+1 for 7-zip http://www.7-zip.org/

Jeff Evans
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.

I think you're mixing up your compression schemes here a bit, Jeff. 
 
If you're talking AUDIO compression (ie: MP3, etc.) then absolutely - uncompressed is the best and retains the original audio information.
 
With an archiving program, like ones that do ZIP compression, that's DATA compression. Basically, if that can't spit out an exact 1:1 image of what you put into it, regardless of its compression factor, it's failed. Imagine if you put in a program file, or even a WAV file with embedded header info and it came out different in the end; it'd be a disaster. It really makes no difference at all what compression level you use for the data in the end (and by what people have said, standard ZIP doesn't make much of a difference, regardless).
 
Cheers for the heads up, re: ZIPX guys. I've been a RAR user for years now and haven't used WinZip since... well, a damn long time ago now, so I entirely missed this new format. Definitely gonna look into it!
 
 

Danny Danzi

krizrox


I think I know the answer to this question but I wanted to check with the experts to see if there were any good answers. Guess I'm not very bright when it comes to distributing large files across the internet. ZIP doesn't seem to really compress the size of a WAV file at all. I think I knew this from a long time ago. But I thought I'd try again and sure enough - it didn't seem to do much of anything. But I'm using the stock ZIP routine in Windoze XP so maybe there is a better version of it out there? RAR? Or what is another alternative that doesn't require a degree in brain surgery and is easy for noobs to understand? thanks!

Actually Larry, WinZip IS the correct answer believe it or not. The problem is, the version you may be running. Thanks to Bapu, when I joined the Coffee House Band, it was mandatory that I had at least Winzip 14 at the time. The reason being, it supports zipx compression which is truly off the hook for wave files. It doesn't hold any of the blank space in a wave as counting for the actual size. It just compresses the audio part and man let me tell you, it's absolute insanity as to how it does it.
 
I can turn a 54mb wave into a 27mb wave. The bigger the file, the more it makes a difference.
 
The next solution you may want to consider, is exporting your wave data out as a broadcast wave and then zipping it up using Winzip zipx. The broadcast wave will get rid of any dead space in the beginning of the file and will just import it straight into your client other party's DAW at the exact time it's supposed to be. The only issue you may have is if this is pro tools. My pro tools system totally jacks up broadcast waves. When I create one and then bring it into Sonar, it's usually oh....an hour off. Literally! It will place the wave file an hour away in the time marker in the song. It happens everytime.
 
But when I export a BW from Sonar, it has lined itself up perfectly in other people's versions of Sonar, Adobe Audition 2 and 3, Cubase, Nuendo, Reaper and Audacity. So it's worth a try as it will just give them the wave in the right spot minus the extra space in the wave file.
 
But seriously, try the newest version of WinZip that supports zipx...it's amazing for everything, especially wave files and audio of any kind. Best of luck.
 
-Danny

Didn't know this. So, here's a copy of Bit's test, using the high res WAV file of Fizzy Pickle's "Hungry Like The Wolf" (yes, I was kindly provided a WAV; thanks again!):
 
Original file: 65,095,696 bytes
 
.ZIP file: 63,003,125 bytes
 
.ZIPX file: 48,987,700 bytes
 
I am IMPRESSED! Thanks for the detailed heads-up!

Truth disclaimer - none follows:
 
I compressed an entire boxed set of Kanye Pest's music, and it compressed the whole thing into one single giant BITE. :)
 
OK - truth disclaimer disclaimer - truth potential restored from this point forward (potentially for this thread only)
 
I couldn't resist the above - sorry.
 
I end up using Dropbox or a hosted web site I have to share project folders and such with folks when we are collaborating on stuff from different parts of the world.  Mostly, we transfer things on the way out the door to run errands, or when just about to go to sleep, etc.
 
Bob Bone
 

Generic compression formats, like 7z, rar, and zip, contains file of any kind, so they must rely on lossless compression to guarantee any input bit is extracted exactly the same with no loss of information. Lossless compression uses statistical models to map the input to a smaller output eliminating redundancy in the data.In this way the output carry exactly all the information featured by the input in less bytes, and can be expanded when needed to a 1:1 copy of the original data, which is a fundamental property for storing some types of data – i.e. a software, a database. For this reason lossless compression algorithms are used for archive file formats used in general purpose archive manager utilities, like , RAR, and ZIP, where an exact and reversible image of the original data must be saved.
 

 
Antonio

I use 7zip. I divide large files automatically in 7zip. This does confuse newbies once but it works for me. I move files using azure cloud blob storage. I protect with 7zip passwords.

I'm with Bob Bone on this one - I upload anything that can't be sent via email to Dropbox.

Generally speaking most modern compression algorithms give roughly the same compression, and with regard to the number of cores that you can use at once, it is up to you to decide how many you want to use. "zip" in this context is a file format that permits several different compression methods. They include deflate, deflate64, bzip2, lzma, wavpack, and ppmd. In practice however, you will almost always see deflate used exclusively in zip files, for compatibility. DEFLATE is used to compress GZIP files. This algorithm is implemented efficiently in . We can turn the "fast bytes" and "number passes" knobs to optimize the algorithm. This influences DEFLATE compression in 7-Zip.