It would be really nice to have LOSSLESS audio support in Mixmeister, FLAC preferrably. With storage being so cheap FLAC offers much better quality than mp3.

Alik...what type of format is FLAC? It's a new term for me.

It's the best thing since sliced bread It's Free Lossless Audio Codec. You can find out more about it here FLAC Think of it as ZIP compression. It reduces the size of the file but without losing any quality. A lot of my music is in FLAC since you can RIP a CD to that format and it sounds identical to the CD quality.

Alik, FLAC has come and gone already ... search the forums for FLAC and you'll find this post -- evidently there were problems supporting the format and it was dropped from the latest versions of Fusion / Studio.

I wouldn't necessarily put the nail in the coffin for FLAC support in Fusion at this time. But, FLAC must gain traction in the marketplace before it gets into the product permanently.

I was happy that the developers put it in and tried to work with it earlier, but I was not surprised to see it ripped from the product, given the seemingly intractable position of MP3 on the market.

I certainly applaud and encourage the calls for FLAC to ultimately be integrated into the Fusion/Studio product line, but I know, based on where FLAC is now, that I'm probably not going to see it back right away. Ultimately it might never get there, depending on the market, as well as on what other formats might supplant it. It does seem to be gaining some traction in audiophile circles, but I'm sure the music labels aren't a bit concerned with that. They're going to sell what the public is going to buy and given the problems that MM had with supporting the FLAC format, it obviously didn't make sense to continue support for it.

If you can't buy your music files in FLAC format, the only way to create them is to convert them from WAVE or rip them from CD. As music moves entirely to the digital sale/download arena, where exactly does that put FLAC now, in terms of practicality?

Something will come along someday that's much better than MP3 and it will gain acceptance in the market. That's what we're all looking for here, I think. Will that be FLAC? I don't think anyone can really say.

I think there is future for Lossless. For example http://www.trackitdown.net already has an option to download WAV tracks. Which you can easily convert to FLAC to save space without losing any quality. Winamp and SoundForge come with FLAC support out of the box. The European Broadcasting Union has adopted FLAC for distribution of audio over its Euroradio network. There are also lots of hardware players that have FLAC support now.

There is definitely a future for lossless. It will come someday, I have no doubt. FLAC may indeed be the thing. I don't think the question is if, but when.

Mixmeister has lossless support already in a format which is much more reliable and widely supported than FLAC.

If you want quality why use FLAC with limited program support when almost every program supports Wav.

True the file sizes are larger with WAV than FLAC, but with a 500 gig hard drives being so cheap its not really an issue.

I don't know what you mean by limited product support. Winamp supports it, Sony Sound Forge supports it, a lot of hardware players support it.

Developing simple playback support for a file format is an entirely different animal then developing advanced audio application support in an application that has to manipulate the format.

That's the development issue here and the gamble when developing support for new formats. It all comes down to what the developers think is the best use of their development resources with respect to their products. This is especially true when it's a relatively new product like Fusion/Studio 7 (in the case of the OS X product, infantile) with other continuing issues that are always present in completely new generations of software. It is important that these issues be resolved first. The premature release of support for these other formats got MM in a bit of trouble, and for that reason, I'm glad they've reverted back to focusing on product development with the traditional formats that have always been supported in the past. Getting the sound production working flawlessly at all times with the traditional formats has to be the most important consideration at this time. Until that's done, adding support for other formats simply distracts from this goal.

Evaluation for incorporation of new formats involves a combination of public response and internal considerations as these. Right now, I would be surprised to see support for new formats released right away. If it comes, and if I were a betting man, I would place my money on MP4 first (if they can deal with the DRM licensing/reproduction issues--a huge problem for that format), as that would go along way toward making it easier for Mac users to utilize their existing iTunes collections. Likewise, Windows users have iTunes libraries as well. Apple is currently #1 in digital sales. FLAC, also my preference, is just still too esoteric for most. It's market availability, in terms of digitally sold tracks, is still very limited. But, all this could change tomorrow, and I'm not a betting man, so... . The developers are certainly not going to announce anything concerning this until they're fully ready, if ever.

Nevertheless, the discussion here is lively and enjoyable, and having it continue is important to the developers to gauge public interest as they move forward. So, keep pluggin' for your faves.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tepmix,

quote:

Originally posted by x9sim9:
Mixmeister has lossless support already in a format which is much more reliable and widely supported than FLAC.

If you want quality why use FLAC with limited program support when almost every program supports Wav.

True the file sizes are larger with WAV than FLAC, but with a 500 gig hard drives being so cheap its not really an issue.

I tried converting my FLAC files to WAV today and made sure that it contained all the metadata from the tag but seems like Mixmeister's WAV support is crippled and does not read the WAV metadata. Even Winamp read it perfectly. Why would I use WAVs? I would have to retag every single track manually.

The WAV file format has never traditionally supported ID3 tags as embedded data, As the oldest format currently in use for digital audio, it could be accomplished via an addition of the ID3-style metadata to the format in real ID3 specification, but has always continued to comply to its own existing standard--e.g. no ID3-style tag data is written with the file.

The only metadata tagging system in regular use with WAV is "Broadcast WAV," which is stored as a RIFF chunk. So, theoretically, this could be accomplished, although how it could be compatible with the ID3 tagging features of MP3 and WMA already present in Mixmeister would have to be investigated by the developers:

http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/publications/userguides/bwf_user_guide.php

This is an issue with most all standard WAV files in use today. It is not something that is "broken" in Mixmeister, and even though disk space is now cheap and can easily accomplish the storage of the larger WAV files, not being able to effectively tag them, and have other applications recognize them, provides a barrier to widespread adoption for use in applications where ID3-style data really needs to be embedded and recognized.

