 MP3 is a very popular format, because it is usually indistinguishable from a normal CD track, yet the files can be a 10th the size or smaller making it possible to download it over the internet without waiting hours. Of course the MP3 format has been controversial because of the ease with which copied copyright material can be distributed. All the MP3 files on this particular site were created by playing MIDI files and capturing the soundcard output as a WAV file and then compressing it into MP3 format. You can find out more about this process in our description of file types. To play MP3 files you will need a player application. If you are using a PC then it will probably already have "Windows Media Player" which will play this format. Alternatively you can download many different players such as WinAmp, Music Match Jukebox or Real Player, and most of these will allow you to create favourite "Play Lists".
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 MP3 is essentially just a compressed form of digital sound as stored on a CD, on a DVD or in "WAV" files. The compression process removes those parts of the sound that the ear is rarely aware of, so that the degradation in quality is not noticable under most circumstances. The most common compression factor is 128 kb which results in file sizes approximately an eleventh of the original. This size of file is quite adequate for those with a broadband internet connection, but for most people the download time is still very long. To compress the files even further and shorten the download time to at least half that, mfiles MP3 files are mostly compressed at 32 kb. This is relatively low quality but is an necessary compromise on download times and bandwidth consumption.
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