Is there any way for this to be implemented in the next update? Having the S2400 to be able to read mp3 files would be great due to space on SD cards vs. WAV files
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This makes no sense. If you like the sound of mp3 lossy compression, just convert the files to WAV and get a bigger SD card.
The samples will be streamed from the SD card during playback. So the files must be uncompressed with a specific sample rate and bit depth.
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I converted files to preview, I just think machines that are able to read various audio formats would be a quality of life update for sure.
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A machine which would allow that, would also promote bad production habits for unexperienced users. Mp3 compression may be ok as a final delivery format, but should be avoided as a source for production. Do you really want to apply lossy compression on top of another lossy compression to your audio?
Streaming from the SD card is Isla’s way to handle large source files. If it was compressed material, it had to be decompressed in memory before adding all the deconstructive modulations the machine can do. As @sugarfree mentioned: “get a bigger SD card”.
I don’t think I’d use it, but I think supporting MP3 file-reading is a fine idea for the sake of convenience. A machine that can read more file types is more useful.
Saying using mp3 files “promotes bad user habits” and asking “why would you want lossy compression?” is kind of silly on a forum for the S2400, a machine that purposefully has a specific mode to sample as lossy compression in the style of a machine from the 1980s. Let people produce how they want to produce, even if it doesn’t meet your particular standards.
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This is inaccurate. S2400 sampling at 26KHz/12-bits is not compression, and drum machines in the 80s didn’t use mp3 encoding.
Ha yeah I should have put quotes around “lossy compression” as I was jokingly referencing what your original comment had said.
I’ll correct it to better reflect the process:
“…a machine that purposefully has a specific mode to sample as lossy conversion in the style of a machine from the 1980s.”
There we go. Maybe that change will allow you to see the main point of what I wrote.
No, I understood your point in your original post. I think where we differ is in understanding how digital audio works. A lo-fi digital converter is not lossy. It’s just designed to sample a narrower frequency range. So e.g. 28kHz sample rate can only convert frequencies up to 14kHz, while 48kHz can work up to 24kHz. There’s nothing lossy about the process, and contrary to a popular myth, digital audio doesn’t have “steps” when it comes out of a DA converter. A basic analog sine wave within the supported frequency range is reproduced as the same sine wave on the other end of the ADDA chain. OTOH, in lossy compression, the same sine wave can be… lost, hence the term “lossy”. I would argue, this is a meaningful and audible difference.
I’m using standard industry terminology. If a full-range signal is fed into a digital converter on a sampler, it’s known as a conversion, and if the converter is from an era like the SP1200 or an S950, its not able to replicate what would have been considered “full range audio” at that moment, therefore, it would be a lesser-quality and hence “lossy.”
no, “lossy” doesn’t mean lesser quality. You can have a high (or low) quality lossy compression. Any time you encode an mp3, you also set a desired sample and bit rate, this is your high or low quality, it has nothing to do with lossy or lossless compression.
@sugarfree is right, lossy media relates to the discarding (or loss) of original information in a piece of media during a compression operation. With MP3’s frequency information gets discarded with respect to the original source audio recording. The key here is that there is loss relative to a source. Just because a sampler may sample at a lower resolution doesn’t mean it’s lossy, it’s simply lo-fi. Now in the case of the S2400’s resampling feature you could consider that a lossy conversion because you’re discarding frequency and amplitude info relative to the source material.
I don’t have a strong opinion about the use of MP3s, but I personally think there are more important and fundamental things that should be worked on in the S2400. Despite the S2400 having a modern architecture it still has limited computing resources. Perhaps the upcoming DSP card could open up the possibility of doing interesting things with compressed formats like MP3s.