Go Back   Cockos Incorporated Forums > REAPER Forums > REAPER General Discussion Forum

View Poll Results: What audio file format do you work with most often?
aiff 9 4.19%
flac 53 24.65%
mp3 69 32.09%
ogg 11 5.12%
opus 5 2.33%
wav/bwf/w64 200 93.02%
wavpack 9 4.19%
other 3 1.40%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 215. You may not vote on this poll

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-10-2020, 09:17 AM   #1
schwa
Administrator
 
schwa's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: NY
Posts: 15,749
Default What audio file format do you work with most often?

^^ vote in poll please ^^

sticking this thread for a week.

Last edited by schwa; 06-10-2020 at 09:30 AM.
schwa is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-10-2020, 09:20 AM   #2
Pashkuli
Banned
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: United Kingdom, T. Wells
Posts: 2,454
Default

.flac
.wv
.wav
.mp3

.mp4
.mov
Pashkuli is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-10-2020, 11:37 AM   #3
Jeffsounds
Human being with feelings
 
Jeffsounds's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Northeast Michigan
Posts: 3,460
Default

It kind of depends on what I'm doing. When recording my own music I use WAV format but I also rip my CD's to FLAC. Sometimes an MP3 is all that is needed.
__________________
"TV has become nothing more than a Petri dish where this country grows its idiots." -Dr. John Becker
My First CD On Spotify - Side O' The Highway
Jeffsounds is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-10-2020, 01:35 PM   #4
operator
Human being with feelings
 
operator's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2019
Location: Austria, near Lake Constance
Posts: 453
Default

inside the box: almost only wav.... but when exporting the final song: mp3, wav and flac...

I don´t like aiff because it is not even supported by all the hosts/DAWs but it should be an alternative to wav... (nice try apple)

Last edited by operator; 06-10-2020 at 01:41 PM.
operator is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-10-2020, 03:03 PM   #5
Meo-Ada Mespotine
Human being with feelings
 
Meo-Ada Mespotine's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Leipzig
Posts: 6,621
Default

Just a quick note: you can choose multiple ones in the box.
__________________
Use you/she/her.Ultraschall-Api Lua Api4Reaper - Donate, if you wish

On vacation for the time being...
Meo-Ada Mespotine is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-10-2020, 03:08 PM   #6
vitalker
Human being with feelings
 
vitalker's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 13,333
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
.mov
This is not audio at all.
vitalker is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2020, 02:06 AM   #7
siehorst
Human being with feelings
 
siehorst's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 514
Default

I can't answer this, as it depends on the purpose.
- for internal studio use, for practising and testing: mp3 CBR 320 kb/s
- for everyhing that is leaving the studio to the public: wav
siehorst is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2020, 02:14 AM   #8
nicholas
Scribe
 
nicholas's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Van Diemen's Land
Posts: 12,166
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by siehorst View Post
I can't answer this, as it depends on the purpose.
- for internal studio use, for practising and testing: mp3 CBR 320 kb/s
- for everyhing that is leaving the studio to the public: wav
You can vote for more than one. I voted for both WAV and MP3 ....
__________________
Learning Manuals and Reaper Books
REAPER Unleashed - ReaMix - REAPER User Guide
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/glazfolk
nicholas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2020, 02:29 AM   #9
siehorst
Human being with feelings
 
siehorst's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 514
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by nicholas View Post
You can vote for more than one.
ok, thank you, ... done (but that isn't 'most' ;-) )
siehorst is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2020, 03:48 AM   #10
planetnine
Human being with feelings
 
planetnine's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Lincoln, UK
Posts: 7,924
Default

Wav/BWF/RF64.


>
__________________
Nathan, Lincoln, UK. | Item Marker Tool. (happily retired) | Source Time Position Tool. | CD Track Marker Tool. | Timer Recording Tool. | dB marks on MCP faders FR.
planetnine is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-11-2020, 04:01 AM   #11
Indiscipline
Human being with feelings
 
Indiscipline's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 143
Default

Surprised to see only one vote for Opus (mine).

I've been using it extensively for the last couple of years, replacing mp3. I've reencoded my music collection that I keep on my mobile devices to Opus and more and more use Opus for Web, as it's already supported by all major browsers. I also often download various podcasts and lectures from YT as audio (via Youtube-dl or NewPipe) and it's of course mostly Opus.

It's amazingly effective and transparent down to what would be unreasonably low bitrates for mp3.

