Why WAV mastering?

[Marzz]

Why is it recommended that you master on WAV?
Edit* Sorry for the free claps post. I wanted to post this first and the free claps later

[nowaysj]

What? As opposed to aiff?

WAv is a standard lossless file type that has been around digital audio for
Many long years.

[Marzz]

What? As opposed to aiff?

WAv is a standard lossless file type that has been around digital audio for
Many long years.

I know but why is it used for mastering a lot?

[Hircine]

What? As opposed to aiff?

WAv is lossless file type

[Marzz]

What? As opposed to aiff?

WAv is lossless file type

Oh. I'm sort of new to mastering.

[hasezwei]

mp3 is basically taking out huge chunks of audio data that your ear won't notice anyway given the constellation of frequencies at the particular time, if you want to process your song after conversion to mp3 problems will arise because of that.

you can try that yourself by bouncing a sound, make one .wav and one .mp3 file and pitch both one or two octaves up and compare them

[classicaldubstep]

Its not noticeable to the ear, but mp3's don't retain all of the wave metadata (fancy word for waves you see from raw audio in a DAW, such as on the playlist in FL Studio). Wav.'s retain all data, thus bigger file size.

[Attila]

Work with the best quality you can.

[vries]

because fuck mp3

[Medway Studios]

What? As opposed to aiff?

WAv is a standard lossless file type that has been around digital audio for
Many long years.

I know but why is it used for mastering a lot?

It's just the most common loss less format. Technically AIFF would be fine but that's more of a Mac format.

[laurend]

Technically, wav is a media container which can contain mp3 audio also. What is required for audio production is PCM or raw audio that can be included in a wav or aif media container.
Never ever use loosy encoded audio during production. mp3 is just a distribution format.

[Depone]

Yeah the only difference between aiff and wav is the way the headers of data are read. believe it or not, wavs are read forwards, and aiff backwards. I think you can also input different metadata in aiffs compared to wavs.

[outbound]

Quite simply put, you use WAV for mastering because it is one bad ass audio format. Yes you could use other audio formats but that would make WAV angry and you don't wanna make WAV angry now do ya?

[Marzz]

Quite simply put, you use WAV for mastering because it is one bad ass audio format. Yes you could use other audio formats but that would make WAV angry and you don't wanna make WAV angry now do ya?

No.

[knobgoblin]

Never work from any lossy file format. MP3 runs the audio thru a FFT (look it up, too much to explain here), and then uses sophisticated algorithms to get rid of information that SOME people won't notice the loss of, mostly manifesting itself as ringing artifacts in the higher frequencies. The reconstructed signal will be a close approximation of the original signal, but it won't pass a null test. Additional processing after conversion will compound the problems that the conversion process introduces. WAV is the current standard for full quality uncompressed audio, capable of supporting all standard sample rates and bit depths. AIFF was apples proprietary alternative, mostly comparable but with different meta data systems, but WAV is the standard. The only other viable format for full resolution audio is DSD, which is what super audio cd's use, fundamentally different than the PCM tech of WAV. It uses a 1-bit storage system with astronomically high sample rates, in the several megahertz range, but this format hasn't achieved widespread acceptance and use. I believe KORG uses this in most of their field recorders and HD recording systems.

If you ever give a mastering engineer a Mp3 to work from, they will laugh at you...

[Marzz]

Never work from any lossy file format. MP3 runs the audio thru a FFT (look it up, too much to explain here), and then uses sophisticated algorithms to get rid of information that SOME people won't notice the loss of, mostly manifesting itself as ringing artifacts in the higher frequencies. The reconstructed signal will be a close approximation of the original signal, but it won't pass a null test. Additional processing after conversion will compound the problems that the conversion process introduces. WAV is the current standard for full quality uncompressed audio, capable of supporting all standard sample rates and bit depths. AIFF was apples proprietary alternative, mostly comparable but with different meta data systems, but WAV is the standard. The only other viable format for full resolution audio is DSD, which is what super audio cd's use, fundamentally different than the PCM tech of WAV. It uses a 1-bit storage system with astronomically high sample rates, in the several megahertz range, but this format hasn't achieved widespread acceptance and use. I believe KORG uses this in most of their field recorders and HD recording systems.

If you ever give a mastering engineer a Mp3 to work from, they will laugh at you...

Thank you.

[Marzz]

Thanks everybody.

[knobgoblin]

No prob, hope it's usefull info

[outbound]

If you ever give a mastering engineer a Mp3 to work from, they will laugh at you...

I disagree, I usually cry

[knobgoblin]

Followed by a quick punch to the clients face, just for good measure