At a given point, you will want to learn how various audio files work. In fact, the knowledge you gather may seem trivial, but there are times it will become handy. This is the case when you want to record music, optimize your music gallery, and create a podcast. In this article, you will learn the different things that can affect the audio file size and audio quality. Getting the right balance between these two is never easy, but it is something you can experiment for yourself.

Simple Rate

As you know, sound is a wave. Thus, when a person claps or speaks, what you hear is the changes in pressure that travel through the air and get into your eardrum. How can that sound be captured and converted into digital data? It is not possible to record the sound wave the way it is; instead, periodic snapshots are needed. When it is played, you can have an approximate recreation of the original sound.

Bitrate

This differs from the sample rate. However, a lot of people cannot differentiate between these two. The bit can be defined as the amount of data that is recorded with each snapshot. Think of it as the size of a bucket you need to fill water with. When you have a high bitrate, you are bound to capture more sound waves.

Mono vs. Stereo

Mono implies a single channel whereas stereo refers to two channels. On a stereo channel, you can refer the audio files as “right” and “left” channels. For example, you can hear the channels using a headphone on your two hears. When you listen to a mono audio channel, you can listen to the particular channel in both ears. This means that a stereo audio file is a combination of two mono files. Therefore, the stereo file will be twice bigger than the mono one.

Compression

When working with the WAV files, you can reduce the size by playing with the above factors. For other things, compression is the most important thing that can affect the size of an audio file. The two types of compression are lossless compression and lossy compression. If you have never compressed the audio file before, you should get the right tool to get the job done.

File Format

After choosing the type of compression you want, you should choose the type of file format that is right for you. The popular options, in this case, are AAC, OGG, and MP3.…