Question: Is it possible to detect if wav was previously compressed?

Is it possible to detect if a WAV file was previously compressed to mp3 and then recoded back to WAV?

I am a musician and songwriter. There is a company that is offering to try to sell my music to tv commercial producers. This company says that they will NOT accept any audio CDs of music that was EVER compressed to mp3 format.

For one of my songs I have lost the original 44.1 kHz 16 bit WAV master. I only have an mp3 version which to my ears sounds great.

Are they going to be able to detect this and reject my CD if I covert it back to WAV? Or are they just bluffing?

If not, what is the best possible way to do this so that it would not be detectable?

Hi and Welcome!

mp3 is lossy. So some information is not present in the mp3 file, but it was present in the original uncompressed source.

With appropriate equipment it is possible to determine if a give audio file has been treated with lossy compression previously.

For TV and radio transmission, the source material will be compressed, so if the source is compressed, the output will be of poor quality.

So, play (and record) it again

Michael

Thanks for the quick response.

Does everyone agree that there is no other way besides recording again?

What if I were to somehow record the mp3 to analog (tape for example) and then reconvert that to WAV?

Or...

Would it be feasible to mic some high quality monitors and then record the MP3 output as WAV?

This will add noise and possibly cut some frequencies. Quality will get worse.
Theroretically, you could connect Line-Out and Line-In of your soundcard and record bypassing the tape. Maybe slightly better than via tape.
Even worse than the other two possibilities described above.

You may try one of the above, but son't be disappointed if your CD will be refused.

If you want to deliver optimal quality of your recording, then I see no other option than re-recording the music.

Michael

You will introduce phase shifting from the speakers and microphones = more distortion. Going to analog tape and back will also introduce more phase shifting and add the noise of the inherent tape recorder rumble and hiss.

By the way, Webmagnets, Major congratulations on your commercial acceptance and success. I am very happy for you. That is a hard nut to crack.

Re-record as was suggested...

Cheers,T

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Last edited by t0nee1; 20-12-2008 at 01:18.