Who out there is FLACing and who is WAVing?

[DirtDog]

Been having a ball this afternoon unpacking an Ardour project recorded using .flac files. My buddy recorded a bunch of tracks for a song and now it's my turn to lay down bass and keys.

My buddy is a bit of propellerhead and an open source advocate - so everything was shared as a tar.gz (fine). He's one of those: "If it's not open source and run from a command line, it's crap". Our drummer was like: "How do I play this on my phone?". I'm somewhere in the middle. Oh, the fun! So, open source software (fine) and open source audio format (fine, but not without issues). All this added up to a big headache for me. I do have Ardour running on Linus machine and can read the project and flac files, but I prefer to do my tracking and mixing in Logic.

Logic doesn't read .flac files natively. That I found out after exporting everything from Ardour on Ubuntu and uploading to a virtual drive, then downloading onto my Mac and trying to import into Logic. It's only about 1.2GB worth of data across a couple of dozen tracks, so easy peasy!

So, I now need to repeat this process but export the .flac tracks to .wav stems using Ardour/Ubuntu, upload, download onto Mac and bring in to Logic. And hope nothing gets corrupted again along the way.

I'll send him back my WAV stems when I'm done tracking my bits and I asked him to just send me WAV stems moving forward to keep it simple.

So, I started to wonder what you other recording/engineering/producer tended towards in terms of file format in terms of recording, mixing, mastering, collaborating? FLAC, WAV, other? How often are you moving from one format to another in the context of one song/album/collab?

 

[Tosh]

ah HA - great questions - can't wait to read the responses.

I'm literally all over the place with formats! Today my recordings are created and saved initially as AIFF, since I primarily use Logic. Many of my older recordings are BWAV from the days when I ran Sonar. I use FLAC for all of my archived masters. I have Sound Forge for Mac, and it handles FLAC no problem. When I'm exchanging files with others, it's most likely going to be MP3/320kbs, because that's become the universal standard. However when it's a matter of flying in a recording from someone else, I now ask for BWAV, FLAC, or AIFF - MP3 doesn't cut it.

I've also been using OGG files that were recorded in JamKazam, and I found that Audacity will read/write them and export to WAV, and doesn't require you to add the Fraunhofer CODEC library (not open-source).

I've played with PCA, SHN, MLP, and in my opinion FLAC is the king in the land of lossless CODECs

 

[silky smoove]

Working on files myself in Logic: AIFF
Sending files to other Logic users: AIFF
Sending files to non-Logic users: WAV
Receiving files from other users regardless of DAW: Whatever they give me I'll figure out a way to make them AIFF or WAV

With the announcement of the upcoming Spotify Hi-Fi which appears to operate using FLAC files I'm guessing there will be a more broad adaptation of FLAC as a viable format in DAWs.

 

[LBS-bass]

I use Logic, so AIFF, but shared files from session players almost always come to me in WAV format, which is fine. The reference files I send to them to import and play over don't need to be high resolution, so MP3s normally go out for those purposes since they are highly portable.

Spotify is saying they prefer FLAC which I have not used before, so I will need to find a tool to convert these files if I ever actually get around to seriously publishing anything.

 

[MonetBass]

WAV typically unless someone requests another format. I'm never sure what DAWs others use, so WAV always tends to work for everyone (24-bit 48kHz).

 

[silky smoove]

Spotify is saying they prefer FLAC which I have not used before, so I will need to find a tool to convert these files if I ever actually get around to seriously publishing anything.

FYI: I've always given them WAV files for upload and had zero issue. They're both lossless formats so the audio quality shouldn't be any different. They don't play back in FLAC format, which I've always found odd but suppose it's necessary due to bandwidth limitations of mobile carriers. As I mentioned in my post above, they're rolling out a new hi-fi platform soon that will evidently playback using the source FLAC files. When that goes live their willingness to accept WAVs might decrease.

 

[LBS-bass]

FYI: I've always given them WAV files for upload and had zero issue. They're both lossless formats so the audio quality shouldn't be any different. They don't play back in FLAC format, which I've always found odd but suppose it's necessary due to bandwidth limitations of mobile carriers. As I mentioned in my post above, they're rolling out a new hi-fi platform soon that will evidently playback using the source FLAC files. When that goes live their willingness to accept WAVs might decrease.

Thanks. I guess I'll keep an eye on their specs as I move forward at my typical snail's pace

 

[Tosh]

join the FLAC generation - no cost

XLD

 

[seamonkey]

Both are lossless but Flac is compressed, and Wav isn't
Today's bandwidth and cheap storage compression doesn't matter much.
And CPU cycles to uncompress also doesn't matter much.

There is a term is "Path Dependence"
Sometimes we're stuck with an inferior solution but in this case both are absolutely valid with no modern compromise in either.

Toss a coin - both sides are winners in this case.

 

[Wood and Wire]

WAV, Broadcast WAV, and AIFF for tracking, and mastering.

Masters then get distributed as 16 Bit dithered 44.1kHz, and 24 Bit 48kHz WAV files, 24 Bit 48kHz FLAC, and 320 kbps MP3.

If I'm sending out work in progress references, they're 192 kbps MP3.

