I put this in the 'recording studio' forum earlier, but maybe it should have gone here instead..if it's a faux pas to do it in both at once...sorry, I'm both a newbie and uninformed (i.e., a puzzled idiot)
I am creating two web sites of short stories on audio that will be sold as individual downloads, not as a CD. The recording studio I’ve talked to will give me a “master” with all the mixing, intro tags added, etc. My question is how do I get from a data master to WMA, mp3 and AAC files I can upload and sell on the web site?
I’ve done a search through here and google and I can’t get a clear answer. If it’s in the archives and I missed it, I apologize. Is this something the recording studio should be able to do for me? They are used to giving a master to the musicians, movie, TV company, etc., and they take it and do “whatever” with it. I realize if I were making a CD, I would get a glass master made and my CDs would be duplicated from that. Do I need to take it to a different type of post production facility for codecs/compression to these formats?
Is the change to these codecs as simple as push a “save as” button in the studio or is it complicated? Do I buy software and do something on the computer…..except my master is binary data, not sound, right? Will I need additional post production adjustments to accommodate issuing them as downloadable files instead a CD, or should that be in the original mix and mastering?
Thank you for your help. I'm really at a loss here.
Laura
Comments
Dear Laura, You had a studio put this altogether for you? He i
Dear Laura,
You had a studio put this altogether for you? He is going to give you the Masters? You could also easily ask you're studio to provide you with some CD ROMs of the Masters, in compressed, numerous, streaming formats, for downloading on the Internet. You don't have to do it and your studio guide should know how. Let your studio do it. Then, you will only have to be concerned with the web site and posting/sales for your clients. The compression process, from an audio CD, takes mere minutes. Almost no time at all.
Programs like Sound Forage, Adobe Audition, Steinberg Wave Lab, Nero CD software and others, all offer compression to MP3 and/or WMA, Real Media, MP 4 and others. Yes, it is simple as going to the "save as" and then dropping down the window that has the ".xxx" file format choices and choosing an appropriate streaming file format, bit rate, etc.
The process of conversion from ".wav" (or the Macintosh equivalent) is also simply accomplished with many audio software's. Even Windows media player, within Windows XP, if you insert an audio CD, it will give you the option to rip the CD in Windows media audio WMA, MP3 and any other codec you happen to have loaded. And that is a simple process from within the Windows media player 10 & 11, not sure about eight or nine?
I converted over 20 years ago
Ms. Remy Ann David