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MP3 or WAV File When Buying Rap Beats Online?

MP3 FILES OR WAV FILES WHEN BUY RAP BEATS?

MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION

It’s important to make the right decision when shopping for rap beats. It will help you be seen as a professional who knows what he or she is doing. When you want to buy rap beats and instrumentals, do you go for the MP3 or the WAV? Are MP3s good enough to make professional music with? Read the rest of the article below to learn how to make the right buying decision to make the most of your money!

This article is part of a series called “Urban Music Business Tips” which is all about how to work at being a successful independent Urban Music Artist. I hope that I can help out some of the new up-and-coming rappers and singers start their urban music career off right. If you follow the tips in this series, you’ll be a BIG step ahead of your competition! Most music artists never think about this kind of stuff!

When buy rap beats online should I get a WAV or MP3 file?

This questions is more important than a lot of artists think. When it comes to recording professional music, you always want to have the best possible quality at every step of the process. Rapping beats that are WAV files are some of the highest quality audio files that you can get. MP3 is a COMPRESSED audio format – that’s why the audio files of the beats are much smaller than WAVs. This means that a TON of audio data is basically being chopped off the WAV file. And although it can still sound OK, it is not the BEST possible quality of sound. Bringing MP3s hiphop beats into the studio to do recording, mixing or mastering is looked DOWN upon. Don’t get caught slipping and look like an amateur when you go into the studio – pick the WAV whether you buy rap beats.

Use the WAV file whenever possible

That’s assuming you have access to the WAV. Some hip hop producers aren’t willing to give up WAV files (for whatever reasons.) But whenever possible, download the WAV file or ask your producer specifically for the WAV. Most producers are OK with sending you a WAV of the hiphop beats for a small fee if you ask. If you can’t afford the WAV file or the producer you doesn’t offer WAV files you CAN still use an MP3.

Remember, MP3s are compressed audio files with a lot of “lost” data. So you want to have the highest possible bit-rate (the “kbps” number) when buying beats. 320 kbit/s is the highest bit-rate for MP3 files. MP3s can be OK for mixtapes and promo songs (even though they are looked down upon in the Pro Audio world), but if you’re making a single or commercial album – GET THE WAVs!

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