When I acquire a sample pack from a publisher, say, Loopmasters, and it holds several formats such as WAV, ACID, REX, REX2, AIF(F), Kontakt, etc., what is the best format to work with? I work on Windows and usually use Ableton, Kontakt, Maschine, now trying out Bitwig.

When I see both WAV and REX in the same product can I safely delete the REX (it's always smaller) and use the WAV files without loss of quality or loss of sample variety? Is there ever a situation where I would want to keep more than one format?

Thanks.

 

REX Format u can use it with Recycle Or Reason

I Prefer WAV For the HQ

PS :

You can always burn the ACID & AIF & REX files ON DVD AND You May need THE FILES Later
Is Good To have Back up & Only if u use Acid or Reason or recycle
But if u don't use this 3 software
I Believe you will need Only The "WAV FILES"

 

Yes I would agree. Why Bitwig? Can I help you change your mind on Daw preferences?

 

MY Main Daw Is Avid Protools & Logic Pro X (Only When I'M In My Studio)
But For Now I Use FL Studio Because Now I'M On {Vacation/Work} In "Africa" , I'M Producing New Film Documentary

PS : Bitwig I Didn't Give It A Try Because I Believe They Still In Beta Mode , when they release Final Version 'I Will use it'

 

Wav and Acid will refer to the same thing, you won't get both in a pack. Acid just means a Wav file that has tempo information stored inside it, useful for loops.

Rex and Rex2 again, same thing, you won't get both at once. These are pre-sliced versions of the Wav files. People seem to prefer timestretching loops to get them in the right tempo rather than slicing nowdays (even though it ruins the transients on drums), and since you can very quickly slice up loops in most programs now, Rex isn't as important as it was back in the day. Still useful for Reason's Dr. Rex player I suppose.

Aiff is like the Mac version of Wav. May as well delete them.

Kontakt won't be samples in itself, it will be files that Kontakt can use to arrange the Wav files on the keyboard and so forth. The Kontakt files go together with the Wavs.

Yes you can delete the Rex if you don't want them. There's nothing in them you'd miss. The Rexes were made from the Wav in the first place. Personally I delete the Aiff's but keep Wav and Rex, more out of habit since I never actually use the Rex. Kontakt isn't a sample format so I wouldn't bring that into it.

 

That sounds very cool

 

First of all, *any* of the three may or may not contain useful slice position information. Not all sample lib vendors take the time to do proper slicing, and this will affect all formats.
Acid Wav, Apple Loops or Recycle REX/REX2 - they all contain hit points that will allow a DAW or loop VST(i) to slice the audio file correctly and facilitate time stretching or time compression. Depending on the sample, this won't always work well, especially at higher time stretching or compression factors.
And slice information usually has no benefit if the sample is not rhythmical or just a single-shot sample.

Second, there is no quality difference as RX2 uses lossless compression and supports files of any sample rate, 8/16/24 bit and up to 5 minutes length (which should not be a limiting factor for sample libs)

For me, REX2 is the most "universal" format because I can convert it to any other format, which is difficult the other way round.
Try to convert an Apple Loop to Acid WAV or vice versa, and you know what I mean.

If you really need to, you could either later convert to WAV/AIFF from Recycle Mac/Win, or use the Apple Loops utility to convert from REX to AIFF, or any audio program that supports the "REX Shared Library" - as of today, most DAWs do.
Recycle can even export all slices as separate audio files, btw., or fine-tune and export a loop to WAV/AIFF with different bpm.

If a library has REX2 files, I'd only keep these, but be sure to check if there are single-shot samples that are only included as WAV or AIFF files!
If a library has, let's say, 820 WAV and 820 AIFF but only 590 REX files, you know why.

So yes, this is a situation where you'd want to keep loops as REX and single-shots as WAV or AIFF.

 

i am on logic and apple loops are a pain in my ass. The complete sample management of logic is a fucking pain in my ass. Logic's loop browser is ten times slower than the greek tortoise in my garden while she is in dormacy. I use Fxpansion Geist along with logic. Geist is able to deal even with apple loops but be sure: If i ever have a multi-format library, i firstly delete all apple loops. If you're on Live, you won't have problems with rex nor with acidiced or not acidiced wav files. Please do me a favour: Do not use apple loops. They must be extirpated, exterminated. So and now i'll go to bed and hit my wife. I have to work off

 

Agree, apple loops are completely useless for me. I'm faster with the finder once you organize everything nicely.

 

Yeah, thanks, Audio Finder is perfect for that

 

Too much hate here for Apple Loops!

Apple Loops are great when using it within Logic. I'm not sure why it's slow for you.

Apple Loops contain additional data compared to a normal .wav file and allow you to Transpose the audio as if it's already in 'Flex Time' (Transpose in the Inspector). They will also automatically adjust to the tempo of the song you're working in, even adjust to the scale you're working in!