Shrinking Large Audio Files

When you want to distribute an audio file over the web you need to shrink it down considerably in order for individuals to listen to it in a reasonable amount of time. How many times have you visited a site and clicked on the audio presentation only to find that it took forever to load even though you had a fast connection? When this happens the majority of people give up and end up leaving your site.
So, you’ll want to reduce your audio files as small as you can without sacrificing too much of its quality.
If you’re creating a recording and want to give people the option of downloading it to their computer, the first thing you want to do is save it on whatever software you are using. I personally use Sony Sound Forge.
Next, when you save the file, for example inside Sony Sound Forge, use a preset template. They offer low quality, stereo or CD quality. The CD quality audio is going to take up the greatest amount of space followed by the stereo quality. Typically, when you’re saving your audio files, even for a CD, I would suggest not saving it as a stereo file. I’d recommend saving it as a mono file.
The reaso
I say that is not only because the file is going to be a little bit smaller, but believe or not, many people will only have one functioning speaker. Their right speaker will work, but not the left or vice versa. You will get customers calling in and saying, “This doesn’t work” and then you will have to come up with an excuse as to why it doesn’t work. When one of the speakers stops working, they’ll typically only hear half the conversation. So, for this reaso
I always save it in mono format. That’s just a little thing to do to save you from wasting time and to cut down on the couple of people that do this.
Now, the other thing is, when I shrink the file dow
I typically try to get it to 24 kbps and then 22 Hz. I think that’s the smallest file size I’ve found that works the best. If you’re using something like Sony Sound Forge, when you save it as an MP3, you can shrink it down from there. My recommendation is to try to take it to the smallest bit rate that you possibly can in the mono format. However, make sure that when you do it, that you also check it when you’re done because if you hear it and it sounds like you’re Mickey Mouse or something, you might want to raise it up a little bit. Also, before you do send it out to anybody, make sure it works properly.