I just used FLAC to convert a 32.8MB .wav file to a 19.1MB flac file.


best regards,
mike

I've used Win RAR for a few years now. Haven't tried some of the others, but it's better than WinZip. I just compressed a 43meg file down to 23megs the other day with it. Check your compression settings before you use any file compression tool. The default setting probably won't give you the best results.

Bonzos Ghost


I've used Win RAR for a few years now. Haven't tried some of the others, but it's better than WinZip. I just compressed a 43meg file down to 23megs the other day with it. Check your compression settings before you use any file compression tool. The default setting probably won't give you the best results.

+1 
A lot of low and mid tier sample library producers use WinRAR for their WAV files and often will zip a file that has already been RAR'd for maximum compression. Nice thing is freebies like 7-Zip will unzip both Winrar'd and zipped formats.

thx guys - I'll look at FLAC and WinRAR again. The solution might be in there somewhere. I am basically interested in the easiest solution on the receiving end. I tend to deal with clients fairly often who aren't very tech savvy (meaning not at all) so whatever solution I choose should be the easiest for the receiver to understand and implement. To date, this hasn't been a huge issue but it comes up often enough that it's worth asking about. What I'm mostly interested in are final stereo mixes (an album's worth of WAV files is still pretty hefty). Clients often want the WAV files so they can make their own CD dups. Usually I just give them a disc at the end of the session but sometimes they are no longer in town so that's why I ask. I had a guy who had moved to the Dominican Republic just recently and that posed a little problem because of his internet access. Some of these remote places use wireless internet with some kind of cell phone SIM card. They are slow, intermittent and expensive. I'm not necessarily interested in electronic distribution of entire multi-track projects although that has come up in the past too. We usually just snail mail DVD-R discs back and forth. It hasn't been much of a problem since the schedules permit it and there's no compression issues to deal with.

btw - are you guys keeping tabs on the downfall of CD-R and DVD-R technology. Seems like the writing is on the wall for all that. What's on the horizon for media? Nothing at all? USB drives? Download cards?

I keep hearing about the impending death of CDs and DVDs, but if that really happens it will be the first time in history that a technology has been abandoned despite having no superior replacement.

CD's have been dying a steady death for a while now. But I would have thought the promise of Blu-Ray would have kept media alive considering the HD TV thing. With all the rental places going belly up, and Netflix not really wanting to ship DVD's anymore, and the cost of postage going up, the internet seems like the perfect solution to everything. Interesting times we live in if you're an artist. This new digital frontier.

Broadband communications and high capacity memory is negating the need for sending content via hard media like CDs or DVDs.  Look at iTunes/iCloud where I buy some music and it automatically downloads to all my devices.

Interesting comment from T-Bone Burnett in this interview in American Songwriter: http://www.americansongwr...rnett-the-taste-maker/

(I don't want to infringe on their copyrights by copying the article here, so read under the question "Does roots music speak to a longing for something more authentic?")

Kev999

krizrox

ZIP doesn't seem to really compress the size of a WAV file at all...what is another alternative...

is very efficient for storing 24-bit audio.  Unfortunately most audio software does not include APE as an option for importing or exporting, so you need a separate converter.  I use for converting between WAV and APE.

How much compression you achieve will depend not only the on the archive type you create, but on the application you use to compress it and the settings you use.  If you want to compress something to use as little space as possible, you should definitely use 7z. You can even crank up the compression settings to save even more space, although it will take longer to compress and decompress. Most compression tools have settings to allow you to achieve a higher compression rate at a compromise of slower compression/decompression times and more RAM usage. More about....7zip
 

 
Manly

When you add files to the Zip archive (eg Zip It Free) choose Store as the method. Then it won't compress the file at all.  It will be its full size after being zipped and sound the best.  That is what I use to send a high quality file to someone.  For a compressed version then other compression approaches can be used.