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RealBand
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Joined: Aug 2008
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Hi all, I use real band for a few of my real-tracks backing , then export them out as 24 bit 44.1 files to be further added to and mixed as in (vocls,live guitar etc) in sonar, do you guys think that it would be benificial for me to get the audiophile tracks for better quality at mixdown or will i see little benifit. thanks in advance . Ade
INTEL I7 16GIG RAM WINDOWS-7 MIDAS VENICE F24 PRESONUS STUDIOLIVE 16 UAD 2 DYNAUDIO BM5A BEYER/880 PRO TC HELICON VOICEWORKS PLUS
BAND IN A BOX/REAL BAND PRESONUS STUDIO 1 V2.65 SOFTWARE,SOFTWARE,SOFTWARE..
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RealBand
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Joined: Aug 2008
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Forgot to add I am using the WMA hard-drive version of real tracks/drums. Ade 
INTEL I7 16GIG RAM WINDOWS-7 MIDAS VENICE F24 PRESONUS STUDIOLIVE 16 UAD 2 DYNAUDIO BM5A BEYER/880 PRO TC HELICON VOICEWORKS PLUS
BAND IN A BOX/REAL BAND PRESONUS STUDIO 1 V2.65 SOFTWARE,SOFTWARE,SOFTWARE..
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RealBand
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Joined: Oct 2008
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Hi Ade,
I asked this very same question recently. The general answer was that if you have a really decent sound system, you will notice a slight improvement in sound - more so on some instruments than others. It was suggested to me that I could always try the audiophile edition using PG Music's 30-day return policy and, if I didn't like it, return it. I thought about doing that and then decided to get the non-Audiophile version because I'm pretty sure that my sound system wouldn't have made much difference.
It's unfortunate that PG Music do not make short snippets of wav (or flac) files that can be downloaded so that customers can compare the Audiophile and non-audiophile versions on their home systems. (I'll add this to the wish list)
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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RealBand
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Joined: Aug 2008
Posts: 86
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OP
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Thanks for the early reply Noel, yes it would be nice to hear the difference (if there is any)in wav preferable to flac (you can hear a difference on a good set of studio monitors with these formats even though flac is supposed to be lossless) maybe its not such an issue, now i think of it with the better time-streching capabilities of 2011 its an all round better sound anyway.Thanks Ade
Last edited by pikeyh; 01/10/11 03:08 PM.
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RealBand
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Joined: Dec 2000
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FLAC isn't supposed to be lossless, it is lossless. You can just convert back to WAV before playing. You may instead be hearing the different as a result of decoding the FLAC in realtime, versus decoding back to WAV, then playing the WAV file.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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RealBand
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Joined: May 2000
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Tested that theory John?
Compared file size, etc. to the original?
Just wondering
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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RealBand
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I just finished taking Disc 1 of the Beatles White Album (which I recorded from vinyl) at a size of 529,166,528 bytes. I then ran the FLAC encoder on it and it resulted in a file size of 284,852,030 bytes. I then took the FLAC file and decoded it to a new WAV file which was also 529,166,528 bytes.
I did a binary file compare of the two WAV files and they both were identical. All three files played fine in WinAmp (which has a FLAC decoder). I don't see how the two WAV files can be exactly the same, but have different fidelity. So, that to me says lossless.
Using FLAC (in this case) resulted in a file 53% of the original size. Not as good a file savings as with a lossy CODEC, but still better than WAV.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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RealBand
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Thanks for testing. I've read reviews both ways. Files are always within 2k of each other, but I have heard of some variation previously.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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RealBand
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Joined: May 2007
Posts: 1,616
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I've used FLAC for years to make copies of my CDs. Being a little leary about reducing the size of the original, I also did extensive testing and found absolutely no difference at the bit level. Most of my FLACs are image copies of the entire CD including gaps, etc. There should not be an audible difference between a FLAC copy and the original no matter how good the audio system. If there is, it is probably the FLAC decoder. I've never heard of such a problem, but if that is the case, find another decoder. The FLAC site is here. R
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RealBand
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My understanding is that FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is the audio archiving equivalent of ZIP or RAR, etc. FLAC archives audio more efficiently than (say) ZIP but the principle is similar. Just like ZIP, during it's archiving process, FLAC retains all data and stores it more efficiently than the original file.
Lossy codecs such as mp3, etc., are not non-destructive archiving tools. They sacrifice data considered to be less important to the overall sound before archiving the remaining data. Such data considered less important are, for example, extremely high and extremely low frequencies.
For the above reasons, it's always possible to return from FLAC to WAV with all data intact. When an mp3 is decompressed, though, the data that were removed when the mp3 was initially made cannot be recovered because no archival record was kept of these removed data.
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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RealBand
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I've read in other recording forums of guys testing FLAC, and while they find it very good they did find size differences when compressed/decompressed. That was why I asked. Some seemed to think it was in the header for the wav file.
I've never heard this happening with monkeysaudio, which is why I usually recommend that one. This could be something fixed recently in Flac, dunno.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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RealBand
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I noticed some header options when encoding the file, so that might be the problem upon decoding. I only compressed the raw file with no additional options. I did use the FLAC Frontend to do the encoding/decoding. There might be some inadvertent issues when using the command line and using additional flags/options.
I also have Monkey's Audio, which is fine as well. Both achieve comparable size results with regards to WAV files.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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RealBand
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Most of the wma RealTracks seem to be @48kbps then 128 then 160.
I purchased the wma RealTracks and was very impressed, I and wanted to put
them on cd so i got the Audiophile version.
Here is a Guitar wav & wma @160kbps
EG0021-1.wav Audiophile
EG0021-1.wma @160kbps
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