Check MP3 & WAV File Integrity using MD5 Checksum for Quality Control

MD5 Checksum Example on Audio Files

To have a very clear idea how to do an MD5 checksum to check audio files integrity, take a look at the flow chart below:

Let’s have an example. You will be using a WAV file but the steps are the same for MP3 files. Download this test wav file (right click and save as). For illustration purposes; supposing this is an official recording of a kick drum track that you want to be quality-controlled using MD5 checksum. To implement:

Step1.) Download this Windows MD5 checker software. Extract the zip file and you will see WinMD5.exe. This is the executable file that you need for MD5 checksum.

Step2.) Double click WinMD5.exe. Click “Browse” and navigate to kickdrum.wav file then click “Open”. The software automatically computes the MD5 checksum of the wav file (inside the red box). This is how it looks like:

Step3.) Take note of this MD5 checksum, write or copy it down. For very important files, you should put the MD5 checksum results in a text file. To do this, open a notepad and paste the MD5 checksum value such as:

9c21dfcd8abb6326f9b67996d2bca382

If you have a lot of files, you can have the format like the one below:

Kickdrum.wav: 9c21dfcd8abb6326f9b67996d2bca382
Snare.wav: fd14764595a730e639b30085c441c468
Vocals.wav: 8ffb274f36fb52746e531e53cb58d301

Save it as md5checksum.txt and include this file with your important audio files. You can put them together in a folder ready to be sent to your recipients:

Alternatively if you want to only send pure audio files to your recipient; you can send the md5checksum.txt by email with instructions how to verify the audio file integrity. As a summary by confirming the wav or mp3 file integrity, you can be sure that the recipient is receiving the original files as you have created.

Content last updated on August 12, 2012