Bitrate in the exported soundtrack can make an important difference

[Master Mi]

Just have found out something really important when it comes to the exporting of soundtracks at different bit rates.

I had a big problem that I could solve some days ago.

I had exported a remix of myself at the highest bit rate in my DAW (320 kbits/s).

In the Windows Media Player there was no problem - played the file properly - the same with 2 MP3-Players - played the file without problems, too.

But another MP3-Player totally fucked up the song with loads of scratching noises.

No matter which sound drivers I had used for exporting it was always quite the same mess - except of different noises at different points of the track.

Tried a lot of different thing to find out the reasons of this problem - in the end I had thought that the MP3 player and its software had some problems to read this MP3 file correctly - as it seemed I haven't been that wrong with this.

As it seems this MP3 player was not able to read and handle the dense of informations at such a high bit rate which must have caused the scratching noises among the whole track.

I exported the same track with the same settings at a lower bit rate (192 kbits/s) - and this time it totally worked on this MP3 player - no strange noises and absolutely clear sound like in the WMP and my DAW.

Took some time for me to find out, that the highest bit rate don't have to be the best bit rate - but perhaps this information can help somebody.

If there's something more to know about this topic please share your experiences and informations.

[Nabeel Ansari]

You're going to have to post an example file.

This would usually mean that the mp3 player you put it in that sounded weird is just a poorly written piece of software if it can't understand 320 kbps mp3's. Stick to reliable software, try Winamp or VLC or integrating your stuff into something like iTunes or Spotify. These are just a couple of stable player options.

But your takeaway of "the highest bit rate don't have to be the best bit rate" is misinformation. 320 kbps are the standard high quality option for mp3 sharing. 192 kbps is considered the bare minimum by some.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Neblix

[Master Mi]

So the 192 kbits/s in the submission rules are just the minimum requirement - can be always higher - but never below that rate?

And you remixer guys always use the highest possible bitare for your tracks/submissions?

I wonder 'cause I have a lot of remixes (some of them are from OCRemix) which have a bit rate far below 320 kbits/s (most of them are 192 or 128 kbits/s).

And a higher bit rate means a higher density of information, so a higher size (and perhaps a higher quality) of the file, right?

[Nabeel Ansari]

I wonder 'cause I have a lot of remixes (some of them are from OCRemix) which have a bit rate far below 320 kbits/s (most of them are 192 or 128 kbits/s).

And a higher bit rate means a higher density of information, so a higher size (and perhaps a higher quality) of the file, right?

Yes. In Digital Signal Processing we say "you have to pay for information". If you want higher quality, it takes up more space.

192 is the minimum for which most people can barely distinguish between compressed and uncompressed audio. Anything below 192 and anyone will be able to tell the difference between the wav file and the mp3.

The wav file is always the highest quality and maximum size because it is just the raw audio data (every sample at every point in time). mp3 is compressed audio, and the lower the bitrate, the MORE compressed the file becomes (and the worse it sounds).

[Master Mi]

Thx for the info.

So I will keep the 320 kbits/s and give the retrograde MP3 player to some only retro gaming & NES OST listening retrocore nerds.

[Moseph]

There's a small possibility that there's something wonky with the MP3 encoder your DAW's using. If you want to explore this, try exporting as WAV ans then converting to MP3 with a different program (iTunes, Audacity, etc.).

If the MP3 player that doesn't play the file correctly is old, though, it may just be a problem with the player, since back when people first started using MP3s, no one typically encoded at high bitrates. The player may just not be designed to handle them.

Edited July 26, 2014 by Moseph