Your bandmate is wasting everyone's time, creating unnecessary obstacles, and extra hoops to jump through.

Do the work in WAV, or AIFF, and save FLAC for distributables.

 

[DirtDog]

Both are lossless but Flac is compressed, and Wav isn't
Today's bandwidth and cheap storage compression doesn't matter much.
And CPU cycles to uncompress also doesn't matter much.

There is a term is "Path Dependence"
Sometimes we're stuck with an inferior solution but in this case both are absolutely valid with no modern compromise in either.

Toss a coin - both sides are winners in this case.

yeah, I think part of the path dependence is rearing it's head in my case: "Above all else, must use open source". I really don't have issue with this except for not all platforms can easily interoperate with any and all forms of open source....anything...I totally get the philosophy behind open source, not a naysayer.

But sometimes you just can't get away with NOT using a proprietary "standard". I see this in my day job as well (data scientist type).

 

[Wood and Wire]

yeah, I think part of the path dependence is rearing it's head in my case: "Above all else, must use open source". I really don't have issue with this except for not all platforms can easily interoperate with any and all forms of open source....anything...I totally get the philosophy behind open source, not a naysayer.

But sometimes you just can't get away with NOT using a proprietary "standard". I see this in my day job as well (data scientist type).

Recall, backwards compatibility, and collaboration, are the key reasons industry standards exist.

You don't want to have to reinvent the wheel each time, or have file formats be like the Wild West.

 

[Wanker_Joe]

My collaborators and I only exchange stems in WAV format. Highest quality, understood by everything (we all use different DAWS). The only time we might use Flac or even MP3 is when we are exchanging ideas quickly over something like email or whatsapp. But for actual audio work it's 100% wav.

 

[HardNHeavy]

^^^

keep it simple, use "WAV"

 

[BtaylorTheRogue]

in my opinion FLAC is the king in the land of lossless CODECs

Can you go into what makes one lossless audio codec better than another? I am not super familiar, but I'd assume they all SOUND the same? If so, what other factors become relevant? Seems to me that file size and universal playability would be the big factors, but I just thump my git-fiddle and do what the sound guy tells me to do.

 

[hotrodjohn]

Aaand, who records in 44.1 and who records in 48 and why/why not?

 

[seamonkey]

Aaand, who records in 44.1 and who records in 48 and why/why not?

I'm sure it will be a big discussion, but here's an interesting video the explains some behaviors that some people may not be aware of.

 

[DirtDog]

Aaand, who records in 44.1 and who records in 48 and why/why not?

Another good question!

My FLAC buddy insists on 48K, but then sends me projects in 44.1!

 

[DirtDog]

Recall, backwards compatibility, and collaboration, are the key reasons industry standards exist.

You don't want to have to reinvent the wheel each time, or have file formats be like the Wild West.

Yep - I'll vouch for interoperability and reinventing wheels, etc.

 

[vvvmmm]

It is my understanding (anecdotally) that WAV may be superior to AIFF - I do not use the latter as I am on a PC and have no need, YMMV.

FLAC is "lossless" compression, and IME if you use the highest quality compression, it truly is. You can take a WAV, convert to FLAC, convert back to WAV, flip the polarity and it cancels out the original WAV.

There is a theory that 48 is better than 44.1 due to less math being involved. I use 44.1 as that is standard for CD's and I prefer to avoid conversions, for time/efficiency reasons is if nothing else. To the extent that I ever heard a difference between them (not sure I really did), it is not a case of one sounding better than the other ...
(I will add that IMO bit rate is the more important variable on a practical level - while I can hear 96kHz [and dislike the top end] there is a significant improvement in 24 bit vs. 16 bit in depth and realism - the infamous "remove the gauze" effect, but subtler. Q.E.D., I use 32 bit float [a mathematical variation on 24 bit that may benefit processing], 44.1 WAV to record and mix.)

There are other compression formats like OGG and MP3. A 320kps MP3 is very close to a WAV for listening purposes, but will suffer if you process it.

All that said, the issue with file compression in recording is degradation, which does mean math stuff (artifacts, distortion, etc.) if you try to process - including mix - a compressed file (or even one converted back to WAV, as there is less data, see below) - it may or may not be audible.

The issue with file compression in playback is that the file contains less data, typically bandwidth-limited (file compression can be thought of simplistically as removing the extra zeros in a binary file - finer information detail gets potentially lost and/or more easily corrupted) ...

But do keep in mind the method of monitoring/playback. Internet sites like Soundcloud and Bandcamp, etc. have their own players which themselves may change the sound versus other playback methods - I can hear it on Soundcloud, and the old MySpace was notorious for this. So if you are uploading for someone to listen, 320MP3 is great - (internet standard has long been 128kps with low-end narrowing), and I even on occasion use 320 tracks (converted to WAV) in file exchange recording, where it is one track in a multi-track mixdown.

But generally speaking, IMO, you want 16 bit 44.1 in your fave format. I, BTW, use WAV but could use FLAC with my DAW (CEP2.1) - I convert to FLAC at highest settings with sound-shaping and dither for uploads to Bandcamp as the end of my mastering process (in Reaper).

DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert, and the above info is what I use to function - you should do your own research, but many of the concepts above might help you get started.