Introduction to Audio Digitization: Technical Specifications

Before digitizing analog audio recordings, it’s important to decide what types of digital files will be produced. Best practice is to first digitize recordings as high resolution preservation files (commonly in the WAV format). From there, smaller access copies in additional formats can be created as needed. It is also necessary to know how much storage space digitized recordings will require. These resources describe the most common preservation and access file formats, and provide file size and storage estimates.