Enrize Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Hi, I've just realized i have pretty huge sample library collected for about 20 years of music production. Most of the samples are 24-bit. Of course it eats a lot of free space on my hard drives. I've heard about lossless audio compression like FLAC, Apple Lossless and even Kontakt uses the same technique for compressed NKI files. The question is...is it worth to convert the whole sample library to M4A (Apple Lossless) to use with Logic Pro X? Also is it safe? I mean if i convert it and delete the original files they will gone forever. Is it really a lossless audio? It may be great for output distribution format , but is it a good idea to use this for production? Any ideas? Thanks! P.S. I've heard Logic's sound content also converted to ALAC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enrize Posted February 17, 2018 Author Share Posted February 17, 2018 No one thought about this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triplets Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 M4A is a lossy format, so it's compressed. Logic doesn't stream compressed files, it converts them to AIFF or WAV. So leave the samples like they are. Hard drives are cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enrize Posted February 17, 2018 Author Share Posted February 17, 2018 M4A is a lossy format, so it's compressed.Logic doesn't stream compressed files, it converts them to AIFF or WAV. So leave the samples like they are. Hard drives are cheap. Thanks for reply. But why its called "Apple Lossless" if its lossy? Yes, hard drives are cheap. But my goal is to keep everything i need just on my Macbook Pro because i travel a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fisherking Posted February 17, 2018 Share Posted February 17, 2018 then convert to mp3, NOT m4a. i've had issues with m4a files before... just a thought. i use the free XLD app: https://sourceforge.net/projects/xld/ you can set it to the format you want (i use 320kbps, so highest quality for an mp3), and convert an entire folder in one step. then delete (or archive, on another drive) the original files, and you have a folder of sounds that's a fraction of the original size (and not quite the same audio quality either, actually)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enrize Posted February 17, 2018 Author Share Posted February 17, 2018 Logic doesn't stream compressed files, it converts them to AIFF or WAV. Ahh, that makes sense! Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ulit Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 then convert to mp3, NOT m4a... I would avoid any lossy compression; it removes spectral information that you will miss if your samples are processed further with EQ, transposing, pitch-shifting, etc. Uli Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accentor Posted June 9, 2020 Share Posted June 9, 2020 I found my way to this thread via Google because I had the same question. The responses here are incorrect—ALAC is indeed a lossless codec, like FLAC. You will not be losing any quality by using this format. There may, however, be other unintended consequences, like incompatibility with samplers and extra time needed for decoding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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