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What is MP3?

MP3 has become very popular on the internet because when you save a song as MP3, it is a much smaller file than when the file is recorded in older formats.

Songs recorded in or encoded into MP3 files are condensed versions of the original music file. That means some sounds are lost or changed. MP3 takes out information recorded in a song that human ears can’t hear, it also uses complicated maths to reduce the file size.

When encoding (converting) a track to MP3, you can select what bitrate it is recorded in. Generally speaking, the lower the bitrate the more conddensed and smaller the file, but the poorer the sound quality. Most people use a bitrate between 192 to the maximum 320.

When encoding MP3, many people encode as variable bit rate (VBR). That means the bitrate can change within an individual song recording / encoding depending on how complex the music. VBR usually leads to better sounding MP3s than tracks recorded at the same bitrate that are a static bitrate throughout.

An MP3 track can take up just a tenth of the space on a CD or harddrive that an old uncompressed format would. That means you can record over a hundred tracks to a single CD!

There are lots of new compressed music file formats that have come along to challenge MP3 – many people claim the newer formats produce better quality than MP3. However, MP3 remains the king of compressed music formats for the time being – largely because it was the first popular compressed format and all portable music players will play the format.

If you’d like to impress your friends, you can refer to MP3s by their full name – MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 :-)

The FrankandHonest.com ‘Finding New Music’ page has some top tip for finding new bands and music.

Links

http://www.nme.com – news, reviews, info.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/ – download itunes for free.
http://www.mtv.co.uk/music/new-music – news, reviews, info.
http://pitchfork.com – news, reviews, info.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/
http://last.fm – loads of music to stream, all free and legal. Subscription rates optional.
http://www.spotify.com – loads of music to stream, all free and legal. Subscription rates optional.
http://www.we7.com – – loads of music to stream, all free and legal. Subscription rates optional.

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