"Introduction to Lossless Music" Add a song. Enjoy＇＇＇

Lossless audio format is a current hot topic, but many people are not very clear about lossless format. In fact, the main difference lies in understanding the music file format played in MP3. Currently, the music file playback formats are divided into two types: lossy compression and lossless compression. Music files using different formats have great differences in sound quality performance.

Lossless Music

Concept

When collecting natural sounds, the sampling scheme has determined the highest quality the sound can achieve: sampling rate, number of sound bits, and channels. If there is data loss during storage, dissemination, and transcoding, the sound content is usually far different from the original content, and listeners who pursue high quality will not like such content. Twenty years ago, when computer memory was limited to <1M and hard disks were <500M, it was meaningless to talk about music digitization and high-quality music. No one wants to hear sounds that are worse than the tape being twisted by a tape recorder. Hardware technology and software technology do not meet the requirements. When the memory is larger than the hard disk capacity of the past, we can pursue this. Software algorithms have also been implemented for a long time. So, we can pursue higher quality sound.

Lossless audio means that under the limitations of existing computing power and storage capacity, from the sampling of audio content to storage, editing, playback and other processes, high-level mathematics, lossless editing, storage, and high-restoration playback are used. This is the so-called "lossless music." This is the highest audio quality requirement currently achievable. This consists of three parts. The sound source must have a high sampling rate, no less than the number of channels of the playback device, and more than 16 bits. The transmission/storage/editing must be lossless, and the playback must use a playback device with high restoration capabilities. However, due to data loss during audio digitization, in fact it can never be truly lossless.

Lossless audio

The commonly seen MP3, WMA, and OGG are called lossy compression. As the name suggests, lossy compression reduces the audio sampling frequency and bit rate, and the output audio file will be smaller than the original file. Another type of audio compression is called lossless compression, which can compress the size of the audio file to a smaller size while preserving 100% of all the data of the original file. After restoring the compressed audio file, it can achieve the same size and the same bit rate as the source file. Lossless compression formats include APE, FLAC, WAV, WavPack, LPAC, WMALossless, AppleLossless, TTA, Tak, TAC, La, OptimFROG, Shorten, and common and mainstream lossless compression formats currently include APE, FLAC, TTA, TAK, and WAV.