Also I had a rather long stint with WavPack but use it less this days. I need to refresh on its encoder speed and latency info. IIRC it's faster than FLAC for encoding. If it supports low latency encoding it may be usable for lossless-streaming applications. Not sure there.
Indiscipline is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2020, 08:09 PM   #12
vdubreeze
Human being with feelings
 
vdubreeze's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Brooklyn
Posts: 2,613
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by operator View Post
I don´t like aiff because it is not even supported by all the hosts/DAWs but it should be an alternative to wav... (nice try apple)
Well, Apple christened it as a Mac only format in 1988 and it worked for them and the rest of us on Macs for ages, until they began being equally wav friendly while Windows was not for it. At this point it's been a long time since Mac-centric audio programs didn't offer wav, and keeping aiff there has pretty much been a concession to those with older archives. For opening up an old session from those days it's pretty important for such programs like Logic and DP to keep it. But for Reaper (Windows centric during aiff's useful heyday, I'd think the only reason to have it is because it's not hard to offer it, not because there's any useful reason to use it for any Reaper 6 project. All the other options have their purpose as a project format (as aside from delivery format). Aiff not really that I can think of, and I'm all OS X.
__________________
The reason rain dances work is because they don't stop dancing until it rains.
vdubreeze is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2020, 08:22 PM   #13
martmix
Human being with feelings
 
martmix's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2020
Location: quebec CA
Posts: 1,574
Default

i use
.wav-16bit
mp3-320
flac
__________________
[cpu=i7-6700,12gig ram]DAW=Reaper-[roland-quad-capture]-[krk rokit-5 G3]-[TR5-eq 81]-
[amplitube-max]
YouTube: ricky & marty
martmix is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2020, 08:24 PM   #14
RJHollins
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 2,161
Default

Source files are mainly WAV files.

Intermediate rendered files are WavePack wv [32fp]

Final Render, Export - WAV 32fp
RJHollins is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-12-2020, 09:26 PM   #15
citizenkeith
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Ohio
Posts: 978
Default

WAV for final mixes (24/48), MP3 for rough mixes.

But it depends on the project and the client.
citizenkeith is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2020, 02:06 AM   #16
operator
Human being with feelings
 
operator's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2019
Location: Austria, near Lake Constance
Posts: 453
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by vdubreeze View Post
[...]
Thanks for the infos... didn´t knew that.

AND for the second half of the post, I agree completely. :-)
operator is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2020, 06:04 AM   #17
schwa
Administrator
 
schwa's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: NY
Posts: 15,749
Default

This is really useful, thanks everyone and keep voting.

Compared to my priors I'm surprised at how many flac users.
schwa is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2020, 06:42 AM   #18
akademie
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 3,978
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by schwa View Post
This is really useful, thanks everyone and keep voting.

Compared to my priors I'm surprised at how many flac users.
Yes, I use FLAC almost exclusively when e.g. archiving finished project (converting all WAV24 to FLAC, except WAV32fp of course ... hm, maybe I should use WavPack for them?), but also for multitracks in progress when I need smaller project folder which I transfer back and forth with me on USB's or via internet.

On the other hand I also use OGG a lot, 1st because of wonderful NINJAM and 2nd because I can make any multitrack session approx.50MB and for teaching somebody a workflow, techniques etc. the quality is more than enough and the complete project size is really negligible (it is not for production, for sure).

But for recording mostly 24-bit WAV (44.1 or 48 kHz) (Few years ago I was used to record into FLAC with no problem, but as much as I use new and new dev versions, I stick with mostly default settings).

For final mix master WAV (24 or 16 bit) and FLAC.
For final mix previews MP3 (192 or 320 kbps) to send via email or put on USB stick to play in standalone players or in a car.
akademie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2020, 07:02 AM   #19
heda
Human being with feelings
 
heda's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Spain
Posts: 7,239
Default

I would use flac or wavpack more ut There was a performance issue drawing the waveforms when zooming in the peaks. so I keep using wav. or rpp subproject rendering which I don't know which format uses.
heda is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2020, 07:28 AM   #20
akademie
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 3,978
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by heda View Post
I would use flac or wavpack more ut There was a performance issue drawing the waveforms when zooming in the peaks. so I keep using wav. or rpp subproject rendering which I don't know which format uses.
It's 32FP WAV if I remember correctly.
akademie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2020, 09:09 AM   #21
RJHollins
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 2,161
Default

As best I recall, the FLAC format is 24-bit container.

Since I work 32fp throughout my project, the WavPAK is the better option to maintain 32fp with size compression.

FLAC [24] would be used for final distribution [option].
RJHollins is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2020, 10:59 AM   #22
Indiscipline
Human being with feelings
 
Indiscipline's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 143
Default

Addition regarding Flac:

I remember having noticed a couple of years ago that using Flac files in the project introduced a noticeable lag for starting playback and possibly zooming. Probably, it's a decoding latency introduced by caching? Anyway, that led me to abandon the idea of using Flac as main project format.

