Topic: sound devices wav or flac

[SClassical]

hi. r u guys recording in FLAC or WAV? Ive been recording in WAV and now thinking of changing the setting to FLAC. is that what everyone is doing? if not why since it uses less memory and u get the same sound quality.

[OOK]

hi. r u guys recording in FLAC or WAV? Ive been recording in WAV and now thinking of changing the setting to FLAC. is that what everyone is doing? if not why since it uses less memory and u get the same sound quality.

WAV. for me all the way....  Remember, FLAC is a lossless form of compression, but to me, compression none the less.  I would always rather have a 24bit48k master WAV. than a 24bit48k master FLAC. 

Peace OOK

[fleish]

hi. r u guys recording in FLAC or WAV? Ive been recording in WAV and now thinking of changing the setting to FLAC. is that what everyone is doing? if not why since it uses less memory and u get the same sound quality.

I wasn't aware SD devices had this capability. Cool idea, but I wouldn't use it ... straight from SD's site: http://www.sounddevices.com/notes/recorders/flac-limitations/

Recording to FLAC File Format with 7-Series Recorders

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a lossless data compression format available as a file format on 702, 702T, 722, and 744T recorders. The FLAC algorithm is very processor intensive, and subsequently has several limitations.

Records to one media at a time. This is the same limitation as when recording MP2 and MP3 files.
With 4-track recordings, 48 kHz is the highest available sampling rate.
With 2-track recordings, 96 kHz is the highest available sampling rate.
Recording 24-bit/48 kHz/4-track/mono to an external DVD-RAM drive is not recommended, though this file format will record reliably to an external hard drive. If recording to an external DVD-RAM reduce the track count, reduce the bit depth or sampling rate, or use polyphonic files instead of monophonic files.
Notes are disabled, all other metadata is stored.
Auto file header saving does not apply to FLAC files, if power is lost while recording the file maybe invalid.
Sound Devices offers Wave Agent Classic, a free Windows based software used to extract FLAC to WAV files as well as combining monophonic and splitting polyphonic files.

I bolded the ones that would be instant deal breakers for me. And while they don't specifically mention it, but being processor intensive means shorter battery life.

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I bolded the ones that would be instant deal breakers for me.

bingo, the header one was the one I was thinking about in particular when I read the OP.

Remember, FLAC is a lossless form of compression, but to me, compression none the less.

dafaq....   

[H₂O]

I taped using both when I owned my 702.  I found that recording to FLAC due to the extra processing seemed to not allow me to record at 24/96 whereas if I did wav I had no issues.

This was using an earlier firmware.

Also since it is encoding flac on the fly I found that the compression achieved was minimal (maybe 80-90% of the size of the original wave) - probably as SD used a lower compression ratio so not to kill the processor.

so unless the firmware has gotten much better I can't see the reason to record to FLAC.

[drchen]

If you are interested in sound quality, and I presume you are since you are recording with a SD 722 rather than a less expensive alternative, you will definitely want to record in wav.  But don't take it from me:  if you read the series of 3 or 4 articles on computer audio playback in Absolute Sound that was published almost a year ago, a panel of experts using reference quality equipment did an exhaustive study and concluded they could always hear the difference between wav and flac, and flac always sounded inferior to wav.

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If you are interested in sound quality, and I presume you are since you are recording with a SD 722 rather than a less expensive alternative, you will definitely want to record in wav.  But don't take it from me:  if you read the series of 3 or 4 articles on computer audio playback in Absolute Sound that was published almost a year ago, a panel of experts using reference quality equipment did an exhaustive study and concluded they could always hear the difference between wav and flac, and flac always sounded inferior to wav.

do you mean the one which Hydrogen Audio ripped apart as written by idiots (oh, and they even discuss it in various stages too since AbSound doesn't put their content online)?

[John Willett]

hi. r u guys recording in FLAC or WAV? Ive been recording in WAV and now thinking of changing the setting to FLAC. is that what everyone is doing? if not why since it uses less memory and u get the same sound quality.

Nobody records in FLAC, especially if the recording has to be edited.

It's probably only there because one person asked for it and it was easy to do.

But I would never ever record in any compressed format, even a "lossless" one.

[yousef]

do you mean the one which Hydrogen Audio ripped apart as written by idiots (oh, and they even discuss it in various stages too since AbSound doesn't put their content online)?

Wow - I must have missed that the first time around. That's a bit special...

[Gutbucket]

Record to WAV or BWF. 
Save FLAC for storage.

..for which it does an excellent job, losslessly.

WAV input to FLAC is bit for bit identical to WAV output from FLAC. 

[nihilistic0]

If you are interested in sound quality, and I presume you are since you are recording with a SD 722 rather than a less expensive alternative, you will definitely want to record in wav.  But don't take it from me:  if you read the series of 3 or 4 articles on computer audio playback in Absolute Sound that was published almost a year ago, a panel of experts using reference quality equipment did an exhaustive study and concluded they could always hear the difference between wav and flac, and flac always sounded inferior to wav.

Bull.Shit. This is pure FUD, please don't spread misinformation like this.

WAV. for me all the way....  Remember, FLAC is a lossless form of compression, but to me, compression none the less.  I would always rather have a 24bit48k master WAV. than a 24bit48k master FLAC. 

Peace OOK

This makes no sense.



If storage space is an issue, then go for it. Otherwise, I would simply just record to .wav, since you'll have to decode it later to do any work on it anyway.