Zipping wav files causes loss in quality?

JeffTD said:
Digital silence takes up 0 space when compressed, that's why. If you have a 45mb track that only has two vocal lines on it, it'll get compressed to like 2mb. This is half the reason why I strip tom bleed as I edit drums; it cuts the upload size down by a solid 100-200mb.
Click to expand...

Yep. I remember when that first happened, I was celebrating.

P.S File compression is lossless, I haven't seen this come up in years lol
 
The reason to zip (or rar or 7-zip) audio files web delivery isn't just size but b/c it adds a level of error checking. FLAC doesn't address this.
I regularly deal with thousands of audio files for games and a few missing bytes on an FTP upload could easily go unnoticed until its too late.
The reason to use ZIP instead of the other ones is that it's ubiquitous so no one will ever ask you to send in another format.
 
The way compressing works is typically there is an algorithm that searches for common repeating patters, deletes the all but one of the repeating patters and sets a flag or information about that pattern. Becuase full PCM audio is hardly repetitive you will notice that compressing wav files into zip based files do no decrease the size very much. The benefit to using a zip file is that you can send multiple wav files in one zip file, its more of a convenience thing. The conversion from wav to zip back to wave is completely lossless, the process doesn't delete information that can't be reconstructed.
 
I tested flac, zip and 7z compressions. Nine 24 bit PCM wav files.

Uncompressed original size: 25.7 MB
Zip with 7-Zip "Ultra" compression setting: 21.4 MB down to ~82%
7z with 7-Zip "Ultra" compression setting: 18.8 MB down to ~73%
Flac with Reaper level 8 compression setting: 14.3 MB down to ~56%

Flac seems to be the clear winner between these three as an audio compression (as it should). You could also compress with flac first then zip with storage setting if you prefer one file. I don't know about other DAWs but Reaper can play flac files like normal wav and it decompresses on the fly so there's really no need for converting to wav.

And yeah, Pedro Teixeira, maybe you should try reading the thread first before you comment. Start with the thread title.
 
FLAC vs zip is a totally invalid comparison though, as it requires conversion of the audio files. The others require right clicking a folder.

JHA, don't be a dick to Pedro. The thread title isn't exactly useful or accurate considering that the compression of wav files via zipping does absolutely nothing to their quality.
 
It's not invalid comparison. Right clicking a folder versus drag and drop a folder and hit "start convert." With Reaper there's no need to think about any of this as it can track straight to flac format.

You can bet I won't be a dick to anyone named "Pedro" as I'm only into women. :wave:

And JeffTD, I think this thread's title is totally valid question, not everyone are computer nerds. It's not a question of only audio compression but whether the compression method is lossy or lossless. You may remember formats like Sony Minidisc which uses a lossy compression.
 
JeffTD said:
FLAC vs zip is a totally invalid comparison though, as it requires conversion of the audio files. The others require right clicking a folder.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the reason I'm not using FLAC. I'm not going to bother the mastering engineer with trying to find how to decode flac files. Rar is way more convenient and since they are stems there should be quite a bit of reduction in size when compressing.

JHA, don't be a dick to Pedro. The thread title isn't exactly useful or accurate considering that the compression of wav files via zipping does absolutely nothing to their quality.
Click to expand...

If he read the thread though he would see that it's completely unanimous by the people here that rar and zip compression is completely lossless.
 
JHA said:
It's not invalid comparison. Right clicking a folder versus drag and drop a folder and hit "start convert." With Reaper there's no need to think about any of this as it can track straight to flac format.

You can bet I won't be a dick to anyone named "Pedro" as I'm only into women. :wave:

And JeffTD, I think this thread's title is totally valid question, not everyone are computer nerds. It's not a question of only audio compression but whether the compression method is lossy or lossless. You may remember formats like Sony Minidisc which uses a lossy compression.
Click to expand...

Jeff nailed it. They are not the same type of compression. One is file compression the other is data compression. Two very different things. Flac is a file format where if you compress a wav to a zip file it is still a wav file, it is just taking up less space inside a zip file. The bonus is that zip files can have multiple wav and other files inside of it so it makes downloading from a server much more convenient because you are only downloading one file.

The OP was asking if you packaged a wav file into a zip, will it ruin the quality of the wav file after you extract it.
 
JHA said:
It's not invalid comparison. Right clicking a folder versus drag and drop a folder and hit "start convert." With Reaper there's no need to think about any of this as it can track straight to flac format.

You can bet I won't be a dick to anyone named "Pedro" as I'm only into women. :wave:

And JeffTD, I think this thread's title is totally valid question, not everyone are computer nerds. It's not a question of only audio compression but whether the compression method is lossy or lossless. You may remember formats like Sony Minidisc which uses a lossy compression.
Click to expand...


Nobody's talking about Reaper. At all. You've derailed the thread with this talk of FLAC; we're talking about whether or not zipping/raring a group of wavs is detrimental to the audio quality, not what format is smallest for highest quality.

I can't tell if you're trying to be funny but aren't great in English or if you really think that the phrase "being a dick to someone" means you want to fuck them. Either way... no.

Exactly - not everybody is a computer nerd. FLAC is effectively a format for computer nerds. Zipping is something that any schmuck who's used a computer after 1998 knows how to do.
 
egan. said:
Since no one seems to have taken much note I'll point out again that it's the CRC that makes zip/rar especially useful for web delivery.
Click to expand...

Bingo - you know what went in is what is coming out if the CRC checks. Ding, Ding, Ding.... we have a winner. :wave:
 
JeffTD said:
Digital silence takes up 0 space when compressed, that's why. If you have a 45mb track that only has two vocal lines on it, it'll get compressed to like 2mb. This is half the reason why I strip tom bleed as I edit drums; it cuts the upload size down by a solid 100-200mb.
Click to expand...

This.

Take a file. Do a bounce with complete digital silence. Do a bounce with dithering throughout. Compress them, and compare their sizes. One with dithering will not compress as well as the one with silence.

ZIP does not affect audio quality. But audio quality does affect your compression ratio.
 
Jeff and Winter are you guys menstruating or something or where does this fanaticism stem from? I'm not going start an argument over this with you. Go look someone else to provoke. :lol:
 
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