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Welcome back to podcast answers. If this is the first time that you have been here,

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welcome, welcome, welcome. What we do at this show is we help people start and grow their

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podcast, answering any podcasting questions along the way. And that's right. Today, we are

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that not just like any other day, we're answering the same thing. We're answering podcasting

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questions. We've been doing this for a while and we love answering questions for people.

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So today, what are we talking about? We're going to be talking about MP3 versus AAC versus Wave.

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Like what file format should you put your podcast out there in? There are so many

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different podcast formats or different file formats that you could put your file in

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to create your show. But what is most important? What is the one that's actually going to work for

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you? We're going to talk about that today. But first, guys, if you've not subscribed, go ahead

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and subscribe on all of our social channels. You can find us @podcastanswers and you can find us

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there. The only difference is at the Twitter or X, it is podcast answers one because we could not

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get podcast answers. So with that, guys, we are going to answer your questions now.

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So what are the different formats and what should you choose? So if you're recording your show,

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which you should be recording your show, let's say to edit it or whatever, however you're recording

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your show, you should be recording in a Wave format. That's going to be the format that takes

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all of the information in. It's going to have all of the depth of everything that your microphone

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puts out, that your sound puts out, that your show is going to be doing. So everything that

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you're putting in, a Wave file is going to be the file format that you want to be able to record in.

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So that way you can edit in the best clarity. Now, the downside of Wave files is they are huge.

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They can be multi gig big depending on how long your recording is. So if your recording is an hour,

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your Wave files are going to be extremely, extremely huge. And that does not go well over the

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internet because one of the things about the way podcasting works, the files are delivered

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over the internet. So if your files are huge, they can't handle that. And in fact, most podcasting

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apps when they see a Wave file, they're probably actually not going to play it because they're

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just not the way it's set up to be. So MP3, which is short for MPEG 1, Layer 3. So this is a MP3.

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Most of you have seen it. It's been around forever. It compresses the file size down into a really

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small size. And it's one of the earlier forms of audio encoding. And it's especially, you can fit

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a lot of data onto a small disk. And so if you remember back in the days of when the internet

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was first starting to come around and become popular, if you're that old like I am, you might

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remember file trading sites, MP3 trading sites where you could trade MP3 files of music files.

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And the reason that that worked is because they were small. And so one of the things, this is

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probably the most popular way to use, to encode your files for podcasting. It's going to be,

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it's going to be a most all podcast players are going to be able to play MP3 files.

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One of the things that you are going to want to remember when you're encoding your files as an

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MP3 is you do want to use a constant bit rate, not a variable bit rate. Some,

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when you're editing your software, when you export it, you sometimes have the option to do CBR

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or VBR constant bit rate or variable bit rate. And that is the way that it encodes it, depending

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how much data is coming through it does a higher bit rate. And you want it to be consistently

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the consistent bit rate. So that way, that way it, it just, it will work. Most players will handle

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it funky and try to do, yeah, it just won't work well if you use a variable bit rate. So you don't

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want to use variable bit rate. You want to use a constant bit rate or CBR. And you can encode it,

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you know, for me, I encode it in mine in stereo. I wouldn't need to because I'm not necessarily

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playing a, I'm not playing a track that's in stereo. So again, stereo being two different

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tracks of audio, one left and one right. And you can have some audio on your left and some on your

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right. And you can kind of switch between those. Now for me, I am not doing anything stereo that

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needs to be stereo. And I am mostly just talking in my podcast. So for me, what I do though is I

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am, I encode mine probably higher than I would need to. I do min at 128 KBS. And I do mine in

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stereo. Now, if I wanted to cut my track down to be a whole lot smaller, I could, I could do that

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into like 96 K. And I could go mono. Now again, that's going to have some effect on the music

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that I am playing. The music won't quite sound as good as if I did it in 128 bit to 128 bit stereo

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file. So I do mine 128 bit stereo, even though I'm mostly just doing talking, I still want to have

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all of that information for me. Now again, I could cut that down and make it a lot smaller and make

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it easier to digest. And I think that as a society, we've kind of forgotten that there are still

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places that we don't get great internet. You know, in, in many of the places in my office, I get,

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you know, two gig down or a gig down at gig up, like that's a lot of data and that happens very

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fast. But in a lot of places around the world, we're, they're either paying for the amount of

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data that they use. So the bigger the file it is, the more that your listeners are going to have to

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pay. And so as podcasters, it's important that we remember that we should take advantage of that.

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And maybe if we're not going to offer our main show in a smaller format, because maybe we don't

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like the way that the music sounds or whatever, you can also still offer a lower bit rate file.

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So that's the, how much, how many bits per second. And like I said, I normally do mine 128.

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And I'm doing mine in stereo. But if I really wanted to cut it down, I could go to 96 or even

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lower and then go to to mono because that's a lot less data for it to encode. So the pros of,

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of MP3 is there's a couple of them. It's going to be widely compatible. Most of your, your podcast

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platforms are going to play files as the MP3. They're going to, you know, this is like Spotify

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and Apple podcasts and most other podcast apps are going to be playing in an MP3 format.

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It's compact and it's convenient. And so you are going to be able to, you know, have that large,

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large file that was your wave file and compress it down into something around a meg a minute if

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you're using 128 bit stereo. Now the other, some other audio files out there, there's an AAC file,

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which is advanced audio codec and it's, uh, uses a lossy compression encoder to reduce the file

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size, but the better qualities than MP3s. But it is some of the, some the reasons I wouldn't use this

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is that it's not quite widely as compatible with, with your podcasts apps. Now it is becoming a more,

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a more of a standard, but it's still not all of your podcast apps are going to be able to play it.

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So I would stay away from that and go with just with your MP3 because that's the tried and true.

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That's the one we've been using for since the beginning days of podcasting. And, and so you,

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again, you can, you can do that, but I would not do that because it's going to be, you might,

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you just might not be able to get your places to the, the play it because you're going to run into,

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to different, um, you're going to run into different issues there because not every podcast

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player is going to be able to play your AAC file. So I would stick with something more traditional,

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like an MP3 that is going to be, uh, and you can play around with it. I would try and play around

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with it and see what the, the lowest bit rate that you can accept to your ears and produce it out.

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Again, this is your file. This is your baby. This is your product. And so if you don't like the way

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that 60K, 60, uh, the bit rate of 60 and this, uh, mono file sounds, don't do it, do it a little bit

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higher. But again, there are people in the world that can't exactly pull all of that data down

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because they keep just can't, they're the, the infrastructure doesn't handle it in the place,

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in the world they're at. And you still want to be able to talk to them. I mean, this is the great

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thing about the medium of podcasting is that anybody can do it, whether it's me who's been

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doing podcasting for a while or somebody who's classically trained in radio or somebody who just

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wants to get their word out or my son or my daughter who's never stepped behind a mic can go

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and they can get it to, they can go ahead and put their content out really easily. And so that's

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one of the things I really, really like about podcasting is because you can do that. Now guys,

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this podcast is supported by you listeners like you. If you have something that you want to ask,

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I would love to hear that. And you can contact me if you have a question, you can contact me at

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podcast answers.com/contact. And I would love to answer your question on this show. And we are

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also supported by you. And so this show does take money to run. And if you would like to help us out,

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you can go to podcast answers.com/buymeacoffee where you can give us a one off donation or a

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monthly donation to help keep the cost of this show. And so that way I can keep producing great

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episodes. Thanks guys. And until next time, have a great week.

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