A SHORT GUIDE TO FLAC

[Steve]

FLAC is a lossless compression format, which means when you convert a wav file to FLAC, no audio information is lost. This makes it a perfect format for high quality CD ripping, archiving music projects and sending files over the web. Because it's lossless, you won't achieve the same compression ratio as you would with mp3 for example, but you'll reduce file sizes by around 50%.

 

FLAC software is available free for several operating sytems here: -

 

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

 

As an XP user, I use FLAC Frontend. It's simple to use - just drag wav files into the window and hit the Encode button. To convert FLAC back to wav, use the Decode button. The slider for the compression ratio doesn't affect the quality, but it does affect the file size and time it takes to convert, 1 being the fastest/largest file size and 8 being the slowest/smallest file size (i.e. use 8).

 

You can play FLAC files on your PC with the following programs: -

 

foobar2000

Winamp with THIS plug-in

 

As far as I know, there's currently no plug-in to make iTunes play FLAC files.

 

I guess the best use of FLAC for people on here is if you're making a collab track and you want to send wav files back and forth. This way you can shrink the files to half their size before you send them without losing any quality. Needless to say, FLAC is only useful if you're starting out with files from a lossless source. There's no point at all transcoding an mp3 to FLAC for example.

[monophonic]

mac users: just install this Quicktime plugin to use FLAC files with iTunes.