Basic music terminology

Basic Music Terminology ...

There is some terminology that you probably need to be aware of as you learn to use music on your computer or any digital device...

·        MP3* - a file format used for compressing audio files to roughly 1/12th their original size.

·        RIPPING - Basically this is the function of  ”copying” your files  – in this case a music album and individual song tracks onto your computer’s hard drive (this is also known as encoding)

·        MEDIA PLAYER - an application that is used to play all types of media (music, video radio, etc.). Windows Media Player, iTunes, VLC. RealPlayer and QuickTime are all examples of media players.

·        BURN – Basically this is the function of ”pasting” your file – in this case music – onto the CD and or DVD. 

*Note: When we save to MP3 format, you typically won’t notice any reduction in sound quality, but , if you want to ensure you have the highest quality you should import the music again from the original source with the original format, and then make a copy and convert the copy to mp3 formatting. 

What are the different Music File Formats??

MUSIC FILE FORMATS (modified from nch.com.au)

• wav - standard audio file format used mainly in Windows PCs. Commonly used for storing uncompressed (PCM), CD-quality sound files, which means that they can be large in size - around 10MB per minute of music. It is less well known that wave files can also be encoded with a variety of codecs to reduce the file size.

• mp3 - the MPEG Layer-3 format is the most popular format for downloading and storing music. By eliminating portions of the audio file that are essentially inaudible, mp3 files are compressed to roughly one-tenth the size of an equivalent PCM file while maintaining good audio quality. mp3 always works with most third party software programs such as Picasa, Power Point and Windows Movie Maker.

• wma - the popular Windows Media Audio format owned by Microsoft. Designed with Digital Rights Management (DRM) abilities for copy protection.

• aac - the Advanced Audio Coding format is based on the MPEG4 audio standard owned by Dolby. A copy-protected version of this format has been developed by Apple for use in music downloaded from their iTunes Music Store.

• ra - a Real Audio format designed for streaming audio over the Internet. The .ra format allows files to be stored in a self-contained fashion on a computer, with all of the audio data contained inside the file itself.

• ram - a text file that contains a link to the Internet address where the Real Audio file is stored. The .ram file contains no audio data itself.