Originally Posted by DC Ron

Good questions though...
Thanks Ron - really surprising how much I am learning since joining these PF Music forums!

Originally Posted by Janice & Bud
A bit off topic but I would love to see a double blind study of music folks attempting to differentiate a .wav vs a high quality .mp3.
Clearly, I can’t tell the difference! smile
Originally Posted by Jim Fogle
Andrew, from your comments I believe you're confusing lossless versus lossy file formats with audio sample rates.

I like to think of sample rate as a snapshot of audio at a particular moment in time. For example the audio CD standard sample rate is 44,100 Hertz per second, more commonly expressed as 44.1k, while the sample rate most commonly used with audio associated with video is 48,000 Hertz per second or 48k. Common lossless audio file formats include Wave, AFF and FLAC.. Some audio interfaces can be set to 96k or 192k. The key fact is all audio data gets used and none is discarded.

MP3, WMA and MP4 are common lossy audio file formats. A compression algorithm examines the audio and discards some audio data. As you mentioned the file size will be smaller when compared against an equivalent lossless audio file.
Thank you Jim – yes, I was confusing things. Your reply has sent me down a rabbit hole! I found the following website had some useful information…
https://fileconvertlab.com/blog/mp3-vs-wav

Wondering what bit depth people use to render their mix to .wav?

I’m also wondering if I should render the mix at 48kHz for the purposes of video editing, but render at 44.1kHz for Soundcloud?
Thanks also JohnJohnJohn and Mike regarding FLAC information.
Andrew