mp3 to wav conversion... better quality?

[Bassist4Life]

i have some mp3's in my iTunes library. if i convert these to wave files, will it give me the uncompressed quality? or, is it just going to give me the mp3 quality in a much larger file size?

thanks,
joe

[James Hart]

what's been lost / removed will NOT come back

[TrooperFarva]

Reminds me of this excerpt from Bash.org

<{eCholaLia}> u know if u have a 56k modem , u can save time buy d/lin songs with the smallest amount of bitrate and changing em after wards with a convertor
<Natus> i think you may be legally retarded

[Bassist4Life]

Okay, cool. Thanks James. I wasn't sure if the compressed layers would "unfolded" so to speak.

I kinda figured that the quality would be lost, just wanted to be sure.

Peace,
Joe

Originally Posted by James Hart

what's been lost / removed will NOT come back

[kiwlm]

the only reason you want to convert it to wav is so that it can be burned onto an audio CD.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by FreaqyFrequency

Not only will the quality not improve because of a format conversion, but usually the file will degrade still further (albeit slightly) from the act of being converted.

That is true if the file is being converted to another lossy format, but not true if it is being decoded to .wav.

[foderaman77]

MP3 is a destructive (lossy) compression technique of compressing audio files. The reason for the high compression ratios. The compression technique called FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compress) is a nondestructive (lossless) compression technique such as ZIP or RAR for files or documents. Nondestructive compression returns the decompressed file back to its original form but the compression ratios are much less.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by foderaman77

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compress)

Free Loss Audio Codec

[foderaman77]

Yes Codec. Which is a lossless compression.

[Bassist4Life]

Originally Posted by foderaman77

MP3 is a destructive (lossy) compression technique of compressing audio files. The reason for the high compression ratios. The compression technique called FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compress) is a nondestructive (lossless) compression technique such as ZIP or RAR for files or documents. Nondestructive compression returns the decompressed file back to its original form but the compression ratios are much less.

Great answer. Thank you, sir. I decompress a lot of FLAC and SHN files from live shows I get on bt.etree. I guess I was just hoping that the same sort of thing was possible with mp3... thinking, perhaps the information is still there somehow. (wishful thinking)

Peace & Music,
Joe

[DWBass]

Originally Posted by FreaqyFrequency

Not only will the quality not improve because of a format conversion, but usually the file will degrade still further (albeit slightly) from the act of being converted.

Not true.

[sonic assassin]

apple lossless is the way to go with itunes.

with that said.. i just throw everything in as an MP3, because im listening back on 1 inch drivers and i dont care what it sounds like.

[FreaqyFrequency]

Originally Posted by Febs

That is true if the file is being converted to another lossy format, but not true if it is being decoded to .wav.

Originally Posted by DWBass

Not true.

Forgive me; you both are correct. I referenced a fallacious source on that information.

Carry on.

[iamlowsound]

I suggest you google "generation loss", the wiki article is a good one.

lowsound

[Bassist4Life]

I am really thankful for the feedback on this topic. I guess some of my misunderstanding came from a person that didn't understand and I thought she did... understand?

I recorded a bass part for her. I told her that the wave file was large. She said, "convert it to an mp3, email it to me, and my program will decompress the mp3 without losing quality."

Is that even possible? By your feedback, I'm going to say... no.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by Bassist4Life

I am really thankful for the feedback on this topic. I guess some of my misunderstanding came from a person that didn't understand and I thought she did... understand?

I recorded a bass part for her. I told her that the wave file was large. She said, "convert it to an mp3, email it to me, and my program will decompress the mp3 without losing quality."

Is that even possible? By your feedback, I'm going to say... no.

No, because MP3 is a lossy compression method. When a WAV file is converted to MP3, there is information discarded that can never be regained.

Lossless compression methods, however, like FLAC or ALAC, reduce file size without discarding any information. A WAV file can be compressed to FLAC, and when it is decoded to WAV, the audio data in the decompressed file will be exactly the same as the original WAV file.

[DWBass]

When it comes to recording, you should never compress the wav/aiff file! Always keep it in it's native format! Mail her a cd or zip it, upload it to Mediafire or similar file host site and send her the download link.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by DWBass

When it comes to recording, you should never compress the wav/aiff file! Always keep it in it's native format!

There's no reason to avoid using lossless compression. As I mentioned in my last post, the audio data contained in a FLAC file (or ALAC, or WavPack, or any other form of lossless compression) can be decode to a bit-identical version of the original WAV, so there is no reason to avoid lossless compression.

[DWBass]

Originally Posted by Febs

There's no reason to avoid using lossless compression. As I mentioned in my last post, the audio data contained in a FLAC file (or ALAC, or WavPack, or any other form of lossless compression) can be decode to a bit-identical version of the original WAV, so there is no reason to avoid lossless compression.

While this is true I would not trust any compression to an important studio recording. A cd? Yeah! Studio tracks? No. FLAC/ALAC will not make the file size significantly smaller to e-mail. Just my opinion.