Introduction to computer music formats

The standard sound format for computers: WAVE

Wave file is a sound specification developed by Microsoft. Due to its long history, it has Microsoft has used a large number of sound files in the "WAVE" format in its operating systems, making this format a standard sound format for computers, such as the sounds for entering and exiting Windows, and the sounds for various events when operating the mouse, etc. etc., all using the WAVE sound format.

The extension of the Wave file is "wav". It directly samples the analog sound signal and converts it into digital data and stores it in the computer. Therefore, According to the sampling frequency, it can be divided into "8000 Hertz (Hz)", "11025 Hz", "22050 Hz" and "44100 Hz". The larger the value, the closer the sound recorded by the computer is to the original sound, but other The file size is also larger. Taking 44100 Hz as an example, 1 minute of sound occupies about 1 million bytes (1MB).

The sound quality of a general CD is the sound with a sampling frequency of 44100 Hz, so a CD can store approximately 74 minutes of sound.

Web page creators’ favorite sound format: MIDI

MIDI is the abbreviation of Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It is different from the sound file format of WAVE. It does not directly record the sound samples, but records the type of sounding instrument and music notes and other information in the sound, so its file is very small. If compared with WAVE files of the same length, the size is usually only one percent of WAVE. Since MIDI can only record information related to musical instruments, it is usually pure music and does not include human voices.

The file extension of MIDI is "mid". Because the file is very small, it is widely used on the Internet. As a sound effect on a web page, it can not only add to the multimedia effect of the web page, but also save the time of downloading the web page. In contrast, WAVE files are rarely used on web pages.

There are also electronic keyboards specifically designed for playing MIDI on the market. Through connecting cables and interface cards, the playing content can be directly recorded into the computer and converted into MIDI files. This is very useful for people who often engage in music creation. It is a very convenient tool!

The easiest sound format to transmit on the Internet: MP3

If you want to download a song to listen to on the Internet, the most common file format is MP3. What exactly is MP3? ? In fact, MP3 uses MPEG Audio Layer 3 technology to convert sounds in WAVE file format into smaller files with a compression rate of 1:10 or even 1:12.

However, the compression method of MP3 is destructive compression (just like graphic files JPG). Even if it is restored to a WAVE file, it will be different from the original file. Even so, there is no difference to the human ear.

The attractive part of MP3 is that it greatly reduces the file size to one-tenth to one-twelfth of its original size. If a music CD could previously store 10 songs, it can now store 100. To 120 songs, it can be said to be very amazing.

Because of this, if a 5-minute song was originally stored in WAVE format, it would require 50MB. Now, if it is stored as an MP3 file, it only takes 5MB. Therefore, MP3 music can easily be uploaded to the Internet. One of the sound formats delivered.

The file extension of MP3 is "mp3". It can be said to be the most popular computer music now. Next time you see an MP3 file on the Internet, you can download it and listen to it. Not only can it It can be played on computers, and home appliances such as MP3 players and MP3 speakers have recently been released.

Exclusive sound formats for each company: AU, RA, AIFF

Unix system exclusive: AU

AU is a sound used on Unix systems format, its extension is "au". Since in the early days of the development of the Internet, the operating system of the Internet was almost exclusively Unix. Therefore, many sound formats on the Internet and Unix systems also used AU. format to store. Browsers such as Netscape also provide the function of playing AU file format.

Exclusive to RealNetworks: RA

RA is a sound format developed by RealNetworks. It is mainly suitable for playing real-time sound files on the Internet. Its extension is "ra". This type of file cannot be played alone. The server must provide the function of playing RA in order to play this sound format. Since this type of file does not need to be downloaded in its entirety to be played, it can provide a sound function similar to real-time broadcasting.

Macintosh exclusive: AIFF

AIFF is the abbreviation of Macintosh Audio Interchange File Format. This file format is the sound format on Apple Macintosh and is similar to WAVE files. The format is similar. It also uses sampling to convert analog sound into digital data and store it in the computer.

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