Wav File

[atkin1257]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Dale Atkin. I live in St George Utah. I just purchased a CVP 407 in January. I used to be a Yamaha Piano dealer here in Southern Utah about 25 years ago.

I am having a real blast with the new keyboard. I can't believe how realistic the sounds are. And the variety seems to be endless.

I have a question for the forum about the WAV file. I am transferring recorded songs that I play onto a flash drive and then tranferring that to my computer, then to itunes and then onto my ipod.

Everything works just fine, except that the WAV file is about 10 times larger than than the MPEG4 files that I down load from itunes onto my ipod. Where as a MPEG4 file for a song might be between 3 and 5 MB, the same lenght of song will be between 30 and 50 MB in a WAV file.

Is there some way to compress the WAV file into a MPEG4 file? If it is possible, how much does it affect the sound quality of the Clavinova?

I purchased a 4G flash drive and was hoping to get about 1000 songs on it. But with WAV files it appears that I will only be able to get around 100 songs.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any help. I've been reading the forum and lurking here for some time.


Dale

[Midi Magic]

Hm

I would convert the wave files to MP3s as a MP3 is only 1Meg / min at a bit rate of 128K. Even at 192K it would still be a fraction of the size of the wave file. There are lots of free conversion programs on the net to do this. I use an old copy of "MP3works" but there are many to choose from out there.

[Nomad2000]

Hi Dale,

You can use iTunes to do the conversion:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93123

I would suggest AAC format at High Quality (128kbps) or Higher Quality (256kbps) if you really care about the sound quality.

[atkin1257]

Thanks for the link to itunes. Sorry to be so late with a response, but I have been out of town for a few days.

By converting the WAV file to a AAC file, how much storage space am I saving vs converting to MP3? Do the AAC files take up more room than the MP3 files? If so, by how much? Also how much better is the sound quality of the AAC file vs the MP3? Will most people be able to hear a difference between the WAV file and the AAC file?

Is there a big difference in sound quality of the WAV file when recording a CD vs recording a CD from a AAC file? Can I get a lot more recording time on a CD using AAC format vs using the WAV format?

I'm having a difficult time emailing my music to friends using the WAV file becuse the files are so large they are returned as unable to deliver. Will I be able to send email attachments using the AAC format and will the music sound just as good as a WAV format?

I'm able to take the flash drive of my recorded music and play it back thru the Clavinova when I am using the WAV file. Will I be able to play back my music on the Clavinova if I have converted the WAV files to AAC files? If so, will the music sound as good and full as the WAV file does?

Any explanation of how these different files will sound, record, transfer and relative storage sizes would be appreciated.

I just don't know anything about how to do what I want to do with my Clavinova music in creating, recording, saving, sharing with friends via email and via recorded CD. I want the best sound possible and be able to put the most songs possible on the flash drive and on my ipod, but I also want the best sound possible. Is that possible?

Thanks

Dale

[Nomad2000]

AAC files will provide better sound quality than an MP3 of the same bitrate. For example, an AAC file at 128kbps sounds better than an MP3 encoded at 128kbps. This is just due to the differences in the formats.

Generally, an AAC at 128kbps sounds as good as an MP3 at 192kbps. Some would even argue the AAC is the equivalent of an MP3 at 256kbps.

If you are really concerned about size, AAC at 128kbps is quite good. If you are more concerned about quality, go to 256kbps AAC and most people won't be able to tell the difference between the AAC and the WAV.

One other thing to consider is that MP3s are pretty universal, while AACs are not quite as widely supported.

The bottom line is that nearly all audio compression formats are "lossy", which means as the file size gets smaller, the sound quality goes down.

If it were me, I would pick 256kbps AAC for the better quality. Depending on how long your songs are though, this might still make files that are too large for some people's email in boxes.

You could always make two copies of the song, and keep a WAV, a 128kbps AAC and a 256kbps AAC file around and then use the appropriate file depending on what you are doing with it.

I also find it useful to do A/B testing with different file encodings. Listen to one and then the other and see if you can notice the differences.

[dk21208]

Your CVP will only play back the WAV file, by the way.

Unless you are adding vocals or some other line-in source to your recordings you might as well record and save them as midi files on your CVP and only save as WAV files when you want to export them to share them with others or put on your ipod.

[atkin1257]

What does kbps mean? I thought that kbps referred to kilo bites per second as a measurement of data transfer rates. Does kbps have anything to do with the amount of space used on storage devices?

If a 5 minute recording is 50mb using the WAV format, how many mb would be used in the same lenght of recording using the AAC format?

I now understand that AAC sounds better than MP3. Do they both take up the same amount of storage space? MP3 seems to be about one tenth the size of WAV. Is AAC also about one tenth the size of WAV?

[dk21208]

In this context kbps refers more to how much data is stored within the file. So, if you convert to a 128 kbps mp3each second of audio takes up 128 kb of storage. A generic rule of thumb here is that you will end up with approximately a file size of 1 megabytye per minute of audio converted.

The true bottom line is that you will need to decide what you are satisfied with when it comes to sound quality. If you give me some time I will try to post some files tonight that will help you make that determination.

[atkin1257]

I have able to use itunes to convert a song I recorded. The original WAV recording was 27.2MB with a Bit Rate of 1411. The converted file was only 2.6MB with a Bit rate of 128kbps.

This answers my question as to the relative size of each format. My hearing is so poor that I can not tell the difference between these two listening thru ear pods.

Thanks to all for your help.

[dk21208]

Glad to hear you got it worked out.