Just thought I'd add my two cents on the mp3's. First I agree on the 192 bps, and this was the recommendation from techs on the Sound Forge forums. I know some have a lower bps on their demos for quicker load time but I wanted to have as good a sound as I could get and also figured most people with the $$ who hire will have cable or DSL anyway. If someone uses a dial up modem, then offering to send them a CD should handle that. Also, many of my demos are only intro, 8 measures of the song and either ending or fade out just so they get the flavor rather than a complete concert on each tune.

I have all the stuff to beef up the sound of any recording and had fun playing around with it. But I decided against it. I decided the best way for me to go was to let the potential client hear what I really would sound like live rather than sound one way on the demos and then sound different live.

Also, really when you think about it, the senior market was used to and prefer the old analog sounds. The mellower tones of their old phonographs etc. as compared to the more brilliant digital sounds.

The same was true if a person liked the sound of Lowrey home organs, they would not care for the digital sound of a Roland Atelier organ. They would always say the Roland sounded tinny. If a person had never heard a Lowrey, they'd say the Roland sounded great because they had nothing to compare it with.

So my slant on compression etc, is that, as long as you have a decent sounding recording to begin with, if you're after the senior market, then leave it as it is. If you're after all the rest of the market, then beefing up the sound may be something to consider, if you think it's worth it and if you can actually get that sound live, if that's the sound you want when you go live.

Best
Scott

http://ScottLMusic.com