wav or aiff?

Either one is acceptable.

Broadcast Wave is becoming the "industry standard", but again, either one will be perfectly fine.

Really? Why? Just because of the metadata thingies?
from WIKI:
Since the only difference between a BWF and a "normal" WAV is the extended information in the file header (Bext-Chunk, Coding-History, etc...), a BWF does not require a special player for playback.

Eriksimon wrote:
Really? Why? Just because of the metadata thingies?
from WIKI:
Since the only difference between a BWF and a "normal" WAV is the extended information in the file header (Bext-Chunk, Coding-History, etc...), a BWF does not require a special player for playback.

The Producers & Engineers wing of the Grammy association, led by industry names like George Massenburg, Charles Dye, Chuck Ainlay, etc... set out several years ago to try and establish a "standard" for digital audio, as it really had become a "Wild West", so to speak.

This is mainly in the concern for archival of record projects in digital format, but I believe BW files were selected not only for the "metadata thingies", but for cross platform compatibility.

Here's the recommendations and guidelines page, if you're interested...

http://www.grammy.com/RecordingAcademy/Producers_AndEngineers/Guidelines/

Stevie apollo wrote:
If I'm sending out a track to get mastered would they want it in stereo wav or aiff wave???

Why don't you ask the mastering house what they need?

I'm sure they will be flexible with this.

Cheers

Very useful link & info, thanks!

Just seems to me that appending standardized metadata should not be very difficult for AIFF's as well... Or does the RAW audio differ between WAV and AIFF? I don't think so, but I emphasize 'think', I could be wrong.
And whatever happened to SDII?

Eriksimon wrote:
Very useful link & info, thanks!

Just seems to me that appending standardized metadata should not be very difficult for AIFF's as well... Or does the RAW audio differ between WAV and AIFF? I don't think so, but I emphasize 'think', I could be wrong.
And whatever happened to SDII?

Hi,

SD2 format was abandoned by AVID, owner of Digidesign. Why? Because it's specification only allowed a sample rate of up to 48kHz, and a file size limit of
1GB, if I remember correcty. Also it only allowed mono or stereo file types.

ProTools still reads SD2 files, as do some other DAW. Logic should be able to open those.

Cheers

I use .aif... I don't know why (maybe I hate windows? 😉 ), but OS X reads CDs as .aif by default... so I think this is the PCM standard for audio CDs

(I'm not sure but should be there a way to use .aif on Windows... just add .AIFF as extension)

G

Yea, none of this has anything to do with one being necessarily better than the other. I think they were aiming on settling on a standard, that's all, and BW files met the criteria.

There's certainly nothing wrong using AIFF files in your own work...

I'd like to adding some info... but maybe it's just a psychological perception...
I noticed better performance (little, very little) when working in Logic by using .aif

this better performance should be more visible on old G4s with slow processors...

but it could be only my psychological perception.

Obviously, WAVE is the cross platform standard... but you can select .wav when export all tracks as audio in logic even if your song was made as .aif

G

fermusic wrote:
I use .aif... I don't know why (maybe I hate windows? 😉 ), but OS X reads CDs as .aif by default... so I think this is the PCM standard for audio CDs

Actually, the audio on CDs are purely PCM--neither AIFF or WAV specifically (or both AIFF and WAV, depending on your point of view). It's just that the files show up as AIFF on your Mac because it's the Mac's interpretation of PCM audio on CDs.

-droo

I use bmf wav because it time stamped thats why I use them

...a very good reason to go back to the ol` wavs...


Can you explain a little the advantages?. Is it possible to put the audio back in place automatically?... I mean: if the song gets corrupted you can put the little pieces together again?. I know the hassle and problems with punches and takes, but I´m interested in the time stamp part.

I`m also interested in CAF... just don`t get it. 🙂

gpiccolini wrote:
I`m also interested in CAF... just don`t get it. 🙂

The CAF format is Apple-specific, and it's kind of like a wrapper for audio, similar to how a .mov is a wrapper for video.

CAF provides a way for audio files to be larger than the current 4GB limit on AIFF (or is it 2GB?), and can be used as a single surround sound format, as opposed to 6 or more separate files for each channel. I'm sure there are other advantages.

Again, it's Apple-specific, so if you create .caf files, you can only use it on your system or other Macs.

-droo

yeah... I just say that, but... that's why using .aif in Logic gives better performances...
Because OS X and also OS 9... the Mac System works with aiff natively!...

I just say that is very easy to export tracks or Bounce mix as Wave or SD2.
On my experience I prefer use in Logic the audio file format in the following order

.aif
.SD2
.WAVE

when bouncing I use the format that is required for the final use and in any case there are no difference in the Audio sound quality. (aif is good for performances on Mac)

G

In case you have not read this:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MusicAudio/Reference/CAFSpec/CAFoverview/chapter_2_section2.html

--------------------------------------

CAF File Advantages

Apple’s Core Audio Format is a flexible, state-of-the-art file format for storing and manipulating digital audio data. It is fully supported by Core Audio APIs on Mac OS X v10.4 and later and on Mac OS X v10.3 with QuickTime 7 or later. CAF provides high performance and flexibility, and is scalable to future ultra-high resolution audio recording, editing, and playback.

CAF files have several advantages over other standard audio file formats:

Unrestricted file size
Whereas AIFF, AIFF-C, and WAV files are limited in size to 4 gigabytes, which might represent as little as 15 minutes of audio, CAF files use 64-bit file offsets, eliminating practical limits. A standard CAF file can hold audio data with a playback duration of hundreds of years.

Safe and efficient recording
Applications writing AIFF and WAV files must either update the data header’s size field at the end of recording—which can result in an unusable file if recording is interrupted before the header is finalized—or they must update the size field after recording each packet of data, which is inefficient. With CAF files, in contrast, an application can append new audio data to the end of the file in a manner that allows it to determine the amount of data even if the size field in the header has not been finalized.

Support for many data formats
CAF files serve as wrappers for a wide variety of audio data formats. The flexibility of the CAF file structure and the many types of metadata that can be recorded enable CAF files to be used with practically any type of audio data. Furthermore, CAF files can store any number of audio channels.

Support for many types of auxiliary data
In addition to audio data, CAF files can store text annotations, markers, channel layouts, and many other types of information that can help in the interpretation, analysis, or editing of the audio.

Support for data dependencies
Certain metadata in CAF files is linked to the audio data by an edit count value. You can use this value to determine when metadata has a dependency on the audio data and, furthermore, when the audio data has changed since the metadata was written.