Regarding the format of sound previews, we use low quality mp3 and ogg files (some browsers will prefer one or the other), but also we generate slightly higher quality versions which are not used directly in the website but might be used in some cases through the API (so 3rd party apps that use our API). However, we're not having huge problems with disk space or bandwidth so don't feel too bad about uploading large files Also the only impact beyond disk space is the bandwidth needed to download the sound. We don't have any strong preference about where should be the threshold. I think the strategy some of you mentioned to upload short files uncompressed and longer files compressed is a valid one. Your concerns about disk space are also valid, and specially for long files. Your concerns about end users having trouble with uncommon formats is valid. We are not going to change that as this is very much in line with the CC philosophy. This means we really only need concern ourselves with disk space, and only then if we are uploading longform recordings.Īs you will know, when your sounds are downloaded their are downloaded in their exact original format/quality (except for the filename, that gets changed). So, the stream of bandwidth that they send might not vary much between audio formats. They probably use some form of compression to make sounds streamable, like any other site. It should also be mentioned that Freesound is probably not streaming 24-bit wav to you when you play a 24-bit wav file. If you want things to Just Work for any user and use case, you will use one of them. The reality is that wav and mp3 are the most accessible and universally compatible formats. Even if we send them a good converter and it's got 1000 reviews saying it's free and easy to use, they won't do it. Many people don't install anything on their PC manually if they can help it. When people encounter this type of frustration, they will just go back to what works.Īsking people to download codecs or software to support our sounds feels like too much. It's not a pain to convert one file, but if your project needs 12 of them to create a soundscape, or the conversion site puts you in a queue, that could mean half an hour until you get to start carrying out your idea. I've never seen hardware modular samplers able to load anything but wav. I only ever owned 1 media player that supported flac. Or you can cheat like me and use jb Ferox to constrain the recording to the frequency range of a tape My setting tops out around 14Khz and works for almost everything. If you do this, you will have a very hard time A/B testing flac against mp3 and you will only lose the "ear tickling" frequencies - components of the sound which do nothing for the timbre or harmonic structure and which we lose the ability to hear with age anyway. Better to psychoacoustically suggest those frequencies than have them be actually present, if you can. It is easier to lowpass things, record things dark, or high-shelf a dark recording than it is to tame those >10Khz frequencies. It takes more energy to create the same amplitude at higher frequencies, which introduces noise. Higher frequencies are extremely directional and will always be noisy and out of phase even if you have in-ear monitors. MP3 compression does barely anything to frequencies between 50Hz and 10Khz. I try to use 320K MP3 for anything over roughly 2 minutes long. Just asking what I should do at a personal level and what generally prefers, because at the end of the day it's at their cost. Here I'm not asking Freesound to impose FLAC by converting all audio to it. But 3s samples are totally fine in wav"? Id then ask where the lines should be, like for 5min recordings? x') Is there a middle ground of "1h recordings should probably be in flac or even lossy. How does position themselves regarding the convenience of WAV vs the storage benefits of FLAC? But I can imagine it being a significant cost at a audio library website scale. Then hard drives are cheaper than ever, at a personal level storing tons of audio files in WAV instead of FLAC is a negligible cost. Is that 50-70% file size reduction actually impactful to the sustainability of the service? But one needs to take the effort of converting and know how to do it in the first place. It's relatively easy to convert it back to wav using Audacity or Media Human Audio Converter. (Which I'm surprised that not every software supports it these days) Problem is there is a downside, not everyone seems to be able to use it. So far I upload in FLAC, because lossless audio at a smaller file size seems just beneficial without any downsides. It's been 4years now, Id expect better software compatibility with FLAC now.īut I'm asking more or less the same thing.
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