Today's Industry Standard For Audio Format?

[Derrick]

So what's the industry standard format that people use to send audio files around these days? Wave? AIF (or is it AIFF)?

[Kevin Kitchel]

The industry standard at my house is regular VHS tapes used in blackface ADATs.

Other people use Broadcast WAV because there is a timestamp built into the file.

YMMV.

[JGriffin]

Broadcast WAV.

[Derrick]

So like if I do a mix and want to send it to a mastering place or send something to a record co. who is releasing a single or compilation... what is the standard or typical format these days? I remember when I was doing this regularly in the late 90s, it was a stinkin' DAT tape.

[pandatone]

i would hope, that anyone could handle a AIFF, WAVE or SDII (i prefer AIFFs, but record as SDII (digital perfomer))

if not, im not sure i would be paying them to master.

panda.

[Derrick]

Well then I guess the next question would be do any of these formats sound better then the other (likely a dumb question) and what are the pros/cons of using either?

[GooberNumber9]

If you're sending something to a mastering engineer, a good idea would be to call the place and ask them what they prefer.

In terms of digital audio, wave, broadcast wave, and AIFF are all the same technology, and should all sound identical when played back on the same hardware. Those are definitely the standard file formats in use these days.

From there, the best quality will be the highest sample rate and bit depth, assuming you've had that rate and depth from the beginning. If you can afford the disk space to record the raw tracks at 24/96, then you can do so and you would want to keep your material at 24/96 as long as possible (until you send it to mastering, in your case). If you recorded at 24/48 or whatever, then just keep it in that format.

Finally, you'll have to put these files on some kind of hardware. In this case, optical storage (CD-R, DVD-R) should be your dead last resort because what you burn is not necessarily exactly what is on your hard drive. If you can send a firewire hard drive, that is best. Other options are digital backup tape or even possibly USB thumb drives. Again, talk to the mastering house.

Finally, check out this link:
http://www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy ... uidelines/

Todd Wilcox

[JASIII]

If you're sending something to a mastering engineer, a good idea would be to call the place and ask them what they prefer.

In terms of digital audio, wave, broadcast wave, and AIFF are all the same technology, and should all sound identical when played back on the same hardware. Those are definitely the standard file formats in use these days.

From there, the best quality will be the highest sample rate and bit depth, assuming you've had that rate and depth from the beginning. If you can afford the disk space to record the raw tracks at 24/96, then you can do so and you would want to keep your material at 24/96 as long as possible (until you send it to mastering, in your case). If you recorded at 24/48 or whatever, then just keep it in that format.

Finally, you'll have to put these files on some kind of hardware. In this case, optical storage (CD-R, DVD-R) should be your dead last resort because what you burn is not necessarily exactly what is on your hard drive. If you can send a firewire hard drive, that is best. Other options are digital backup tape or even possibly USB thumb drives. Again, talk to the mastering house.

Finally, check out this link:
http://www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy ... uidelines/

Todd Wilcox

I've been wondering these very things, thanks! So, mastering houses don't want DVD-R, eh? Any mastering people want to jump in with some recommendations for a delivery medium??

[Derrick]

Very interesting, thanks so much! This is exactly what I wanted to know. So it looks like I won't be storing my sessions to DVD.

[buzzaudioguy]

Finally, you'll have to put these files on some kind of hardware. In this case, optical storage (CD-R, DVD-R) should be your dead last resort because what you burn is not necessarily exactly what is on your hard drive. If you can send a firewire hard drive, that is best. Other options are digital backup tape or even possibly USB thumb drives. Again, talk to the mastering house.

Finally, check out this link:
http://www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy ... uidelines/

Todd Wilcox

Really? I thought if you burned a 24 bit 96, 48 or 441 wav or aif on a data CD/ DVD, as oppose to a 16 bit audio disc, the information would be the same as on your hard drive. I mean, an audio CD... yeah I get that, but why would this be an different then say copying the info over to another drive? It's all 1's & 0's, so wouldn't it be just like a very small hard drive? Just asking...
Thanks!

[jeddypoo]

right, it seems bullshitty to me that files written to DVDr or CDR would be different than those written to a fw drive- I mean, to re-iterate, it's still the same binary in the end. Besides the fact that a FW ext drive, unless there's some new technology I don't know about, has a little spinning circle in it known as a hard disk.

[Derrick]

(Risking sounding stupid here) Could it be that unless you write to DVD at 1X, the errors encountered from writing at higher speeds would cause loss of resolution? I'm with you that a "1" is a "1" and a "0" is a "0"... and that because there is no processing of these bits, nothing should change. However, I've learned enough tha doesn't jive with what my educated logical mind would belive to be true in a case. Rmember when we told people 20 years ago that different brands of caps or resistors "sounded" different or that certain 9 volt batteries would make your old fuzz pedal sound different? People thought I was nutzzo. Anyhow, I am now open enough to say that though this sounds weird to me, I want to know more. So how is this so?

[JASIII]

ANSWERS!!! WE WANT ANSWERS!!

[jeddypoo]

I still say no way. It doesn't matter. That's my final answer. And if someone argues that it does, they're trying to sell you something- not the poster who mentioned it here, maybe, but generall, the industry is famous for making up things that people "need" that they could easily do without.

[Kevin Kitchel]

(Risking sounding stupid here) Could it be that unless you write to DVD at 1X, the errors encountered from writing at higher speeds would cause loss of resolution? I'm with you that a "1" is a "1" and a "0" is a "0"... and that because there is no processing of these bits, nothing should change. However, I've learned enough tha doesn't jive with what my educated logical mind would belive to be true in a case. Rmember when we told people 20 years ago that different brands of caps or resistors "sounded" different or that certain 9 volt batteries would make your old fuzz pedal sound different? People thought I was nutzzo. Anyhow, I am now open enough to say that though this sounds weird to me, I want to know more. So how is this so?

You're correct! Bad science! Errors are corrected for in data discs, and verified bit for bit via a checksum after being burned. If you want the hard science, it can be found in Principles of Digital Audio by Ken Pohlmann.

Block error rate can be counted, and is corrected for. If you take a DVD, burn it off, read that in, burn from that, and repeat 1000 times, the block error rate will not go up, and you will have a bit for bit copy of the data.