How is uncompressed audio file size calculated?

File size equals sample rate × (bit depth ÷ 8) × channels × duration in seconds. Each sample stores one value per channel, the bit depth sets the bytes per sample, and the sample rate sets how many samples per second.

Why is a 24-bit/96 kHz file so much bigger than CD quality?

Both axes scale the size. 96 kHz is 2.18 times the 44.1 kHz sample count, and 24-bit is 1.5 times the bytes-per-sample of 16-bit, so the file is roughly 3.3 times larger for the same duration and channel count.

Does this apply to MP3, AAC or FLAC?

No. Those are compressed formats. MP3 and AAC are lossy and far smaller; FLAC is lossless and typically 40-60 percent the size of WAV. This tool gives the uncompressed PCM size that WAV and AIFF store.

What about the WAV file header?

A standard WAV header is about 44 bytes, which is negligible next to the audio data — even a one-second stereo CD-quality clip is over 170,000 bytes. The tool reports the audio payload size, accurate to within that header.

What is the difference between MB and MiB shown here?

MB uses decimal units (1,000,000 bytes), as quoted by drive manufacturers and most cloud storage. MiB uses binary units (1,048,576 bytes), as reported by many operating systems. The tool shows both so figures match whatever tool you compare against.

What is the Audio File Size Calculator?

Calculate the size of an uncompressed PCM audio file (WAV/AIFF) from sample rate, bit depth, channel count and duration. Shows file size in MB, MiB and GB plus the bit rate, for session planning and storage budgeting. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Audio File Size Calculator

Name: Audio File Size Calculator
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Get one useful tool a week

Like this tool? Enter your email and we'll send you one genuinely useful Gera tool a week — plus a link to come back to this one. No spam, one-click unsubscribe any time.

A storage-planning tool for recording engineers, podcasters, archivists and anyone capturing uncompressed audio. Enter your format and session length to see exactly how much disk space the WAV or AIFF files will take.

How it works

Uncompressed PCM audio stores a fixed number of bytes for every sample, on every channel. The size formula is direct:

bytes per second = sample rate × (bit depth / 8) × channels
total bytes       = bytes per second × duration in seconds

For CD quality (44,100 Hz, 16-bit, stereo): 44100 × 2 × 2 = 176,400 bytes per second, so one minute is about 10.6 MB and a three-minute song is roughly 31.8 MB.

Stepping up to a 24-bit/96 kHz stereo master: 96000 × 3 × 2 = 576,000 bytes per second — about 34.6 MB per minute, more than three times the CD-quality rate.

Worked example

A 3 minute 30 second stereo track at 24-bit/48 kHz:

Metric	Value
Bytes per second	288,000
Bit rate	2,304 kbps
Duration	210 s
File size	~57.7 MB

Tips and notes

Multitrack sessions multiply fast. A 24-track session at 24-bit/48 kHz consumes the per-track size times 24 — budget accordingly when recording a full band.
Channels count literally. A 5.1 surround mix at six channels is three times the size of a stereo file at the same rate and depth.
For long-form archival, consider FLAC: it is lossless and typically cuts the size by roughly half, while WAV remains the safe interchange master.

Every calculation runs locally in your browser; nothing is sent to any server.

Common format size reference

The table below illustrates how dramatically format choices affect file size for a one-hour stereo recording:

Format	Sample rate	Bit depth	Size (1 hr stereo)
CD quality (WAV)	44,100 Hz	16-bit	~635 MB
Broadcast WAV	48,000 Hz	24-bit	~1.04 GB
Hi-res audio	96,000 Hz	24-bit	~2.07 GB
Studio master	192,000 Hz	32-bit	~5.5 GB

These figures are for illustration and assume uncompressed PCM. Actual WAV files include a small header and any metadata chunks, but for any recording longer than a few seconds the difference is negligible.

Planning storage for a recording session

When planning session storage, the safe habit is to calculate the total raw track size and double it — once for the session itself and once for a local backup before anything goes to cloud storage.

For a typical small studio scenario — an 8-track band recording at 24-bit/48 kHz — each track consumes about 277 MB per hour of recorded material. Eight tracks over a four-hour session produce around 8.9 GB of raw audio, before any bounce-downs, exports, or project files. A 32 GB fast card or drive covers this comfortably; a 16 GB card is cutting it close.

Film and broadcast projects with 5.1 or 7.1 surround formats can exceed 50 GB per hour of finished deliverable, which is why NAS storage rather than portable media is the industry standard in those workflows.