FLAC, should i use this?

[SE14man]

I have recently noticed FLAC files.
Is this more recommended than WAV and mp3?
I rip a lot of vinyls and am very fussy with quality so is flac something i should use?
If so can i save FLAC files with software such as Adobe Audition and Sound Forge?

Cheers.

[Midzuki]

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

=====

[yoda313]

Personally I'd recommend sticking with wav. If your final destination is going to be cd this will produce best results by skipping conversion steps. If you record at 16bit 44.1khz wav than you'll be all set to burn a cd. By choosing an intermediate step you'll have to reencode and that won't produce the best results. UNLESS there are burning apps that accept flac files. I don't know of any that do. That doesn't mean there aren't any it just means its a less common format mp3 or wav which have been around forever it seems.

If storage space is a concern than I would look into the lossless codecs. You might also want to look into wma lossless which is available in the windows media player app.

[Noahtuck]

Personally I'd recommend sticking with wav. If your final destination is going to be cd this will produce best results by skipping conversion steps. If you record at 16bit 44.1khz wav than you'll be all set to burn a cd. By choosing an intermediate step you'll have to reencode and that won't produce the best results. UNLESS there are burning apps that accept flac files. I don't know of any that do. That doesn't mean there aren't any it just means its a less common format mp3 or wav which have been around forever it seems.

Okay, not correct!!
You should read the link Midzuki posted
Flac is a LOSSLESS compression, it would be like saying if you zipped/rared something up you would lose quality when you unzipped/rared it

When you compress something to flac for say storage, to listen to, to save space, to transfer, ect. then want to "unflac" it or convert it back to wav, there is no loss of quality as there would be with MP3.

And flac is NOT less common than MP3 really, it's just less common in circles that seem to favor destroying good audio by converting them to MP3 & don't know any better

And there are burning programs that DO accept flac files & there is even a plugin for nero that allows it to accept and convert and burn flac files to cd, although i have never used them because i just unflac them when i want to burn them to a cdr.

I have recently noticed FLAC files.
Is this more recommended than WAV and mp3?
I rip a lot of vinyls and am very fussy with quality so is flac something i should use?
If so can i save FLAC files with software such as Adobe Audition and Sound Forge?

Cheers.

wav is lossless, flac is lossless yet compresses the file size down significantly & can be uncompressed back to it's original wav, MP3 is lossy & once something is converted to MP3 the damage is done and can NEVER be converted back to it's original state of lossless.

There are many lossless formats to compress wav files so you do not lose any quality when compressing them for space.

I don't think adobe or soundforge handle any of these formats, you would use something like Trader's Little Helper
Which handles many diff. types of lossless file conversions (click the link)

Traders of lossless compressed audio files (e.g. ape, flac, mkw, or shn files) have to handle a lot of different applications to decode, encode, create/verify checksums, fix sector boundary errors, or create torrent files. Moreover some are command line programs requiring a deeper knowledge of how to use various parameters. Trader's Little Helper bundles all the important features of those applications in one single easy-to-use frontend.

[yoda313]

When you compress something to flac for say storage, to listen to, to save space, to transfer, ect. then want to "unflac" it or convert it back to wav, there is no loss of quality as there would be with MP3.

Ok. I was under the impression it was an intermediate step. I thought you had to go to flac and then unpack it back to get to cd mode. My misunderstanding.

And there are burning programs that DO accept flac files & there is even a plugin for nero that allows it to accept and convert and burn flac files to cd, although i have never used them because i just unflac them when i want to burn them to a cdr.

Ok I knew there had to be some burning apps that accepted them directly I just didn't know which ones.

But you see thats part of my original point is if you have to unflac them at all it still would be better or at the very least "quicker" to record straight to cd quality wav and save any other step. But that is how I do it. So feel free to experiment.

[Noahtuck]

Yep,
it would be faster to just dump the flac files into a burning program but i can extract flacs back to wav format, a whole cd's worth, in prob. less than a minute & to me, 60 seconds means nothing
I don't think it's really better as there is nothing lost by extracting the wav file from the flac, shn, ect file.

And when you have 60gigs worth of audio in flac format, it's much nicer than having 90-120gigs of wav files on your HDD
And it saves space when archiving them to dvdr, can put much more on one disc for extraction at a later date.

And i can listen to it while in flac format, transfer it much faster, then when i want something burned i can take 60 seconds to unflac it and drop it into my burning app.