APE

APE is one of the popular digital music file formats. APE is a lossless compression audio technology, which means that after you compress the audio data file read from the audio CD into APE format, you can also restore the APE format file, and the restored audio file will be exactly the same as before compression without any loss. The file size of APE is about half that of CD, but with the popularity of broadband, the APE format has become popular among many music lovers. Especially for friends who want to transfer audio CDs through the network, APE can help them save a lot of resources.
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APE format analysis
APE is a lossless compression format provided by Monkey's Audio. Monkey'sAudio provides Winamp plug-in support, so this means that the compressed file is no longer a simple compression format, but an audio file format that can be played like MP3. The compression ratio of this format is much lower than other formats, but it can be truly lossless, so it has won the favor of many enthusiast users. Among the many existing lossless compression schemes, APE is a format with outstanding performance, satisfactory compression ratio and fast compression speed.
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APE Music
WAV is the standard for digital music file format. The capacity of WAV format is too large. Generally, we compress it into MP3 or WMA format. WAV compression into MP3 and WMA formats is lossy data compression. If the compressed data is restored back, the data is actually different. After restoring lossless compression formats such as APE and FLAC formats, the resulting WAV file can be completely consistent with the source file before compression.Therefore, APE can compress and restore high-pitched texture without loss. Of course, only tracks in music CDs and uncompressed WAV files can be converted to APE format, and MP3 files cannot be converted to APE format. In fact, the compression rate of APE is not high, but the compressed capacity is not much smaller. A 34MB WAV file, after being compressed into APE format, is still about 17MB. For an entire CD, the capacity saved by compression is considerable.
The essence of APE is actually a lossless compression audio format. Huge WAV audio files can be compressed into APE through Monkey'sAudio software. Many times it is used for network audio file transmission, because the compressed APE file size is more than half smaller than the WAV source file, which can save the time spent on transmission. More importantly, the WAV file obtained after decompression and restoration through Monkey'sAudio can be completely consistent with the source file before compression. Therefore, APE is known as the "lossless audio compression format", and Monkey'sAudio is known as the "lossless audio compression software". Unlike using professional data compression software such as WinZip or WinRAR to compress audio files, the compressed APE audio files can be played directly. Monkey'sAudio will install an "in_APE.dll" plug-in into Winamp, so that Winamp also has the ability to play APE files. Similarly, foobar2000 and Qianqianjingting can also support APE playback.
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APE format related instructions
1. Conversion
APE conversion can be performed through foobar2000, Monkey's Audio, Qianqianjingting. Among them, foobar2000 can first convert APE to WAV and then to MP3, while Qianqianjingting can convert directly.
Steps to convert APE to MP3 using Monkey\'s Audio:
1. Select "De compress", add the APE file to be decompressed in the list, and then click "PROCESS FILE" to convert APE to WAV file. The WAV file is stored in the "OUTPUT" directory set in "Options".
2. Install an MP3 encoder, such as LAME encoder, and copy the encoder file directly to the EXTERNAL directory under Monkey\'s Audio.
3. Select Compress, and then select LAME in the Compression level option. This will select the compressed WAVE file to be compressed into MP3 through the LAME encoder.
2. Burn
APE directly use a burner to burn CD. Download a plug-in named nxMyAPE.dll and directly copy the file to the shared
audioplugins directory of the burning software Nero. Nero will be able to recognize the APE file and burn APE directly to CD.
3. Identification
auCDtect software can detect whether the APE file you are using is a pseudo APE file converted from a lossy compressed audio file.
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APE playback and format
APE audio format is being loved by more and more friends for its high-quality lossless sound quality. We can often see the download of APE audio files in the BT release area. However, most of the APE files downloaded from the Internet use the method of pressing the entire CD. How can I select any song to play and separate the singles to save them?
Song selection and play
Play the APE file pressed by the entire CD. If you want to select any song, you need the support of CUE file. What is recorded in this file is the starting time of each audio track on this disc and other information. If the player you are using is Foobar2000, you can directly import the CUE file. As long as the information in the CUE file is correct, you can select songs to play.
If you use Winamp to play APE files, you can install a plug-in called Mp3cue to make Winamp support CUE files. After decompressing the downloaded compressed package, run Setup.exe in it, select the Winamp installation path, and click [Next] to complete the installation. Re-run Winamp, and an additional "Mp3cue" window will appear (if the [Alt N] key is not pressed). When playing APE files, you can directly double-click the list in the "Mp3cue" window to select any song.
Single Restore
If it is an APE pressed from the entire CD and there is a corresponding CUE file, we can use the MakeAPL tool that comes with Monkey'sAudio to convert the CUE into several APL files, and then use Monkey'sAudio to restore the single to WAV or convert it to other formats. The specific operation method is as follows:
Click [Start] → [Programs] → [Monkey's Audio]→[MakeAPL], the MakeAPL operation window pops up, click the [BuildLink File(s)] button, select the CUE file corresponding to the APE file, and click "Open". At this time, we can find the generated APL file in the directory where the CUE file is located.
Open Monkey's Audio, select “De compress” in the “Mode” menu, click the [Add Files] button in the toolbar, select the APL file to be restored and open it, and finally click the [Decompress] button, and the software will automatically start decompression.
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APE Question Collection
1. How to play APE format audio files?
A: Monkey＇＇s Audio installation package comes with Ape plugin for Winamp. After installation, you can use Winamp to play ape.
B: Use foobar2000, format.
C: Using Kugou Music version 2010 and above, you can play ape format.
D: Feile Airplay can be used to play directly without plug-ins.
E: Qianqianjingting playback software can be used to play directly without plug-ins.
F: You can play it directly with Kuwo music player software.
2. For APEImage, can I select any song during playback?
Yes, but you need a suitable CUE file. Generally, if the entire disc is compressed into an APE file, there will be a corresponding cue file attached, which records information such as the starting time of each audio track on the disc.
You can open this cue file with text editing software. The content is similar to the following,
PERformER "Matthew Lien"
TITLE "Bleeding Wolves"
FILE "CDImage.ape" WAVE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ here is the corresponding one ape file name, the default is the same directory,
You can add the path, such as "c:\music\cdimage.ape"
Can't make a mistake, otherwise it will not play normally
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "Flying Squirrel Creek"
PERformER "Matthew Lien"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
......
A: foobar can be imported directly cue file, as long as the information in the cue is correct, you can select a song and play it.
B: For winamp, there is a tool makeapl in Monkey's Audio, the software that makes APE (the installer creates a shortcut for it in the start menu), which can convert the cue file into several corresponding apl files, each apl corresponding to one audio track, and winamp supports apl, so everything is ok.
C. Install a winamp plug-in called mp3cue to enable winamp to support cue files.
To use this plug-in normally, you should add Image files to the winamp playlist, instead of adding cue files like foobar. As long as there is a cue file with the same name in the directory, the plug-in will recognize it, and the third line of the cue:
FILE "xxxxxx" WAVE
As long as the main file name is the same as the Image file, mp3cue ignores the extension.
3.How to convert APE to mp3?
In fact, Monkey＇＇s Audio supports external codec, which can directly complete the conversion of ape->mp3. Of course, appropriate settings must be made
1. Download lame and copy to the external directory under the monkey installation directory
2. Run monkey＇audio and select convert in the mode menu
3. In Select external->lame->configure from the second button on the toolbar, and fill in the parameters required to compress mp3 here
--alt-preset extreme
(bitrates 220-270 kbit/s -- usually averages around 256kbps)
or
--alt-preset standard
(bitrates 180-220 kbit/s -- usually averages around 192 kbps)
As a reminder, the compression speed of the first parameter is much slower, and it is quite time-consuming if the machine is poor.
4. Select external->lame->lame in the second button of the toolbar. At this time, you can select the ape file that needs to be converted, and then click the first button convert to achieve ape->mp3.
In fact, you can directly use the Kugou Music player to convert APE to MP3. Kugou can directly search and download your favorite lossless music singles. After the download is completed, right-click the single name and a menu will pop up. The third to last item is "Convert Format", and you can directly convert the music in APE format to MP3.
4. Can the ape file with errors in the middle part be repaired? Or ignore it?
If the entire CD is compressed into an ape and there are corresponding cue files,
1. Use MakeApl (a small tool that comes with Monkey＇＇s Audio) to convert the cue into several apl files.
2. By adding these apl in Monkey, you can decompress each audio track into a separate wav. Of course, the audio track containing the error part cannot be decompressed normally. In theory, no matter what ape it is, as long as you edit the appropriate apl yourself and set the error part as a separate audio track, you can retain the other parts to the maximum extent.
5.How to burn APE to CD?
A, APE->WAV->CD
This is the most common method, applicable to both APEImage and multi-file APE, but it is also the most cumbersome.
B. Use EAC to burn CD
EAC's burning function directly supports the APE format. It is currently the most convenient way to APE->CD. Open the EAC's burning function in the menu Tools->Write cd-r in EAC.
1. If there is a ready-made cue file, it is relatively simple. Just import the cue file directly. It should be noted that the path and name of the audio track file in the cue must be correct. For details about the cue, please refer to question 2.
2. If there is no cue file, and the downloaded file is that each audio track corresponds to an ape, it is similar to burning wav or mp3 files into CD in nero. Import the files one by one. The import command is under the layout menu (it is generally recommended to use "Append files as new track (Index 1)"), or you can drag and drop directly.
C. Use APE Plugin for Nero
After installing apeplugin for nero, you can just drag and drop it directly in nero just like using wav or mp3 to burn CD.
Plug-in download address Mausau＇＇s audio plugins for Nero Burning ROM
There are other audio plugins for Nero, common audio formats are available
Installation plug-in method: Unzip the plugin DLL to the "...\Ahead\Shared\AudioPlugins" directory
Nero version requirements 5.5.9.0 or above
Note: This Ape plugin for There is a major BUG in the early version of Nero
