I'm a plain old muso who's love for music far exceeds my abilities. I do my tracks in BIAB keeping them as simple as possible. Then render them into MP3's to strum and sing along to. Budget equipment is the best I can do. Alto mixer and active speakers. The question is would it make that much difference rendering to WAV files rather than MP3's. In truth i can't really hear the difference, too many years of music, motorcycles and machining has done the damage.

IMHO-if all you're doing is playing along for your own benefit- mp3 is fine. It also takes up less space on your drive and as you say, you can't hear the difference.

I concur. Of course, MP3s can be made in greatly varying quality. If you make one at 44.1K, 320 Kbps, stereo, then few people will be able to tell the difference between that and a .WAV file. If you make a mono .MP3 at 128 Kbps, you'll save space but more people will hear the difference.

Like Matt Finley said, High quality mp3's are probably fine.
To me, 128kbps are not good enough for performing.
You can hear the difference.

Personally I use .wav files because disk storage is hardly an issue these days.
Mp3's are compressed files. Compression is lost data.

It probably doesn't matter at 320Kbps. But perhaps sometimes it does.

Thanks, the BIAB does the MP3 at the 320 setting which sounds great to me. It helps for the storage on the little tablet I use as well. All's well. Take Care.

For performing I use MP3@320kbps. After all I play to folk that are eating, chatting, elderly and or hard of hearing in some other way. I play the music through a PA in buildings that have air conditioners blowing away, or a bit of 50 cycle hum and/or many other extraneous noises. I don’t think anybody even if they were listening closely could pick the difference between the MP3 or a .wav in that environment.

It is possible to find the losses and have a listen to them. In a nutshell you could pull both the .wav and 320 kbps MP3 into something like Audacity. Set (normalise) them to exactly the same level, ensure both are set exactly at the same time, invert one of them then play the song. The tracks will pretty much cancel out. The sound you are left with is the losses. @320kbps the result is not that much, usually high end sound most people struggle to hear.

@128kbps you will hear more losses.

That was my experience.

Tony

If you ever attempt to use this method you indeed need to make sure the two are exactly in time.
By 'invert' I think Teunis means to reverse the polarity of both tracks.

This also means both would need to be at the same volume (Normalizing would get them close but other ways exist).

The theory is that what is in one track sending a negative value would cancel out another track sending a positive value.
This has been a proven technique, but understanding the mechanics can be important.
Get them out of time a little and the results are wrong (usually results in a noticeable phasing).
Having one a little off on volume can also skew the results .. but the science is pretty cool to know.

Interesting application of the theory Teunis! I wouldn't have thought of this.

Yes, you need to ensure both the MP3 and the .wav are exactly the same in volume and where the play back is from or you will get the sound of phasing and volume imbalance skewing the result. The easiest way to get the start lined up is to go to the first transient on both tracks and line them up.

The term used by Audacity to reverse the “polarity” of a track is to “invert” it. That is the option under effects.

So basically what you are doing is putting the tracks 180 degrees out of phase. If both tracks were exactly the same the result will be zero output. Usually even what you are left with (assuming MP3@320kbps and .wav) you’d need to amplify a fair bit to hear.

Tony

Thanks Guys, I'm quiet happy with what I'm hearing as I believe the old folk who I play for are happy. so I don't think I'll go looking for the bits I don't have. Even if I found them I wouldn't know what to do with them. The digital thing has passed me by a long time ago and gives me a headache. I still have my toolkit for servicing my car, feeler gauge, Timing light, Dwell meter, Exhaust gas analyser etc. But Digital came along now all I can do is oil change and top up fluids. Now I'm feeling my age. Take care from sunny Durban.

High quality MP3 (320KBS) is very difficult to hear the difference. I have used MP3 tracks in my recordings and no one notices. A singer sent me the MP3 and later, when I got ready to mix, the wave was simply not available....

That song is In A World Without you. on my music page