I do use MP3 but ONLY for my personal use on one of my pc's and for transfering to our personal mp3 players, NEVER for burning cd's for listening to in the truck, home systems, ect.

[SE14man]

Wow what a lot of info!!
Printing it out right now...

So you lose quality by compressing MP3's?
How much quality do you lose?
If i were to only click the store option would it not lose quality in the mp3 files?

As i do rip a lot of my vinyls am i best off keeping my rips as WAV without compressing them to mp3 and ifi were to compress em to mp3 would i use lame encoder with razor lame for the best results?

Cheers guys.

[Ai Haibara]

Yes, MP3 is 'lossy' compression. Offhand, I'm not sure how much you lose depending upon what compression options you pick, and the bitrate you use.

Is it better to use FLAC over any of the other 'lossless' formats out there, right now? That, I don't know either. Does anyone recommend FLAC over, say, Musepack, APE, SHN, etc.? (Of course, there are other lossless formats out there. I just didn't want to try listing them all. )

wav is lossless

Actually, that's not entirely true. You can create a wave file that uses MP3 compression. CDEX can do it, for example. I often see that type of wave file being used.

[jman98]

So you lose quality by compressing MP3's?
How much quality do you lose?
If i were to only click the store option would it not lose quality in the mp3 files?

As i do rip a lot of my vinyls am i best off keeping my rips as WAV without compressing them to mp3 and ifi were to compress em to mp3 would i use lame encoder with razor lame for the best results?

Cheers guys.

The quality you lose with MP3 depends on the bit rate you use to encode the file to MP3. The higher the bit rate, the less the loss, BUT there is ALWAYS SOME LOSS. ALWAYS. As a general rule, some tests have shown that most listeners can't distinguish between MP3 recorded at a bit rate of 192 Mbps and the original file. However, some people can tell a difference. I worked with a guy who told me that he wouldn't record anything to MP3 unless the bit rate he used was 256 Mpbs or higher. He told me that he could hear a difference between the original and the MP3 file at lower bit rates, even 224. He regarded 192 as barely tolerable. There are no options to not lose quality - that's just how MP3 works. Whether you can tell the difference or not between an MP3 file at a given bit rate and the original varies from person to person and you'll have to see what you like.

Your rips boil down to this - what is MOST important to you - disk space or time? If time, then keep the as WAVs. If disk space, then keep them as FLACs. As someone very wisely said earlier, converting to FLAC format is just like using ZIP on a file. You can get back to exactly what you had before (the WAV) with no loss, but FLAC saves disk space. It can save on average I'd say about 40% over WAV, but it varies.

The Lame encoder for MP3 is fine. I don't know about Razor Lame though. Do note that some versions of Lame support MP3 encoding with bit rates above 352 Mbps and my understanding is that if you encode higher than 352, some playback devices may not be able to play it correctly.

If you're going to encode to MP3 I would suggest avoiding VBR encoding and just use CBR. VBR doesn't save much space over CBR and it just causes potential problems with playback.
VBR is Variable Bit Rate. CBR is Constant Bit Rate.

[yoda313]

For casual listening 128kpbs mp3 is very acceptable. If you have a small capacity mp3 player or want to cram a ton onto a cdr for a cd based mp3 player than that is usually quite adequate.

Recently I got a 30gb harddrive mp3 player so now I'm starting to encode stuff at peak 320kpbs mp3 or peak 192kpbs wma. Partly just to use up space on the player. But also to take advantage of the higher bitrate. It does seem to help a lot on classical music or scifi movie soundtracks. The range is pretty crisp on the max bitrates.

Again as mentioned above your main tradeoff in any compression format is space vs quality. If you need more space you have to take some kind of hit on quality. If space is not an issue use either wav or a lossless codec to preserve as much of the original as possible.

That's pretty much all there is to it.


EDIT - In regards to the storage question for vinyl here's my suggestion:

BURN THEM TO AUDIO CD FIRST!!!!!

That way you'll have the best sound you can get from your transfer and always be able to go back to the "master" disc you made. From there you can compress to anything you desire. But since cdr's are dirt cheap these days record to wav on your computer then burn to cd right away. THen you can do what you want with your original wavs on your computer. It won't matter since you can rerip your "master" disc later if you find you like a particular codec better than another.

[SE14man]

Cheers guys.

So if i want toi get the BEST quality MP3's ripping from vinyl please tell me the best software and what i need to do.
I have a USB turntable.

Can mp3s lose quality by just haivng them on the pc and keep listening 2 thm over and over or do they only lose quality when you re encode and compress?