If you use Nero to import CUE and burn APEImage->CD, it seems that the burning can be completed normally, and the track number and time display are also normal. However, play the burned CD - all the tracks have the same content as the first track!
If you are burning CDs with multiple APEs, there is no such problem and everything is normal;
Please download the latest version;
If your machine is fast enough, then installing this plug-in and using nero to directly burn Ape->CD is also a good choice.
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APE related knowledge
1. Introduction to APE format
APE is a lossless compressed audio format. Huge WAV audio files can be "downsized" and compressed into APE through Monkey'sAudio software. Similarly, APE can also be restored to WAV through Monkey'sAudio and then burned to CD. Therefore, APE is known as the "lossless audio compression format", and Monkey'sAudio is known as the "lossless audio compression software".
2. APE player
1. Foobar2000 (highly recommended)
Foobar2000 is an audio playback software developed by Peter Pawlowski, the main developer of winamp. Peter
Pawlowski left the winamp development team because he was dissatisfied with the development direction of winamp. Although the Foobar playback interface is simple and unlike Winamp, which has many Skins, it can provide very good sound quality and does not require the use of external sound effect plug-ins similar to DFX like Winamp.
2. Winamp
Monkey's Audio contains Winamp's APE playback plug-in. During the installation of Monkey's
Audio, an "in_APE.dll" plug-in will be installed in Winamp, so that Winamp also has the ability to play APE files.
3. Windows Media Player
After installing the corresponding plug-in, you can also play APE
3. Format conversion
1. You can use EAC or other audio track capture software to convert CD to Wav file, and then compress it into APE through Monkey's Audio.
2. You can also convert CD directly to APE.
3. Convert APE to MP3
You can use Monkey's Audio to decompress APE and restore it to Wav, and then use Monkey's Audio to directly compress Wav into Mp3.Monkey's Audio 3.97
4. APE can be directly burned to CD with a burner
Download the plug-in named nxMyAPE.dll (as shown below), and directly copy the file to the shared\audioplugins directory of the burning software Nero, or
C:\Program Files\Common
Files\Ahead\AudioPlugins\. Nero will be able to recognize the APE file, so that APE can be directly burned to CD.
APE can be converted to WAV files losslessly. You can use Monkey software to convert the entire ape to wav. Then open cue with Notepad and change the . ape after FILE inside to . wav. Now you can do whatever you want.
In fact, ape is a compressed audio, which is equivalent to a rar file. However, rar must be decompressed before it can be used, while ape can be listened to directly without decompression. Converting ape to wav is called decompression, and the decompression tool is Monkey or foobar.
FLAC
FLACFLAC is the abbreviation of Free Lossless Audio Codec, which can be interpreted as lossless audio compression coding in Chinese. FLAC is a well-known set of free audio compression codes, which is characterized by lossless compression. Unlike other lossy compression codes such as MP3 and AAC, it does not destroy any original audio information, so it can restore the sound quality of music CDs. It has been supported by many software and hardware audio products since 2012.
FLAC is similar to MP3, but it is lossless compression, which means that audio will not lose any information when compressed in FLAC. This compression method is similar to Zip, but FLAC will give you a larger compression ratio, because FLAC is a compression method specially designed for the characteristics of audio, and you can use the player to play FLAC compressed files, just like you usually play your MP3 files (there are already many car players and home audio equipment that support FLAC, and you can find links to the manufacturers of these equipment on the FLAC website).
FLAC is free and supports most operating systems, including Windows, "unix" (Linux, BSD, Solaris, OSX, IRIX), BeOS, OS/2, and Amiga. And FLAC provides build systems on the development tools autotools, MSVC, Watcom C, and ProjectBuilder.
FLAC data stream format
Reference encoder and decoder provided in the form of a library;
flac, a program that can encode and decode FLAC files in command line mode;
meta flac, a metadata editor for FLAC files that works in command line mode.
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FLAC Input Plugin
When we say "FLAC is free" we don't just mean that you can get it for free. More importantly, the FLAC file format is completely open to the public, and you can use it for any purpose (the FLAC project only reserves the right to maintain the FLAC format specifications and confirm compatibility features). The FLAC file format and encoding/decoding implementation are not restricted by any known patents. Also, all source code is available under an open source license.
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FLAC Features
Lossless compression: The encoded audio (PCM) data does not have any information loss, and every byte of the decoded output audio is the same as the encoder input. Each data frame has a 16-bit CRC check code of the current frame, which is used to monitor data transmission errors. For the entire audio data, an MD5 tag for the original uncompressed audio data is also stored in the file header, which is used to verify the data during decoding and testing.
Fast: FLAC pays more attention to the speed of decoding. Decoding only requires integer operations and has very low computational speed requirements compared to most encoding methods. Real-time decoding can be easily achieved on very common hardware.
Hardware support: Because FLAC provides free decoding examples and the decoding complexity is low, FLAC is currently the only lossless compression codec that has hardware support.
