Many people have embraced the MP3 format as their preferred way to download music. Almost all modern digital audio players play these files and most computers and smartphones come with software that lets you organize and store mp3 songs. While some people, especially audiophiles, may complain about the quality of mp3s, it is impossible to deny that this music file compression technology has dramatically changed the world of music in recent years.
MP3 stands for Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3. It’s a system for compressing digital data, including sound information, into smaller spaces. This allows more data to be stored on a hard drive, a CD or in the storage space of a portable music player. The system is based on other MPEG compression systems, which are used for video data such as that contained in DVD movies or HDTV broadcasts.
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When used to convert CDs into mp3 files, it shrinks the size of the original wav file by about one-tenth while retaining the quality. This is a dramatic reduction in file size and makes it possible to fit many more hours of music on a small digital device such as a phone or a computer hard drive.
In the early days of the MP3 revolution, music lovers who owned multiple CDs often found themselves struggling to find enough room on their computer or portable music player for their growing collection of digitized songs. To address this issue, people started to rip their CDs into mp3 files using special software that would create a new file for each song on a CD, and then re-assemble these mp3 files into a single playlist. The new files could then be stored on the computer and played back any time, or ripped again to a new file to add to a playlist.
The popularity of the mp3 format has also changed the way musicians distribute their music online. Many musicians have created websites where they let fans download their music for free, or for a donation. Some have also re-released their older albums with the MP3 version of the songs on them, and others have even created a whole new album by remixing existing tracks and adding new ones to make a fuller compilation.
A few musicians, such as the comedian Jonathan Coulton, have eschewed traditional distribution channels and are distributing their music via blogs that they maintain. This type of distribution is a good option for smaller bands that want to get their music out there but might not have the resources to create a dedicated site.
In some cases, mp3 files are used to create music for use in film or television, where the metadata can be tracked and royalties paid. This is important, because a file needs to have proper metadata in order for the composers and musicians to be able to track the usage and collect their royalties. The most common metadata is the song title, artist and album name.
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