[SE14man]

Using the option 'Store' in programsl ike winzip and WinRAR this shouldnt compress the file at all should it, therefore i should lose no quality right?

Woah i thought you could only get to 320.
With what software does it go to 352.
I think what ill do is actually post one of my rips on here, you lot really know your stuff. I am not satisfied with my rip.
You will need to put headphoneso n toi know what im talking about but there is a loud metallic hissy sound before and after the track and during quiet parts.
I used Adobe Audition.
Saved it as WAV.
Used Razor Lame with Lame MP3 Encoder to convert it to a VBR which differs between 128 and 224.
I dont have an earth cable maybe this could be the reason?
However i am using a Numark TTUSB Turntable going in through the USB.

What i am really after is REALLY good quality so i have recently started keeping my files as WAVS though this does waste one heck of a lot of space.
So you recommend a CBR, what should i use to convert from WAV to CBR, Lame? I like this hting you told me also about going Above 320.
I am extremely fussy about quality though so you guys recommend the best options for me.

Also whats this about transferring to CD first, are you suggesting i should rip my vinyls as WAV then transfer them with Nero as an audio CD? Then use something like CDEX to get them back as MP3?
Thank you very much for your help everyone.
It has been extremely useful.

Here is one of my rips,

Please let me know.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/x99gzv

[Noahtuck]

So if i want toi get the BEST quality MP3's ripping from vinyl please tell me the best software and what i need to do.
I have a USB turntable.

There is no such thing... MP3's are a lossy conversion, once they are mp3'd what info was thrown out to compress them is gone forever....

Can mp3s lose quality by just haivng them on the pc and keep listening 2 thm over and over or do they only lose quality when you re encode and compress?

They only lose quality when they are converted to a smaller size mp3 file..

Using the option 'Store' in programsl ike winzip and WinRAR this shouldnt compress the file at all should it, therefore i should lose no quality right?

Of course it will compress the file... thats what winzip & winrar do 8)
It will not compress them as well as FLACing them will though...
And no it will not lose any quality raring them or zipping them.

I am extremely fussy about quality though so you guys recommend the best options for me.

If you are considering MP3ing them... then you're not as fussy as you think you are

If you want to keep the absolute best quality then you need to either deal with the space issue of WAV files, or burn them all directly to cdr to have a lossless copy or flac them for storage.

What i am really after is REALLY good quality so i have recently started keeping my files as WAVS though this does waste one heck of a lot of space.

The flac them.... this will save space, you can play flac files i know with VLC & i'm sure there are other programs that will, i thought there was a plugin for winamp or something to play them as well, i'm not sure because if i want to listen to them i usually burn them to a cdr and just keep them flac'ed on my storage HDD on another PC.

Also whats this about transferring to CD first, are you suggesting i should rip my vinyls as WAV then transfer them with Nero as an audio CD?

YES!!!
As stated a few times... once they are converted to lossy MP3, thats it... you will never ever ever get back the original quality of the wav!!!!

Then use something like CDEX to get them back as MP3?

you can do that or after burning or backing up the wav files you can just convert them on your PC directly to mp3 then delete the wav....

But you really need to understand... once it is mp3'd, thats it... you can convert it back to wav, but it will not be the same.. you will have lost alot...

The USB turntable thing... i don't know as i've never messed with one to transfer albums to the pc.

[SE14man]

Many thanks mate.
Much appreciated

[SE14man]

But after it is as FLAC can it sitll be converted to WAV and have no loss in quality what so ever?

What converter should i use?
Also when you say burn a CD shall i burn it as data so i can fit loads of WAVS on?
This way i wont loose quality right?

[hech54]

I don't know....I just don't see the point of yet another format(flac) especially if you already have the music on an original CD to begin with....then again....although I'm a music "nut"...I don't listen to much music on my computer.
I have a hard enough time weeding out all of these damn .wav files from my computer that my wife stuck on here....knowing full well that she has the original CD sitting here on the shelf right next to the computer....SILLY.

[Ai Haibara]

But after it is as FLAC can it sitll be converted to WAV and have no loss in quality what so ever?

Sure. As long as you don't convert to a lossy format along the way, FLAC < > WAVE conversions generally shouldn't lose anything.

What converter should i use?
Also when you say burn a CD shall i burn it as data so i can fit loads of WAVS on?
This way i wont loose quality right?

