Hi, I've been using Reason for a while, but I am kind of held back by this obstacle.

What I want to do is export my song, then convert it to an Mp3. So far I've been following these steps to get decent results:

- Export Audio -> Wav 48000 Hz with a Bit Depth of 24
- Using Winamp Lame Mp3 to convert to an Mp3 with 256 bitrate

This has been going well for my songs without much loss, however this new song I've finished is very rich. Sounds great on Reason, managed to find good Wav settings to give an acceptable (but not perfect) finish, however when I convert to Mp3 it sounds muffled with some tracks very sharp.

Please let me know of any other ways I could export and convert my song to an Mp3 without loss of quality.

if you download audacity (free) and use the lame file you can convert to mp3 at 320kb but i have found that in some cases you can still notice the quality decreasing.. its pretty much just the reality of converting from wav to mp3 mate...

on another note there is also FLAC files which are bigger than mp3 but still not as good as wav... though only some interfaces can actually play them which is a bit of an inhibiter haha

cheers

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Thanks for the reply. I'll take a look at what you suggested, I hope that it won't cause such a steep decline in quality as my previous method did.

What I don't understand is the settings used to export the song in Wav on Reason. When do I use say, a 48000 Hz file in 24-bit depth, instead of a 44100 Hz file with 16 bit-depth and with the dither option selected (CD Quality)?

By the way, you make great music.

Update:

- Exported to a sample rate of 96 000 Hz
- Used Audacity to convert to Mp3 (128 kbps).

Great sound, out of all my files this one was the closest

Thanks for the help

Here's the file: rapidshare.com/files/247208961/LDLF.mp3

hey mate, track sounds awesome!... very eerie and evil which i always love to hear

truth be told i dont know the specifics of the export specs there i always just assumed that 96000hz with a 24 bit depth was the best quality hahaha

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MP3 is a lossy format, meaning you will loose some quality when you convert .wav to it. But yeah just explore different bitrates etc until you find settings that you are comfortable with. Although try not to make them too big in file size, as certain sites don't like to upload big mp3 files.

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192 kbps is usually a good compromise.


Joe

Yeah I agree that's what I usually use.

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so no 320? I thought thats what was the goods

don't listen to the people hehe ok basically depends on what your PC sound card can take 44000z to 92000z ''24'' default would be 44000z for it too play smoothly on every compatible music file player higher if u want to burn it on CD to play on a proper Hi-Fi system... so choose which ever depth thats suits you etc.than grab ''iTunes'' and load the wav. into itunes and convert it to mp3 ''320kbps'' this is the best quality you can ever get off a mp3