LANDR offers mastering in the following audio formats:
- LO-RES MP3 (192kbps)
- HI-RES MP3 (320kbps)
- WAV (16bit)
- HD WAV (24bit)
HD WAVs and WAVs are the highest quality format. A WAV is lossless, so it will preserve all the details and quality of your original file. If you’re sharing demos with a label, pitching to a publisher or sending music to a media outlet like a blog, you need a mastered WAV.
- The difference between 16bit and 24bit is how much of the original audio information is contained in the file.
- Our 16bit WAV masters come back with a sample rate of 44.1kHz.
- If you opt for our 24bit HD WAVs, you’ll keep whatever sample rate you had in your original file.
MP3s are lossy audio files, meaning their quality has been degraded from the original audio. The difference between our LO-RES and HI-RES MP3s is the bit rate at which they stream. Our LO-RES MP3 masters stream at 192 kilobits per second (kbps), and our HI-RES MP3 masters stream at 320 kilobits per second. A higher kbps means more data, and therefore more audio quality, is preserved in the conversion process to MP3.
- The HI-RES MP3 is the most common file type because it gives you the best of both worlds. They’re compressed for manageable file size, but still sound quite good (tons of people stream music in MP3).
- A LO-RES MP3 is your workhorse. They’re quick and dirty MP3s when you need something fast and easy to share. They’re great for transferring a ton of files at once, previewing your entire back catalog, or quickly referencing and sharing tracks.
Learn more about file types in our Audio Formats Guide.