MP3 Tip of the Day

Every once in a while, or twice in a while if this type of thing is included in your job description, you may have an audio file that needs to be distributed. The question is always raised, what setting should I use? How good is good enough? (I think my spelling works that way). A big trick is, for spoken word, it is almost never mixed in stereo and it has a much smaller dynamic range then music, so you can make it a mono track at a good small bit rate. Music is a little bit more complex (especially in the dynamic range department) and alot of times it takes advantage of the left and right channels that stereo offers. So the quick breakdown is:

• For Spoken Word: 32 kbps mono
• For Music: 128 kbps Stereo (64 kbps per channel)