creating MP3's of my music what settings??

[riffs]

Hi i was wanting help in creating mp3's of my music.

I can create the mp3's no problem, i was wondering if there were certain settings that were industry standard, or more importantly any settings that would make my mp3's unplayble to some people. I encoded the mp3's at 192kbps 44.1hz stereo.

is this normal

thanks
riffs

[toonerama]

In the largest sense, that setting isn't "normal" in that it is higher quality, and therefore bigger, than most. But it shouldn't stop anyone playing them. Typical compromise of downloadability and quality is 16-bit, 44.1khz, 128kbps, joint stereo. I have found that size can make quite a difference to people's willingness to download and listen.

[the_lost]

It is important to note that the encoder you choose to use for the conversion can make drastic effects in the sound of the mp3, even all encoded @ 128kbps/44.1 as toonerama already stated. The problem is that bitrates only speak to the size of the file, not its quality; therefore, bitrate/sampling rate alone in some ways can mean little. The algorithm used for the conversion is one of the most important factors to consider.

I suggest that you use an encoder that supports conversion by "Variable Bit Rate" (VBR), as opposed to "Average Bit Rate" (ABR). If you were to encode your .wav file @ 128kbps with an Average Bit Rate, the encoder will use 128 kilobits to encode each second of the song, no matter what. So the first measure (consisting of perhaps 2 drum clicks) will use 128 kilobits and will represent that second nearly exactly. But in the middle of the song, maybe at a huge crescendo, guitar solo, or whatever, it will still have to use 128 kilobits to encode that second, where it could have used 300kilobits. So that second would be represented rather poorly. If you were to encode that same .wav file at the same bitrate using VBR instead of ABR it would sound much different. VBR gives the encoder the freedom to save bits on simple sections that don't need as many bits to represent them well and then has some "extra" bits left over to use for sections that need them. This usually results in files that are slightly smaller than ABR files @ the same bitrate, but sound much better in "busy" sections.

Also do forget to check out "Ogg Vorbis"!
good luck
jay