[IMC-Audio] audio editors for macs

[kevin]

FLAC
Free Lossless Audio Codec

its an audio codec and format. its like mp3 and ogg-vorbis en the sense 
that the data is compressed, which basically means a flac archive (or an 
mp3 or ogg-vorbis archive) won't take up as much room on your hard drive 
as raw audio data (an mp3 of a song will be much smaller than the .wav 
version of the same piece of music for example). compression usually 
implies loss of quality. though there are a lot of variable which 
determine how much quality is lost, its genenarally safe to say that a 
mp3 version of a piece of music won't sound as "good" as its raw 
counterpart. ogg, many say, will sound "better", but there is still loss 
in the compression process.

Flac is lossless, which means, the compressed data will sound "as good 
as" the original data. since it is compressed, the archives are much 
smaller than say a .wav for example (but a good deal larger that the 
lossy compression formats). since its is lossless and compressed, its is 
probably a good choice for archiving audio. it is also probably possible 
to stream it (use flac for internet radio transmissiones), but since 
flac is a good deal heavier than ogg, you'd need a lot of bandwidth on 
both ends of the transmission.

in terms of why to use these formats, there are both technological and 
philosofical advantages. many say that ogg sounds "better". which seems 
to be true at least at low bandwidths. the philosophy has more to do 
with the general case for why its probably not a good idea to let a 
corporate monopoly  maintain absolute control of software as a means of 
comunication and distrobutoin of information.

"to google" means to go to the search engine at http://google.com and 
perform a search. if you put in flac, you'll get a lot of sites with 
info about flac. etc, etc.

here are some links:

http://flac.sourceforge.net/
http://www.vorbis.com/
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

,kevin

clay pigeon wrote:

>hi,
>
>while i apppreciate the response, i must say, i do know how to google
>so perhaps it would have behoved me to be more specific in my question.
> a lot of acronyms get tossed out around here so please excuse those of
>us who are not so knowledgeble in the software end of it.
>
>i feel strongly again in saying that while we encourage and promote the
>use of free and non-proprietary software, this site is used by people
>not on this list who have varying degrees of knowledge about it.  
>
>i'd like to suggest we need to add a 'news update' type link to a page
>with links to flac, audactity, ogg etc and maybe an article or two
>explaining what's what and moreover, why it matters.   which would keep
>people like myself informed about the tech changes and new things like
>flac and how it's different from ogg which is different from mp3, etc.
>
>i'll volunteer to put a list of the links together and write a v brief 
>intro if others think it's a good idea, if someone would volunteer to
>put it up on the site.  just send me any links that should be included
>and i'll happily sort it.  
>
>what do people think?
>
>I just want to reiterate that i don't believe we can expect others to
>know as much about this stuff and new technology unless we actively
>promote it outside this list.  and just a plea to be gentle with those
>of us still trying to migrate from evil software because when you've
>limited tech skills, it simply takes more time.  
>
>still using ms office until i finish my course,
>
>kc
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>--- lee azzarello <a3ulafia at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flac&btnG=Google+Search
>>
>>
>>On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:46:54 -0800 (PST), clay pigeon
>><claypigeon at riseup.net> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>what's FLAC?
>>>
>>>
>>>--- lee azzarello <a3ulafia at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 02:54:24 -0800 (PST), clay pigeon
>>>><claypigeon at riseup.net> wrote:
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>Works great w mac too!  Highly recomend.  Be sure to also
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>download
>>    
>>
>>>>the
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>Lame Lib so you can make mp3 or wav files.  The directions are
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>really
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>clear on the website, but just in case thought it was worth the
>>>>>mention.
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>And remember, only use mp3 for legacy support. Use non-patented
>>>>codecs
>>>>as much as possible. Audacity supports ogg/vorbis. Eventually
>>>>        
>>>>
>>it'll
>>    
>>
>>>>support FLAC.
>>>>
>>>>-lee
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>>>>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-audio
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>imc-audio mailing list
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>>>      
>>>
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>>    
>>
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