FLAC & MP3 file support

Dont know if the subjet has been touched before, It would be nice if we can import those files , and if not, have the possiblity to listen and convert to WAV in the box ?

thanks

This has been asked several times. There aren’t any plans to support other file formats and it really is easier to convert to Wav from Flac inside the computer. I use XLD on mac to convert Flac to WAV.

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too bad, i find it a bit sad to not have such feature even more for mp3 more than flac for gain of space of the sample library in the SD card

You need to start using a bigger SD card, 128GB of 48 kHz at 24-bit is over 128+ HOURS OF SAMPLES!

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lol for real even the smallest ones hold many hours of sample time. i’ve been using the same card since I got mine in january and filled maybe 10%

the thing is when u have a large mp3/ flac sample library and your daw or mpc can use them directly… its a pain to have to convert the whole thing to WAV, and now i read somewhere else, i should even convert wav 44 to 48 …

i never used an sp before , i dont mind having to learn an oldschool workflow and new machine , but this file format thing is a setback to me i thought this kind of functionality wouldnt be too hard in a modern machine

in my opinion, it would be great to have a sample library untouched and have the s2400 auto convert the mp3 file to a wav 48 that i can save in my project

maybe the dev team can improve this in the future or is it out of the question ?

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TBH you really shouldn’t be using MP3’s or even FLAC for music production since they’re compressed and lossy. WAV is king and standard.

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i ve been messing around with samplers before WAV was thing…
i understand its king standard format, but some things you will never find on CD or LP or WAV, the idea is just to preview mp3 and flac in the s2400 and convert them in WAV… like most recent machines will do these days…

12 bit aint lossy ? :slight_smile:

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Not to be pedantic, but WAV is the original digital audio format. CDs were studio quality WAV files burned onto disks… which came out in 1982, years before anyone had a need for MP3 or FLAC, and were the standard for digital samplers after they ditched tape-based hard drives that were used in the EMS and Fairlight CMI samplers.

I agree there’s many samples you won’t find in MP3 which sucks- you just have to find the highest quality and use it- but I would still argue that it’s pointless to implement usage of a lossy (non-studio quality) format into any music production equipment. Just convert your MP3’s or sample them into the S2400 directly- that’s what it’s for and why it’s called a sampler.

12 bit is doing bit conversion, not compression for storage. They’re different types of lossy. One sounds good, the other does not.

In a nutshell: MP3’s are for DJ gear, not production equipment :slight_smile:

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Interested to know why you’re classifying FLAC as “lossy”?

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FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) I don’t know where you got the idea that FLAC is lossy, but it’s incorrect. You can take a WAV convert it to FLAC and then back to WAV you will have lost 0 bits, the two WAV files will be exactly the same.

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FLAC and ALAC are compressed files. While they still sound great, they require your audio player (whatever it may be) to decode the compressed file for playback. They’re not technically lossy, as the bit reproduction of 1’s and 0’s is word perfect, but they can require more effort on the part of your audio player which some people think doesn’t sound as good as fully uncompressed WAV files.

WAV files have much less ‘header info’ meaning you can’t add album cover art and only have minimal file naming functions, but it’s a completely uncompressed raw waveform audio file.

For studio use, anything that’s already been compressed, even if it converts back to a 1-for-1 bit perfect version of the waveform, should be considered lossy. Sure you can use it and I sometimes do use it myself (like for instance if it’s the highest quality I can find of a song) but it’s still compressed, and I would rather have completely uncompressed audio for music production.

Here’s a video on it if you’re curious.

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Those some people would be wrong.

I don’t want to see any CPU resources dedicated to anything MP3 or FLAC related on this sampler.

Also your videos are great!

Personally all my music is in FLAC and I love the format.

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Thank you! I’m glad you dig them. I just like talking about gear really😄

Agreed about the CPU resources- it’s a powerful machine but adding additional codes beyond WAV in my opinion is just a waste of processor power.

For personal use, enjoyment, convenience, even music catalogs/collections, FLAC and MP3 are fantastic. They sound great, even 320kbps MP3 files. My point was more about using them in a studio-grade digital sampler, in the studio.

My entire music catalog is 320kbps MP3, but a FLAC catalog is definitely ideal!

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yes WAV is cd quality and the original format for digital audio im aware of that, but it was much later that the wav format became available in samplers, to my knowledge the AKAI S5000 was the first one and there were many samplers before that and all had their own format

i dont understand your point about how reading a flac or a mp3 and saving it as WAV in the S2400 would use processing power while making music.
i dont want to save and use mp3 files in my project , i just wish i could open it from a samples folder and save it in wav in my project

its just about options.
going back and forth to the computer isnt something i like to do when im producing and isnt ideal in my opinion
just like using a mp3 instead of a wav isnt ideal but sometimes you dont have a choice

you suggest sampling a mp3 instead of converting it ? how is that gonna make it better ?

my goal is just to have the SAME huge mp3 samples folder in my S2400 as in my mpc LIVE without having to convert it and use more space in WAV format.

ofc it will be some dev time that can probably be assigned to more important things for now, but i dont think the machine has such limitations that this cant be done in the future.

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I think @tomswift has covered it pretty comprehensively, but again, if you’re going to describe FLAC as “lossy” you’re misusing the term.

Yes, there is potential for buffer over- and under- runs if working with FLAC in realtime, but that’s not “lossy”. By that logic you could say that WAV is also lossy, if stored on an underperforming SD card (for example).

If you’re going to use a domain term (which “loss” is in signal processing) then you’re bound by its definition.

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Any OGG?

No OGG support

One reason to implement FLAC and MP3 support is to allow for playback of longer samples that are set to loop “forever” given that the file size limit for the “forever” looping feature is 2MB. A mono WAV sample that is 2MB might be around 20 seconds, whereas a mono MP3 sample might be 90 seconds.

sorry but I have to agree with previous comments - I wouldn’t want to see resources wasted on decoding MP3s. Lossy audio and music production don’t mix.

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