Hi-Res Audio / File-Size Limits / What platform to Use?

[alexdingley]

Does anyone here work with 24/96, or 24/192 master files much? Are you exporting full-albums of material in hi-res formats? What album sequencing app are you using? I'm looking to see if the limitation I'm finding is solely within the app I'm using, or if it's with all apps that use .wav / .aif for file-types.

I want to take all my 24/96 or 24/192 mixes, master them, and then sequence the album in a CD Playlist... using something like DSP Quattro, which lets me sequence & master & burn all from one app. - - - - No problems, until I try to export (or burn) this playlist. If I want to burn a 16/44.1 disc OR if I want to export the individual tracks as hi-res files... the software needs to render a full-length audio file of the sequence... before it can do either. If these files were 24/44.1 or 24/48 (and roughly an album's length)... I'd have no problem.... but as soon as I try to do a really long album export... or convert hi-res files to a CD-burn... it chokes and throws an error. It tells me that the file it would need to create is larger than the allowed file-size limit. I'm definitely not out of Disk space, and I definitely have .aif files that are 2.87GB on my machine... So I have a feeling this is a limit OF THIS APP but I want to make sure it's not something that's just a format limit for .wav / .aif.

I know I can just build my album sequence in Pro Tools, using two stereo tracks... offset the songs... cross-fade as needed..... bus them to a new audio track and print, then split the tracks in Pro Tools... but I've been imagining that there's got to be a more elegant way to do this in a stereo editing platform. Am I barking up the wrong tree, software-wise?

[kslight]

The WAV format is limited to files that are less than 4 GB, because of its use of a 32-bit unsigned integer to record the file size header (some programs limit the file size to 2 GB).

60 minutes of stereo 24/96 should be a bit over 2gb.

24/192 would exceed 4gb.

You may need to use a different file format or contact the software developer.

[alexdingley]

Yeah... i've been wondering about that. I thought there was a 4GB file limit... but what happens in PT if you record 24/192 for a long time... does PT stop recording? Does it break the file into multiple .wav files?


Anyway... I tried a free trial of Sony Sound Forge for Mac and it actually had direct-to-flac at 24/96 built right in. So... I may end up trying to use that software, even though I didn't find its interface that nice to work with.

[kslight]

Pro Tools will break up the files after a certain limit, which you can define in preferences, or maybe it's fixed at 2gb. If I remember correctly, as I've done concerts before. It wasn't a problem, it just kept going. In fact I think you do that so that it writes the files to disk regularly in case of computer crash. However keep in mind those are single channel files within pro tools, so you would need 120 minutes to make a 4gb file at 24/192. But I don't work at 24/192, I top out at 96.

[alexdingley]

All of this is why I wish apple's .CAF format was adopted by other platforms. Did you know that with .CAF files, your power could go out during a recording & the file would be perfectly fine - right up until the point that the system shut down. It's a really robust format, but of course - only Logic records in that format.

That's why I typically track live gigs with Logic.

Anyway... I think I have my answers. I did write the develop of DSP Quattro to ask if there's any thoughts on getting the CD-burning side to better-support large files - perhaps in future versions. We'll see.

[alexdingley]

So... I did end up writing to the developer... and he replied!

He, of course, cited the 2GB file limit for .wav & .aif but did mention that they'd be working on better Hi-Res file-handling for the mastering & export stages in the next versions. So that was super-encouraging.

PS. I did try the SoundForge Demo... and it was able to take a full-length 24/96 wav file (slightly longer than 1hr) and allowed me to: edit, track-index, and export directly to 24/96 FLAC... each file-region became FLAC tracks. Pretty solid, though the SoundForge interface really stinks.