Which Format Do You Record In? And Why?, .wav, .aif, .sd2 ??? Options

[FinnB]

AIFF (big-endian) vs. WAV (little-endian) are both PCM formats. See:

http://www.cs.umass.edu/~verts/cs32/endian.html

PCM = no digital data compression, just how loud is the signal each time checked.
The sound signal level is measured in bits. More bits = better "picture" of the sound.
More often a check is done (higher sampling rate in kHz) = better picture.
How regularly each check is done (converter clock quality) = better picture.

So, are there any audible differences between various PCM formats? I don't think so...

[wfplb]

If source audio files comes from Quanta, using only AES31 BWF Monophonic tracks (Little Endian)
Metadata (e.g. scene & take & comments, in and out points etc.) is delivered as ALE lists and embedded in the AES31 description field that Avid v11, Xpress-DV and FCP import....

In that case WAV seems to be the best choice ... Maybe !

[dixiechicken]

I believe that DP-4.5 directly supports both rex-loops as well as Apple-loops.

The new BDE (Beat Detection Engine) can be of great help here - depending both on your own skills as well as the actual audio material of course.

Cheers: Dixiechicken

[The Guitar God]

i record in AIFF and MPEG4 because you can edit the stereo easily, but I convert them to AAC in itunes to keep file sizes down, and if i want to put them on the net i just make them mp3s

This post has been edited by The Guitar God: Sun 5 Dec 2004, 13:05

[crevette]

All formats are fine to work with... I regularly use "Broadcast Wave" in nuendo, since it's format encodes information relative to timecode.
ie: if i take a broadcast wave file from a session and import it in another session, the sound clip can be asked to return to it's original timecode position... very usefull in timecoded sessions...

This post has been edited by crevette: Sat 19 Feb 2005, 15:37

[damann]

o.k, who'se using OMF?

is it just a movie thing?

how do we future proof our masters?

with DVD audio, super audio etc we need to look at file formats of the near future and make sure that we provide masters of our music that can fully benefit from these advances in digital audio integrity.

which formats are we talking here?

[crevette]

OMF : Open Media File

Mainly used for film sound indeed.
This file can carry multiple sound tracks but also multiple video tracks..
It is meant to exchange audio/video tracks between video editing apps and sound apps ... for example exporting the sound from a film edit to go to the mix ... when you receive the omf you have all the tracks and clips from the edit session... most importantly it allows the mix engineer to have "handles" on the sound clip: enlarge the sound clip when necessary... it is hardly applicable for music since it only exports the sounds and their clip volume ... no track settings / pluggin information etc ... furthermore it is designed to work exclusively in 44.1/48 kHz @ 16 bits...
Versions available OMF 1.0 and OMF 2.0 ... Mostly used is v.2.0 since v.1.0 is often a little buggy ...

ciao !

[DANO10]

Hello Damann,

I recently did a complete album on DP 4 from OMF files. It was a project that was started on PT, saved as OMF files and sent to me. When I received the tracks, I was up and running in fifteen minuets.

The project was audio only, converted at Universal Studios' audio department to OMF files. There were no plugins, efx or fades, but the OMF files loaded in sync with the proper track names. No problem.

DANO10