However, given the fact that "Broadcast WAV" is the one recognized and widely used standard by the broadcast industry itself, it might behoove Mixmeister to look into standardizing features within the program that would allow the addition of the "Broadcast WAV" riff chunk data to WAV files similarly to ID3 and provide compatibility between the recognition and conversion of that data and the recognition and conversion of traditional MP3 style ID3 data within the program--e.g. to allow the types to work back and forth between each other in naming, import and export between the 2 types of ID3-supported files types (WMA, MP3) and "Broadcast WAV" within Mixmeister.

However, as far as I know, there is no standard for this development in the use of over-the-counter audio applications (most make no use of this), so, outside of MM, how it would work with other applications would depend on how other applications had determined to add this data to the RIFF chunk. Furthermore BWF can only contain two specified types of audio data. It is a restricted subset of the WAV standard, which can contain more.

It is a complex issue. One of the reasons why many readers here continue to argue for FLAC, is because as a lossless format, FLAC does provide for the embedding of ID3 style data within the file as part of the original specification.

However, in general WAV does not support ID3 style metadata, and trying to get something of that sort into the format and make it compatible could be restrictive and/or unwise, in terms of compatibility with the overall WAV format. Basically, the WAV format is what it is--the original high-resolution digital format designed to be used in the highest quality of digital audio application, and, per the design, was never intended to have metatag data associated with it.

My point exactly. WAV is outdated. Time to switch to FLAC

I need FLAC support too. It's already supported by many hardware vendors.

WAV is definitely not outdated. It is the current de-facto standard for the broadcast industry (BWF), and, in terms of use there, ID3-style taggging metadata has been addded to their use of the format and it is being used universally throughout the industry--is a standard. It is also still the de-facto standard for the highest level of professional audio production. When working with original digital files in full resolution format to create digital masters, the industry standard is still WAV, without ID-style tagging.

FLAC is a rising format, but it has not fully arisen by any means whatsoever, nor are there guarantees that it will reach the type of critical mass required to see its development continue. It is beginning to be used in profesional studio application for audio processing-- beginning to be used. That use is still generally limited.

When I say above that ID3-style metadata tagging has not been implemented in WAV in any standard way, I mean in terms outside of the broadcast industry. In terms of WAV tagging, it can be easily implemented outside of that industry if other players get together and determine a unified standard tagging format that will accomodate all the various types of audio data that can be present within the WAV format, and because the Broadcast industry already has a firm standard of implementation across-the-board, although within a subset of the audio data types that can be present in WAV, it may also arise for use in other application development for use in products from MM to Ableton, you name it. I would think such an expanded tagging effort would need to be made to include the elements of the BWF metadata format (broadcast wave) as part of a greater expansion to also include metadata tagging for the additional audio formats that can additionally be present in WAV. That kind of effort can and may occur amongst those who really do have the power to determine such things, and the broadcast industry would be one of the most powerful players in such decisions made with others who would care and join together to unify such an effort.

From the combination of a complex perspective based on all this discussion we've been having throughout these threads here, neither MP4, FLAC, or WAV can in anyway yet be predicted as a winning or losing format for the future. However, WAVE and MP3 are current universally accepted standards and the rest are not. Again, betting on one or more of other types of formats at this time, like MP4 (which includes AAC as part of its container) and FLAC, creates reasonable doubt in the minds of developers who may wish to focus their attentions on other development improvements, rather than potentially waste time developing complex code to work with complex audio applications just to satisfy immediate wants (not needs) of end users.

Let me ask you this, if suddenly today MM announced that it was re-adding support for FLAC into the program, and then you went out, converted all your files to FLAC with ID3 tags (doing this from your CDs, since hardly anyone is selling files online digitally in FLAC format, and we all know CD sales are tanking), how much time would it involve you to do this? For myself with over 200GB of MP3 files currently on hand, it would take weeks to re-convert music from CDs, etc., into the FLAC format. Now, on top of this, if the developers have to assure that FLAC works flawlessly in digital audio production on the MM platform, their time involvement will multiply yours even more.

Then, suddenly, powerful players at the top of the industry announce a plan to standardize on WAV metadata tagging for all the WAV audio types. In such a scenario, EVERYONE LOSES, and valuable time, effort and money have been completely wasted. FLAC disappears into the dustbin of history overnight or slips silently away over time.

When the time is right, certain movements within the industry will signal a sea change in direction, and everyone will begin to move in that particular direction all at once. At that time, these issues will begin to achieve clarity.

For now, MM supports WAV, MP3 and WMA, and they continue to only do so for very good reasons.

I had flac working for awhile but no longer worked after hardware failure (not due to MixMeister), tech support couldn't get it back up and running.

Decided to go back to .wav mixing (I'm a quality freak). Since I'm doing that, I've decided to go back to version 5 (never fell in love with 7, only did it for flac support).

I fell off the MixMeister truck and won't climb back on. Five Forever!

Peace, out. I'm done.

bring it back please

(yes, i whinged about this in another thread a while back :P )

on a side note .. is it possible for someone ELSE to make a MixMeister Add-on??

Sigh...small handful of requests. Not a priority at this time, as far as we know.

You can read more on this topic in the Studio 7 wishlist here forum

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tepmix,