Beginner’s Guide to Music File Formats

Are you confused by the different types of music file formats that exist? Most of you would have heard of MP3 format, but do you know that there are other alternative digital music formats like WAV, WMA, RA and MIDI? Some of them offer better sound quality than MP3 (e.g. WAV format) but also require more disk space. Others like WMA give smaller file sizes than MP3 and are more suitable for portable music players.

Now let’s review the different file formats:

MP3 file format

MP3 files have the extension “.mp3” and are available for download from many websites. MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3) technology compresses a sound sequence into a very small file (usually one-twelfth the size of the original file). The designers of the MP3 compression algorithm achieved this by eliminating sounds that the human ear cannot perceive. Although MP3 technology is impressive, it has been misused by music pirates. One can very easily create MP3 files from commercial CDs and make them available for download. The RIAA and major music companies have taken tough action against the distribution and sharing of MP3 files in this way.

WMA file format

WMA (Windows Media Audio) is Microsoft’s proprietary music file format that it markets aggressively. WMA files are smaller than MP3 files, while still maintaining a decent level of sound quality. This format is increasingly popular in websites for music sampling and also in portable music players. However, it remains to be seen whether AMM will surpass the popularity of MP3.

WAV file format

A wave file is characterized by the file extension “.wav”. This music file format provides raw, uncompressed audio data. Originally invented by Microsoft, wave files are still widely used (for example, your startup and shutdown sounds in Windows). The audio quality is great, but the file size is huge. A complete pop song in wave format can take up to 30 MB of disk space or more.

AIFF file format

AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is a popular music file format used in the Apple Macintosh operating system. In a way, they are the Macintosh equivalent of wave files. AIFF files have the file extension “.aif” when accessed from a PC. They contain raw audio data (which gives excellent sound quality) but take up a lot of disk space.

MIDI file format

The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file format was originally created for recording and playing music on digital synthesizers. MIDI files are very small. The reason is that the MIDI file only contains information about how the music is produced (for example, note-ons and note-offs). The sound card that reads the MIDI file takes this information and plays the music using a wavetable built into the sound card.

RA file format

RA (RealAudio) files support streaming technology. Created by Progressive Networks, an RA file is highly optimized for streaming live audio from websites. RA files are best played on RealAudio players which can be downloaded for free from Progressive Networks.

Conclusion

That sums up our coverage of file formats musical the most popular on the market. Be aware that there are many software applications available to convert music from one format to another (for example, MP3 to WAV or WAV to AIFF).

Originally posted 2019-03-05 10:19:57 .