Next Steps

Release To The World At Large

Once you have created a "master" or basically a version of your song that you are pleased with then the obvious next step is to save that file so that you don't lose all your hard work.  This will usually be a proprietary file that can only be viewed and played by the editing software.  If you want to share this with friends then you will need to convert, or render this master version to a media format that is common to the general public.

At first glance, the MP3 format comes to mind, as well as WAV.  Getting from the original master to rendering an MP3 file can be as simple as a one button click but the quality of that end product may lose sound quality in the process.  It is a good idea to listen very carefully to the original master directly from within the multitrack software then listen to the rendered (mp3) version.  Does it sound as good?

I have found that rendering to a FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a good middle step when direct conversion to MP3 is somewhat less than satisfactory.  In FLAC, the emphasis is on "lossless".  The "free" part is also nice.   This particular format is accepted directly by SoundCloud, for instance, so what you are uploading is as close to your original master.  On the other hand, SoundCloud does not convert the file so if you allow downloads, users will download a FLAC file and they may not have an application on their computer, such as, Free Opener or Windows Media Player.  In other words, this is a format which does not play well with iTunes.

Everything else being equal, I have found that taking the rendered FLAC file and converting to MP3 using Audacity provides a superior finished product.  Not sure why.  Both are set to a sample rate of 44100 Hz.  So far the only difference is that Audacity can be set to 32 bit float whereas Reaper (multitrack software) only allows a maximum of 24 bit.  Hard to believe that this could be the difference but certainly something to watch (and listen) for.