However, on project completion I often encode tracks to Flac for archiving purposes.
Indiscipline is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-13-2020, 03:28 PM   #23
stesmeg
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Bolton, England, UK.
Posts: 37
Default

Wav mainly
stesmeg is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2020, 08:03 AM   #24
nofish
Human being with feelings
 
nofish's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: home is where the heart is
Posts: 12,096
Default

Before I vote, does the result have any consequences for future Reaper development (e.g. the one with fewest votes gets removed or something)?

j/k, voted.
nofish is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2020, 08:20 AM   #25
SmajjL
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: IKEA
Posts: 2,778
Default

Ahh, could vote/tick multiple items
My sample packs is .wav and i rip my CDs to .flac for some reason
__________________
_Ohh.))::_Linux_::((.Xoxo_

SmajjL is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2020, 08:20 AM   #26
serr
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,559
Default

For normal recording (live or studio) and current projects, wav. The thinking is there's no reason to introduce file compression (lossless obviously) to pester the CPU when there are more important things for it to do.

FLAC is great for archiving. It's not just the consumer playback format of choice. Now FLAC, since it was intended as the modern media player format, doesn't support floating point format files. There's wavpack now but that came along far too late to consider switching anymore.

I'll open an old project that has been FLAC'd in a pinch for a revision and I'm usually none the wiser with no complaints from Reaper. Unless you try seeking around like crazy working on some edit or something. Then you'll get a little GUI lag here and there. I might record live to FLAC for something that A. isn't pushing anything, and B. might have long sections of no signal. FLAC makes zero signal audio nearly zero space.
serr is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2020, 09:29 AM   #27
vdubreeze
Human being with feelings
 
vdubreeze's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Brooklyn
Posts: 2,613
Default

Wav for recording, whatever rate is appropriate. Anything else is just a format of something other than the Reaper project, such as mix or previews or archiving, so I wouldn't call that formats "worked" in, just exported or archived as.

I used to flac projects for archiving but having so much cloud space and large drives for so little $$ I've generally stopped taking that extra step and just zip the project and put it in storage. For my personal projects I may flac them but not otherwise, since that's really up to the "client". They get the project in the same wav state it was for final mix and they can do what they want with it.

Mixes/renders are wavs of whatever they are, ones sent out are mp3 or wav depending. I might use flac for personal listening and archiving of mixes but I learned my lesson sending them to others. Actually, I might try various formats for personal use, just to see what happens, but generally people I send stuff to have no idea what they are much less know how to deal with them or want to. I'm resigned to mp3 for the car and listening to when walking the dog. Listening to the same at home could be flac with VLC player (OS X) like the audience concert recordings that somehow grew like out of control weeds on my drives during the pandemic. But for my own work it pretty much stays wav for that or mp3 for the phone. Flac is great but it's more suited for the 9 hours of mid 70's Todd than what I have that is already wav.

For the outside world it's all wav or mp3, for me same with some use of flac for archives but not recording.
__________________
The reason rain dances work is because they don't stop dancing until it rains.
vdubreeze is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2020, 09:17 PM   #28
yellowmix
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 54
Default

I have a lot of content in rx2.
yellowmix is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2020, 10:25 PM   #29
karbomusic
Human being with feelings
 
karbomusic's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 29,260
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by operator View Post
I don´t like aiff because it is not even supported by all the hosts/DAWs but it should be an alternative to wav... (nice try apple)
They are essentially the same thing, in many cases you can just rename wav to aiff and vice versa.
__________________
Music is what feelings sound like.
karbomusic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 12:24 AM   #30
Tagirijus
Human being with feelings
 
Tagirijus's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: germany
Posts: 381
Default

FLAC while working, MP3 only for exporting previews, but I did only tick FLAC, since exporting a final result isn't working with it, right? I am afraid the terminology should be cleared in that case, since I am seeing many MP3 votes already and to me "working" is something different than "exporting". Just to be clear here!
__________________
System: Win 10 64 bit / i9 9900K (8x 3.6 GHz) / 16 GB DDR4-3200 RAM / 1TB M.2 SSD + 2x 500 GB SSD / RME Babyface / Reaper
Tagirijus.de
Tagirijus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 12:51 AM   #31
synkrotron
Human being with feelings
 
synkrotron's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Warrington, UK
Posts: 1,444
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tagirijus View Post
FLAC while working, MP3 only for exporting previews, but I did only tick FLAC, since exporting a final result isn't working with it, right? I am afraid the terminology should be cleared in that case, since I am seeing many MP3 votes already and to me "working" is something different than "exporting". Just to be clear here!
Yeah, I am a little bit surprised at the amount of votes that MP3 is getting.
__________________
Bandcamp // YouTube // SoundCloud
synkrotron is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 01:10 AM   #32
Indiscipline
Human being with feelings
 
