Hello.
A few days ago I've run out of space on the hard drive I put my libraries on.
Since most of them are in .WAV format, which is quite heavy, I was wondering what format I could convert these to, so I could free up space with minimal quality loss. OGG and FLAC come to mind, but I'm not sure which is better for this situation.
Also thinking about doing the same to some Kontakt libraries but I'm afraid I might break something.

Help??
Thanks.

 

I would say FLAC but I'm honestly not familiar with OGG, at least not in this context so looking forward to what people say.

 

The only option without losing quality is FLAC. Well, there are others but it's the most common. That means Flac files are kind of audio oriented zip or rar files.

OGG files can contain Vorbis or Opus compression formats, both lossy. Like MP3. AAC, m4a, and so on.

As for Kontakt, unless the llibrary is very old, the wav files are already compressed in ncw files. You can think of ncw files as Kontakt's flac-like own format. Lossless compression, without quality loss.

Nkx files just contain lots of ncw ones for convenience.

 

Last edited: Feb 24, 2020

Buy a new hdd

 

I've never thought of OGG as any kind of audiophile format but things change, codecs improve... FLAC has a proven track record though.

 

Seriously. That. 4Tb costs less than $100 now. You can compress your music but it won't buy you that much space in the long haul. Buy a new drive.

 

That's still like converting all your samples to MP3 at 320kbps.

 

You mean OGG,right? Yes, exactly. I wouldn't do it.

 

You don't convert samples to shrik them in size, you just buy an appropriately sized storage medium!

REASONs: Format Compatibility with your DAW and Sound quality. People who suggest to convert high quality waves to mp3 are probably the same people who only listen to music on youtube and make beats in ripped versions of FL Studio. ;)

In other words: everything else than buying a suitable storage medium is a cheepsakte move. Are you a cheepsake, @ghostwriter?

 

There's really no good reason to not use .FLAC, other than the fact that it can be a pain to work with in some DAWs, and there may be a small chance of some janky encoding/decoding when bouncing to a .WAV 2-track. Nothing you'll really be able to hear though. Or you could just buy more storage like these other guys are saying. 1a & 1b.

 

OK like all write above.
OGG and FLAC doesn't help much to got that much space, besides the lost of quality .

Only option beside buying an HDD/SSD

Cloud and delete.

Cloud (all Samples you'll like but think you'll use few (google drive 15 GB for free ))

sorting and delete (All samples you'll never use.)
and OverDisk or some similar App for sorting your files (maybe the Problem are some old, hidden Windows/Mac files or something similar ) and Antitwin for files you´ll got double.

And maybe if your drive is so full it's some form of G.A.S. which is a different problem.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 25, 2020

The OP is asking because he doesn't know. He didn't even mention MP3 and I'm pretty sure everybody can tell he's concerned about not losing quality.
Why are you ranting about MP3 and cheepsakes?

BTW, Kontakt converts samples to shrink them in size. Toontrack too.

 

FLAC for lossless and OPUS for lossy

 

I was misreading some of the comments. But I stand by my statement: DON'T CONVERT SAMPLES – GET MORE STORAGE!

BTW, as far as I know, Kontakt compresses samples to shrink the library and decompresses them on load which is a totally different process than conversion!

 

Name one DAW which supports FLAC natively. From a perspective of a production workflow it makes no sense using FLAC files to store samples. Every time you want to use them you have to re-convert them. Total creativity killer.

 

Well, of course, more storage never hurts. I didn't disagree on that.

I'm not sure if I get you here.
Kontakt loads them compressed to RAM and then decompresses/play them on-the-fly. Hats off to Native Instruments developers for that.
Toontrack VSTis (EzKeys and Drummers) load them uncompressed, like you said decompress them while loading.
Anyways, they both work great. The goal is to reduce space on the disk which is what the OP asked.

You're right in the sense of DAW productivity. Only when you load them directly on the DAW withouit using plugin samplers. Compatibility aside, if you aren't storing a copy of everything in the project folder it isn't productive.

 

Last edited: Feb 25, 2020

Well, you were talking about Kontakt and Toontrack converting samples to shrink the library. And I said, no, it's not a conversion, it's compression. So you either picked the wrong term 1st time or you don't know the difference. One is like zip/rar, the other is actually degrading the sound quality of the samples.

 

That's not true.
The terms you wanna use instead of those are lossless (flac, rar, zip) or lossy (mp3, aac) compression.
Conversion is a much wider concept. wav to aif is also a conversion but there's no compression involved.

 

Last edited: Feb 25, 2020

HERE is WHAT YOU SAID: "BTW, Kontakt converts samples to shrink them in size. Toontrack too."

From what you say now, I conclude that you meant lossless compression without changing the content if the files. Right?

But Conversion to shrink file sizes to me always means: a) re-encoding the audio stream of a file thereby b) degrading the audio quality and c) change of file format/container. AND THAT IS NOT WHAT KONTAKT DOES, so it's just a simple lossless file compression, not a conversion.

In other words: It would have been on you to chose the correct wording, not me.

Thank you. Have a nice day. Stop bothering me.

 

I don't know why are you trying so hard to prove I'm mistaken in something. You are behaving like a child.
But it takes two persons to reason in a debate, so I'll gladly leave at it.