Importing Audio File (MuLab)

[TheMajesticKiller]

Alright so I spent nearly two hours last night attempting to import an audio file for a song I am producing. I figured out how to do it, however my problem lies with the format of the audio file. Every time I click import and use the .m4a file I created just to test it, the application would read "Couldn't recognize audio format for _____". I'm guessing that the application is not programmed to read m4a files but rather strictly aiff and wav. Then again, I converted the once m4a file into a wav and the same problem occurred. Can somone please tell me what I am doing wrong?

[mutools]

Indeed m4a files are not directly supported. For streaming audio parts only uncompressed Aiff and Wave, for sample sounds uncompressed Aiff and Wave and also Mp3 and Ogg.

If the converted file cannot be read maybe there is something wrong with the conversion?

[TheMajesticKiller]

Okay well I successfully converted the m4a file into an mp3 which seemed to work. Upon clicking the file to import it, the sound of the mp3 shows and plays through the application, but after hitting import, nothing happens. No tracks show up for me to use the audio file. I tried manually creating an audio track and importing it from there but again nothing happened. How do I solve this?

[TheMajesticKiller]

Okay nevermind I found out my problem, thank you for helping me though!

[rrichard63]

... For streaming audio parts only uncompressed Aiff and Wave, for sample sounds uncompressed Aiff and Wave and also Mp3 and Ogg. ...

This doesn't make sense to me. I think mp3 and other compressed formats are far more likely to be used as streaming audio parts than as samples. What was the reason for this design decision?

Thanks in advance.

--Bob Richard

[pljones]

Streaming puts more pressure on the system, so you want to lower the overheads -- such as wasting valuable CPU time on uncompressing data. Read a buffer-sized chunk from the file and you're there with WAV or AIFF. With MP3 or Ogg, you've got to read an unknown amount of data, uncompress, interpolate, make sure you've enough buffered, handle underruns and internally buffer overruns. At a guess. I'd quite like the option to "decompress and stream", though.

[rrichard63]

Streaming puts more pressure on the system, so you want to lower the overheads -- such as wasting valuable CPU time on uncompressing data. Read a buffer-sized chunk from the file and you're there with WAV or AIFF. With MP3 or Ogg, you've got to read an unknown amount of data, uncompress, interpolate, make sure you've enough buffered, handle underruns and internally buffer overruns. At a guess.

Okay, that makes sense.

I'd quite like the option to "decompress and stream", though.

+1. On the other hand, it's fairly easy to batch convert mp3 files to wav or aiff.

[pljones]

I'd quite like the option to "decompress and stream", though.

+1. On the other hand, it's fairly easy to batch convert mp3 files to wav or aiff.

Yes, it's more for the "Damn, forgot this was compressed" moments -- to avoid interrupting the flow.