Cassp, I don't know if you generally master a bit to get the volume up to the volume of most CD's and commercial mp3's, but if you do, I would honestly recommend recording at .wav, 44/24 bit initially, mastering a bit (light compression, maybe a little corrective EQ, limit a few db if you have some big spikes), and convert to mp3 right at the END of the chain.

You'll get a better end result, generally, and you will also have the option of choosing different bitrates for the mp3 depending on where you want to post... Some sites won't host as big a file as you might like - others will. At least this way you have options.

Just a thought.