What is MP3? Explained in a simple and understandable way

You can not only buy music on a CD, but also download MP3 songs from the Internet. In this practical tip, we explain what exactly an MP3 is.

MP3 - Compact format for audio files

The MP3 file has been around since the mid-1990s. This is hidden behind an MP3 file:

• "MP3" is the abbreviation for "MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3" and belongs to the family of the Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG). MP3 files are marked with ".mp3".
• An MP3 file is an audio encoding, which means that the original music file is compressed and converted.
• The music file is very heavily compressed, with only a slight loss in sound quality. Compared to the original music file, an .mp3 file only needs ten percent of the original file size.
• This compression is given in a compression rate in kbit / s. The higher the value of the compression rate, the better the quality of the MP3 file. From a compression rate of 196 kbit / s you can hardly hear a difference to the classic CD sound.
• Digital music is saved and sold as an .mp3 file. This allows you to play music from a PC, iPod or MP3 player without having to own a CD.
• Streaming services such as Deezer or Spotify also use MP3 files.

MP3 - this is how it is compressed

For example, to make a small MP3 file from a large wave file, the data is subjected to some analyzes.

• Certain tones are simply omitted. This applies to the tones that are masked by louder tones, i.e. are masked. The art is to find exactly these tones.
• These are barely perceptible to the human ear and thus there is hardly any loss in quality during compression.
• The process thus ensures good quality with a small data size.
• In addition to MP3, there is also the MP4 file format. We will explain the difference between the two formats in another practical tip.