RINGR Premium provides a number of options for output file types, compressed using 3 different codecs. Which you should choose depends on what you intend to do with the file:
MP3
- Pros: supported almost everywhere
- Cons: introduces some audio artefacts at lower bitrates, can sound a little 'tinny' at times
OGG
- Pros: Sounds loads better than MP3 for the same files size, open source/free, supported by most editing softwares, better supported than FLAC
- Cons: Not quite as widely supported as MP3 (but works on almost all phones and browsers)
FLAC
- Pros: Lossless (identical to the WAV file but less than half the size), open source/free, supported by most audio editing softwares - an ideal transfer format
see https://ringrhelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/225904387 for more details on importing FLAC files into major digital audio workstation apps such as Pro Tools, Audition etc. - Cons: Not supported by most browsers and requires a plugin to playback, larger file sizes than MP3/Ogg
YOU SHOULD ALSO CONSIDER THE COMPRESSION LEVEL OR BITRATE: The higher the bitrate the better the quality. However, if the user is on a low bandwidth connection then a higher bitrate may mean delays or buffering periods, negatively affecting their listening experience. Mobile users may also eat through their data allowance quicker.
Experiment with different bitrates and quality settings and find the lowest setting that still sounds great - your listeners will thank you for it! Speech is very compressible (compared to polyphonic music) so expect to use lower bitrates than you would for music - also if it's a mono recording you can reduced bitrate again compared to a stereo recording.
If you think you might have audio artefacts in your recording introduced by our post-processing (which auto-levels the participants and reduces background noise in recordings before merging them) please try downloading the raw, unprocessed recordings and review those.
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