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Your Music and MP3s

© Wendy Beck

Music on the Internet
Once your CD is done you probably want to advertise your music using the Internet. Artists often advertise or sell their music by offering a digital download of their sound and the MP3 format has become the Internet music format.

The MP3 format compresses your music into small files that can be easily downloaded by listeners and shoppers from sites such as MP3.com, Rolling Stone, IUMA and a host of other sites. While the compression used by the MP3 format does alter the quality of your music, the reduction in file size for your listeners is worth the trade off.

MP3 or Not
Now the big question – to MP3 or not. The decision about whether or not to offer your music in the MP3 format is a personal one. I have worked with artists that believe that offering full MP3 versions of their music hurts their sales. Because bands and artists often offer the best song off their CD as a free download, they feel that the listener will not be converted to a CD buyer. Other artists see this as a way to increase sales as well as visibility and name recognition. Even if you do not want to offer free full versions of your songs as MP3s, you can still use the MP3 format to create a short 1 or 2 minute taste of your music to be downloaded.

Nuts and Bolts of MP3 Creation
How you choose to use the MP3 format is up to you, but the nuts and bolts of creating them remains the same. Some sites will offer to convert your tunes to MP3s but it is definitely one of those things you can do yourself.

To create an MP3 of your tunes, you will need to have your music on a CD to transfer it to a computer. You then pull your music off of the CD and onto the computer in a process called "ripping." The tunes are then "encoded" into the new MP3 format. There are a number of software applications that do these things for you. They are called "rippers" and "encoders." Often vendors bundle these functions into a single application. These applications are available for purchase on the Internet. Most of the free encoders that used to be available on the Internet have disappeared due to enforcement of an MP3 patent. Now encoding applications require a small fee of about $20, so that the companies can pay the required MP3 licensing fee. The quality and ease of use of these applications varies greatly so you might want to ask around and/or read reviews. Included at the bottom of this article are links to additional articles on creating MP3s and some of the MP3 rippers and encoders available on the Internet.