Should I downsample my audio or let Spotify do it for me?

[daanhav]

Hi,

Even though most distributors accept 48kHz sample rate / 24 bit audio or higher, Spotify converts all audio to 44.1kHz sample rate / 16 bit audio (please correct me if this is untrue).

I was then wondering if it's best to export your audio in 44.1kHz sample rate / 16 bit BEFORE sending it out to Spotify, or to send them your high quality audio (48kHz / 24bit or higher) and let Spotify do the downsampling.

Does this make any difference? Some people claim that audio compression algorithms are faulty in some cases, so would I be safer off doing the downsampling myself?

I hope someone can clear this up for me.

Best,

Daan

[PrettyMuchSwiss]

Hey there, 

I'm not qualified to give any advice on how to make music and any audio mastering and Spotify algorithms and all that stuff. However, in my amateur opinion, it makes sense to downsample it yourself if that is possible, as there shouldn't really be any downsides of doing it yourself and you don't have to take the risk if you can do it manually and check it again before finally uploading it.

As I said, I have no idea how this stuff works, but if it isn't too hard, I personally would do it myself. But also maybe someone who knows more about this can answer you.

Anyways, I wish you a great day and hope you at least got something out of my answer.

[daanhav]

Yeah, fair. I guess you're right. Manual downsampling would take away the risk of Spotify doing bad compression.

Thank you for your reply!

[Xenia]

Hi @daanhav,

In addition to what @PrettyMuchSwiss has written, I'd recommend taking a look at this artists support page where you can find a lot of useful information on how your uploaded audio files are processed.

Hope this helps. Give us a shout if you have any other questions 🙂

[DJDark]

https://artists.spotify.com/help/article/audio-file-formats?category=managing-your-music

You should upload it uncompressed as WAV?