a very minimal amount of data.. it may be so minimal that it's impossible to hear any sort of difference, but i would guess that there is some loss of data though. |
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| Beatflux |
| I think 320s sound just as good as WAVs in my headphones. |
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| Hasneez |
| quote: | Originally posted by Project-K
What's the point of adding needless operations when you could just edit the mp3 directly? |
ableton doesn't export in mp3
| quote: | Originally posted by JD8180
don't quote me on this, but my guess is that if you keep converting from mp3 to wav back to mp3, you keep losing a very minimal amount of data.. it may be so minimal that it's impossible to hear any sort of difference, but i would guess that there is some loss of data though. |
but lets say when converting an mp3 to a wav, it adds the removed data that were missing when converted to mp3, the data here is empty though... when u convert to mp3 back again, the empty data is removed right? or am i wrong? |
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| JD8180 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Hasneez
but lets say when converting an mp3 to a wav, it adds the removed data that were missing when converted to mp3, the data here is empty though... when u convert to mp3 back again, the empty data is removed right? or am i wrong? |
yeah, but i don't think it's going to take out 100% of the "empty data" every time... it may take out some of the actual data as well
btw i am completely pulling this out of my ass, i just don't think the converter knows to remove just the empty data when converting back to mp3 |
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| Project-K |
| It works by removing certain frequency bands less audible to the human ear. If you had anything in those ranges during the editing process (mostly unlikely if you're just chopping it with ableton) it will be removed. I've also heard from some more knowlegable people that every conversion you do will result in a loss of information, however minimal, so it's best to reduce the ammount of operations as much as possible and keep the file close to it's source. |
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