Indiscipline's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 143
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by synkrotron View Post
Yeah, I am a little bit surprised at the amount of votes that MP3 is getting.
Sending clips for preview/revisions qualifies for "working", in my book. As also does preparing audio for web integration, games and software.
Indiscipline is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 02:25 AM   #33
Tagirijus
Human being with feelings
 
Tagirijus's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: germany
Posts: 381
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Indiscipline View Post
Sending clips for preview/revisions qualifies for "working", in my book. As also does preparing audio for web integration, games and software.
Not sure, if it interesting in any way, but my view is like this: "working" means "working inside Reaper" here. Everything else is something "after working" / the final result.


Edit: While, tbh, it is not clearly clarified in this thread, hehe. I totally understand other views, ofc!
__________________
System: Win 10 64 bit / i9 9900K (8x 3.6 GHz) / 16 GB DDR4-3200 RAM / 1TB M.2 SSD + 2x 500 GB SSD / RME Babyface / Reaper
Tagirijus.de
Tagirijus is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 11:26 AM   #34
zacki
Human being with feelings
 
zacki's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Germany
Posts: 239
Default

  • flac: for (live) recordings (up to 32ch in 48k/24)
  • ogg, opus, mp3: for render and distribution (thank you once again for the recent meta-data update )
  • wave: during mixing, glueing, etc...
__________________
Some of my favourite posts: 1 2 3
zacki is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 04:59 PM   #35
cyrano
Human being with feelings
 
cyrano's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Belgium
Posts: 5,246
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by operator View Post
I don´t like aiff because it is not even supported by all the hosts/DAWs but it should be an alternative to wav... (nice try apple)
Sigh...

Aiff is an Amiga format (iff), adopted by Apple. Besides, it's almost wav (PCM), so supporting it should be a jiffy. MS adopted it later too, but of course they had to change it a bit and give it a new name...

When Apple launched OSX, they changed the bit order to suit the way things are done with Intel processors. But even that shouldn't confuse a real audio editor. Besides, wav files can be odd too, as the standard allows proprietary chunks. These just get ignored by editors that have no idea how to import them.
__________________
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
cyrano is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 05:09 PM   #36
cyrano
Human being with feelings
 
cyrano's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Belgium
Posts: 5,246
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Indiscipline View Post
Surprised to see only one vote for Opus (mine).
It can compress specific sounds, like voice or birdsongs tremendously, given the right settings. It's compression is very fast too. But it is not very well known outside VOIP land.

Is there any support for it outside linux/VOIP in DAWs? I know Audacity supports it, but I don't think fi Soundforge does?
__________________
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
cyrano is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 05:26 PM   #37
RJHollins
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 2,161
Default

No mention of .APE file format ?!?

Back in the early daze, this was a very good lossy.

Back in my archive of Hard Drives ... I've many files in this format.

Curious ... can Reaper load these ?
RJHollins is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 07:17 PM   #38
akademie
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 3,978
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by RJHollins View Post
No mention of .APE file format ?!?

Back in the early daze, this was a very good lossy.

Back in my archive of Hard Drives ... I've many files in this format.

Curious ... can Reaper load these ?
1) .APE ... lossy?? no it's also lossless
2) Reaper does not support .APE (native) since 2012, I think


EDIT:
Yes, I remembered it correctly. Here is a reply by schwa from 2016 with info and workaround:
Thread: Reaper 64 bit - Monkey Audio support .ape

Last edited by akademie; 06-15-2020 at 07:31 PM. Reason: other thread link
akademie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 08:18 PM   #39
RJHollins
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 2,161
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by akademie View Post
1) .APE ... lossy?? no it's also lossless
2) Reaper does not support .APE (native) since 2012, I think


EDIT:
Yes, I remembered it correctly. Here is a reply by schwa from 2016 with info and workaround:
Thread: Reaper 64 bit - Monkey Audio support .ape
ahhh ... thanks for the LOSSLESS correction. [my bad].
RJHollins is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-15-2020, 08:24 PM   #40
myfeltgood
Human being with feelings
 
myfeltgood's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Posts: 194
Default

The main ones WAV, AIFF for lossless and MP3 for compressed.
myfeltgood is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 11:22 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.