Audio formats for customs
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Does everyone use 128kbps mp3 for the audio source file when creating customs?
Is it possible to use other formats such as 320kbps mp3, and does it make sense to do so or is the audio quality benefit too marginal?
Also is there a list of supported formats depending on the console?
Thanks!
Does everyone use 128kbps mp3 for the audio source file when creating customs?
No, 320 kbps minimum for me. FLAC is your best option. The audio file used for compiling the custom is then generated from inside Reaper using your source file.
When possible I rip the original CD to FLAC or purchase a FLAC online. Mp3 is good if its 320 but I generally use FLAC now exclusively for over a year.
My other suggestion is that many older artists have released “Remastered” versions which are usually engineered to sound better on modern equipment, I’ll usually choose those over the originals when available. Unless its KISS or something from the ‘loudness wars’ era.
To be clear, Magma reencodes your (WAV) audio to Ogg Vorbis for the game, at a default quality of “5” (though you can change it) which corresponds to roughly 160kbps (for a stereo track). For a single mixed source like we usually use, this is considered to be indistinguishable from lossless audio for most people. For multitracks like official songs would’ve used, it’s even better, since each instrument’s audio has that ~160kbps space to use.
However, if you start from any lossy compressed source (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, etc.), then the result will be double-compressed, and each lossy compression step will likely shave off different parts of the audio. This can degrade quality significantly, so that’s why it would be recommended to give audio to Magma that has not been compressed or has only been compressed losslessly (like FLAC).
I am getting the audio out from the original CD so I can get the WAV.
I thought I had to provide the final audio format myself before Magma, and given the small ~1Mb/min size of the customs files I assumed 128k mp3 was used.
No, as noted, Magma does its own audio encoding. Harmonix likely chose Ogg Vorbis because it is free of patents and royalties, meaning they didn’t have to pay anyone to use Ogg Vorbis. That wouldn’t have been the case for MP3.
In any case you should be feeding WAVs to Magma, and you should be sourcing those WAVs from either CD rips or the highest quality downloads you can find, ideally.
The small file size is due to the compression from putting the entire song in the backing track with empty audio files in the other instruments. It’s all the same value since there’s no change in the audio, and being there’s no change it can compress it to basically nothing. That’s why you don’t see full band customs upwards of 20Mb.
Thanks to all for the clarifications!
I will always chart songs from my original CDs so you can count on me using WAVs from now on.
Now of course I had already done all the tempo mapping and then first 2 instruments charts for my first custom on top of the mp3… I cross my fingers that replacing the audio file in Reaper at this stage won’t invalidate the whole tempo map
If you’re using the same CD rips that you used to create the MP3s, the tempo maps should be fine.
Yes it was, thanks
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />Yes it was, thanks
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />You may need to slide your song slightly to the left since mp3 files have a buffer at the front that the wav files don’t have, but after that they will line up.
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