So I was wondering why the mix-down dialog allows me to specify quality settings (sampling rate and bit depth), is it not lossless at lower settings after all?
The resulting files vary quite a bit in terms of size...
Quality settings for lossless format?!
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fluffy_little_something fluffy_little_something https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=281847
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Since I am not happy with the disappearance of fine details even in wav files of high settings, I am exploring the other mix-down formats offered by my DAW, among them FLAC. I read that it is a lossless format, the L actually stands for lossless.
So I was wondering why the mix-down dialog allows me to specify quality settings (sampling rate and bit depth), is it not lossless at lower settings after all?
The resulting files vary quite a bit in terms of size...
So I was wondering why the mix-down dialog allows me to specify quality settings (sampling rate and bit depth), is it not lossless at lower settings after all?
The resulting files vary quite a bit in terms of size...
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- KVRAF
- 25849 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
...because some wav files are less compressed than othersfluffy_little_something wrote:The resulting files vary quite a bit in terms of size...
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fluffy_little_something fluffy_little_something https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=281847
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I was talking about FLAC file sizes.Numanoid wrote:...because some wav files are less compressed than othersfluffy_little_something wrote:The resulting files vary quite a bit in terms of size...
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- KVRian
- 1102 posts since 30 Oct, 2005
with flac "quality" you can specify amount of compression which affect the resulting size of file...wav quality is always the same after decompression /=flac compression is always lossless/fluffy_little_something wrote: So I was wondering why the mix-down dialog allows me to specify quality settings (sampling rate and bit depth), is it not lossless at lower settings after all?
The resulting files vary quite a bit in terms of size...
Last edited by kvaca on Tue Jan 26, 2016 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 25849 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
For the same WAV file ?fluffy_little_something wrote:I was talking about FLAC file sizes.
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fluffy_little_something fluffy_little_something https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=281847
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Huh? Is wav inside flac?
I have taken a screenshot of the dialog box:
https://app.box.com/s/lu4iry0xuzm656ucml87js0ukrhjnyq6
I can specify both audio settings and compression.
Why would one not choose the highest compression/smallest file size when all of them are lossless?
Lossless does not refer to the audio settings as such, I take it? So is there already a quality loss before the data arrives at the compression stage? I.e. because of the audio settings specified?
I have taken a screenshot of the dialog box:
https://app.box.com/s/lu4iry0xuzm656ucml87js0ukrhjnyq6
I can specify both audio settings and compression.
Why would one not choose the highest compression/smallest file size when all of them are lossless?
Lossless does not refer to the audio settings as such, I take it? So is there already a quality loss before the data arrives at the compression stage? I.e. because of the audio settings specified?
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- KVRAF
- 25849 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
Because it takes longer time to get the bestfluffy_little_something wrote:Why would one not choose the highest compression/smallest file size when all of them are lossless?
Sometimes you don't have the time.
Back in the day, converting a CD to mp3, meant you started the process before going to sleep, and when waking up in the morning it was more or less just about to be finished.
Some of the lossless converters have kind of kept that philosophy, that's why they list options like "shut down computer when finished"
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- KVRAF
- 2635 posts since 16 Jan, 2013
It's just giving you an option to downsample the source audio. So you can export a 44.1KHz/16-bit flac from a 96KHz/24-bit master. Most DAWs will offer this option. Yours just includes the compression format as well.
The quality setting for FLAC determines how strong the compression is. Higher compression requires more CPU and RAM to decode. Not an issue for most computers nowadays, but there was a time when this was a factor for some.
The quality setting for FLAC determines how strong the compression is. Higher compression requires more CPU and RAM to decode. Not an issue for most computers nowadays, but there was a time when this was a factor for some.
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fluffy_little_something fluffy_little_something https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=281847
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So, is FLAC an audio format like mp3? In other words, can I play a FLAC file in a normal audio player such as Winamp? Would that require the decoding mentioned?
What is the best way to get exactly the same sound quality on an audio file as during live playback in my DAW?
What is the best way to get exactly the same sound quality on an audio file as during live playback in my DAW?
Last edited by fluffy_little_something on Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 25849 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
I play FLAC (or APE or such files) in Winamp all the timefluffy_little_something wrote:So, is FLAC an audio format like mp3? In other words, can I play a FLAC file in a normal audio player such as Winamp? Would that require the decoding mentioned?
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- KVRAF
- 25849 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
BTW: I'm amazed there is a maximum compression lossless data benchmark overview 
http://www.maximumcompression.com/
It's like, world records of weightlifting
http://www.maximumcompression.com/
It's like, world records of weightlifting
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- KVRAF
- 2635 posts since 16 Jan, 2013
Yep. FLAC is the same idea as MP3 but compresses losslessly rather than lossy. So if you take a wave file and encode it to FLAC and then decode it back to wave you get the exact same file. Lossy compression works by removing frequencies so you can't get the original audio back again.
A lot of audio players support FLAC although Apple had to be Apple and make their own codec instead of going with the most common one at the time. I use Foobar2000 on Windows and Vox on Mac but Windows 10 has native support for FLAC, even on phones (and XB1 too I believe). If WinAMP doesn't support it out of the box, you just need to look for a FLAC plugin for it.
A lot of audio players support FLAC although Apple had to be Apple and make their own codec instead of going with the most common one at the time. I use Foobar2000 on Windows and Vox on Mac but Windows 10 has native support for FLAC, even on phones (and XB1 too I believe). If WinAMP doesn't support it out of the box, you just need to look for a FLAC plugin for it.
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- KVRAF
- 25849 posts since 20 Jan, 2008 from a star near where you are
So it is like WinZip or WinRar, only that FLAC, APE et al manage to compress audio files even a bit better than those progssprnva wrote:Yep. FLAC is the same idea as MP3 but compresses losslessly rather than lossy.
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fluffy_little_something fluffy_little_something https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=281847
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Just mixed down a short track to wav and flac, both at 96kHz/16bit, the file sizes were 3.15MB vs 212KB respectively. And yet the tiny flac file sounds better than the wav file because it is lossless? 
Mix-down took just a second for each.
Mix-down took just a second for each.
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- KVRAF
- 7413 posts since 8 Feb, 2003 from London, UK
No, it sounds better coz it's on vinyl.fluffy_little_something wrote:And yet the tiny flac file sounds better than the wav file because it is lossless?