Audio Bitrate Calculator
Turn a sample rate, bit depth, and channel count into an uncompressed bitrate — in kbps and megabytes per minute — to size raw recordings and make sense of your settings.
Understand your recording settings
The sample rate, bit depth, and channel count you choose in your recorder or interface set the raw data rate of everything you capture — and therefore how much drive space a session eats and how big your backups are. Seeing the bitrate and the megabytes-per-minute makes those settings concrete, so you can pick quality and storage deliberately rather than leaving the defaults and hoping.
Ready to size a finished file? Use the Audio File Size Calculator for both WAV and the MP3 you publish.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is uncompressed bitrate calculated?
Linear PCM audio has a data rate of exactly sample rate × bit depth × channels bits per second. CD quality — 44,100 Hz, 16-bit, 2 channels — is 1,411,200 bits per second, or 1,411.2 kbps. There is no compression involved, so the number is fixed by those three settings alone.
What is the difference between sample rate and bit depth?
Sample rate is how many times per second the audio is measured (44.1 kHz means 44,100 samples a second), which sets the highest frequency that can be captured. Bit depth is how many bits describe each sample (16 or 24), which sets the dynamic range and the noise floor. Both raise quality and both raise the bitrate, so they trade off against file size.
Should I record at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz, 16-bit or 24-bit?
For podcasts, 48 kHz is a safe default (it matches video) and 44.1 kHz is fine for audio-only. Recording at 24-bit gives more headroom so quiet passages and level mistakes are more recoverable in editing. You record at these higher settings, then export a compressed MP3 or AAC at a much lower bitrate for publishing.
How does this relate to my published MP3 bitrate?
This tool shows the raw, uncompressed rate of the recording — often well over 1,000 kbps. Your published MP3 might be 96 or 128 kbps, far smaller, because lossy compression discards data your ears are unlikely to miss. Use this figure to size raw recordings, and the file size calculator to size the compressed export.
Educational estimates for uncompressed PCM audio. Compressed formats and real drive usage differ. Not professional engineering advice.