The main FLAC page is here: http://flac.sourceforge.net/
(edit: yes, I know Midzuki posted the link in the second or third post. I'm just including it again for fun. )


Go to the downloads page and you'll find not only the 'official' encoder and decoder, but also (under the extras section) other encoders/decoders and plugins for players to handle FLAC files.

Since I haven't done much work with FLAC, I can't really recommend any software at the moment. But I'd start with the official encoder/decoder, experiment with that and anything else I could find.

Well, sure, if you burn a data CD/DVD of WAVE files, you're not going to lose any quality from them. Though, you'd probably be able to squeeze more onto the disc if the files were FLAC instead of WAVE.

(edit #2: For other lossless compression formats (not just FLAC), this page might provide some alternatives: http://www.rarewares.org/lossless.php If you want, you can experiment with all the formats and pick whichever you prefer.)

[SE14man]

Thank you very much indeed mate!

[Heywould3]

I didnt read all the posts so please forgive me if this has been stated.. BUT since you are recording from vinal you should ALWAYS ALWAYS record in WAV or FLAC if you like first. then if you want to save space on mp3 player or what ever convert but leave the original. if you dont like taking up all the space on computer then burn as lossless to DVD and store. vinal has one of the highest freq ranges, im sure you know. but its higher than the human ear can hear. BUT what most people dont consider when the compare to CD for example which cuts the freq range off at its high and low ranges, is that the body can perceive the freq. now there is so much that comes into play that i wont get into like speakers ability to reproduce and stuff like that.

since you say you are so picky when it comes to this then do it the lossless way and store. if you compress the file and delete the orig then you loose it for ever.. also if you compress to mp3 and one day edit it for some reason.. you loose even more data. the same is true for things like jpg too

[Skith]

If all you want to do is burn compressed FLAC files, burrrn is an excellent program (freeware/donationware). Although, you might want to replace the FLAC.exe it uses with the latest version, as it is a bit outdated.

The HydrogenAudio Forums are a great place for information. It could be considered the VideoHelp or Doom9 of audio, at least in my opinion.

Consider FLAC if you need lossless quality and want to archive and/or save space. Otherwise use WAV (lossless) or MP3 (common/lossy) or OGG (slightly less common, better than mp3, lossy).

[marshalljames]

obviously none of you people are serious Music Traders,have never heard of Dime-a dozen and haven't got a clue you could probably d/l that concert you went YESTERDAY.(sorry haven't read all the posts)
mp3's are for personal use only and really you should Rock-Box your i-pod to play Flac's direct foobar 2000 will play flac/shn/ape files
on a pc.music cd's are obsolete.

[Noahtuck]

obviously none of you people are serious Music Traders,have never heard of Dime-a dozen and haven't got a clue you could probably d/l that concert you went YESTERDAY.(sorry haven't read all the posts)
mp3's are for personal use only and really you should Rock-Box your i-pod to play Flac's direct foobar 2000 will play flac/shn/ape files
on a pc.music cd's are obsolete.

Obviously YOU have not bothered to actually READ all the post's

#1, the OP is talking about what is the best format to keep audio in for best quality after transfering from albums to pc.

#2, the woes of MP3 and keeping them pure in WAV or compressing them with FLAC has been stated many many times by me alone and a couple of others.....

[SE14man]

This is one of my rips.
I personally think this tune sounds too 'opened up' if you know what i mean kind of a dusty sound!
A lot of my songs that arent my rips dont osunmd like this.
Something is either up with the hardware or software which is causing this issue.
Please help me decide what i need to do to make this song sound better than it is. Because at the moment if you listen to it for exmaple when the female singer says the letter 's' it comes out as sssssssssss way too hissy but it shouldnt be like that really there must be a fix for this issue.

Cheers guys.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/x99gzv

[Heywould3]

This is one of my rips.
I personally think this tune sounds too 'opened up' if you know what i mean kind of a dusty sound!
A lot of my songs that arent my rips dont osunmd like this.
Something is either up with the hardware or software which is causing this issue.
Please help me decide what i need to do to make this song sound better than it is. Because at the moment if you listen to it for exmaple when the female singer says the letter 's' it comes out as sssssssssss way too hissy but it shouldnt be like that really there must be a fix for this issue.

Cheers guys.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/x99gzv

I didnt check the sample but you might try lowering the gain or use some EQ filter to reduce some of the highs.
IE 10k-20k reduce by a few DB. also if there is a lot fo editing of the file in compressed form it will distroy the quality. if wav format make sure its 44.1khz 16bit