Can be streamed: Each data frame of FLAC contains all the information required for decoding. The current frame is decoded without reference to the data frames preceding or following it. FLAC uses a synchronization code and CRC (similar to encoding formats such as MPEG) so that the decoder can have minimal time delay when positioning jumps in the data stream.
Can be positioned: FLAC supports fast sampling and precise positioning. This is not only beneficial for playback, but also makes FLAC files easier to edit.
Flexible metadata: New types of metadata data blocks can be defined and implemented without affecting the use of old data streams and decoders. Currently existing metadata types include tags, cue tables, and positioning tables. Registered applications can define their own dedicated metadata types (Annotation: This is similar to the MIDI standard).
Ideal for archiving applications: FLAC is an open encoding format, and without any data loss, you can convert it to any other format you need. In addition to the CRC and MD5 tags of each data frame to ensure data integrity, flac (Annotation: the command line encoding tool provided by the FLAC project) also provides a verify option. When using this option to encode, the encoded data will be decoded immediately while encoding and compared with the original input data. Once differences are found, it will exit and alert.
Facilitates backup of CDs: FLAC has a "cue table" metadata data block used to save the CD's content list and the index points of all audio tracks. You can save a CD to a single file and import the CD's cue table, so that one FLAC file can completely record all the information of the entire CD. When your original CD is damaged, you can use this file to restore an exact copy of the CD.
Anti-damage: Due to the frame structure of FLAC, once the data stream is damaged, the loss will be limited to the damaged data frame. Usually only a short fragment is lost. When many other lossless audio compression formats encounter damage, one damage will cause the loss of all subsequent data.
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FLAC Disadvantages
Data shrinkage. FLAC is designed specifically and only for lossless compression, and you can choose from many other excellent lossy compression methods such as Vorbis, MPC, and MP3 (LAME provides an excellent open source implementation).
SDMI (e.g. cetera) compatible. FLAC is not intended to support any copy protection methods, which ultimately end up wasting data. (From another perspective, since all these methods ultimately proved to be ineffective, it can also be said that FLAC compressed these useless data to zero!) Of course, we cannot prevent some people from using dedicated metablocks for copy protection, but their protection will only be effective on their own decoding products, and other decoders will skip these specialized metablocks.
WAV
WAV Spectrogram
WAV format is a sound file format developed by Microsoft, also called waveform sound file. It is the earliest digital audio format and is widely supported by Windows platforms and their applications. The WAV format supports many compression algorithms, supports a variety of audio bits, sampling frequencies and channels. It uses a sampling frequency of 44.1kHz and 16 quantization bits. Therefore, the sound quality of WAV is almost the same as that of CD. However, the WAV format requires too much storage space to facilitate communication and dissemination.
The full name of WAV is Wave Audio Files. WAV is derived from the sampling of sound analog waveforms. Sampling the analog waveform of the sound at different sampling frequencies can obtain a series of discrete sampling points. The values ​​of these sampling points are converted into binary numbers with different quantization bits (8 or 16 bits), and then stored on the disk. This produces a WAV file of the sound, that is, a waveform file. Microsoft Sound System software Sound Finder can convert AIF, SND and VOD files to WAV format.
This format records the waveform of sound, so as long as the sampling rate is high, the sampling bytes are long, and the machine speed is fast, the sound files recorded using this format can be basically the same as the original sound, and the quality is very high, but the price of this is that the file is too large.
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WAV Features
Simple encoding/decoding (almost direct storage of signals from the analog-to-digital converter (ADC)), universal recognition/support, and lossless storage. The main disadvantage of the WAV format is that it requires audio storage space. This can be an important issue for applications with small storage constraints or low bandwidth. Another potential drawback of the WAV format is the 2G limit in 32-bit WAV files, which has been improved in the W64 format developed for SoundForge.
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WAV support
The WAV format supports MSADPCM, CCITTALaw, CCITT μ Law and other compression algorithms, and supports a variety of audio bits, sampling frequencies and channels. However, its disadvantage is that the file size is large (a 44 kHz, 16bit Stereo WAV file takes up about 10MB of hard disk space per minute), so it is not suitable for long-term recording.
In Windows, sound files stored on the hard disk have the extension WAV. WAV records the sound itself, so it takes up a lot of hard drive space. For example: 16-bit 44.1KHZ stereo sound takes up about 10MB of capacity per minute, which is far behind MIDI.
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WAV Conversion
AVI and WAV are very similar in file structure, but AVI only has one more video stream. There are many kinds of AVI that we are exposed to, so we often need to install some Decode to watch some AVI. DivX, which we are exposed to more, is a video encoding. AVI can use DivX encoding to compress the video stream. Of course, other encodings can also be used for compression. Similarly, WAV can also use a variety of audio encodings to compress its audio stream. However, the most common ones we see are WAVs whose audio streams are encoded by PCM. However, this does not mean that WAV can only use PCM encoding. MP3 encoding can also be used in WAV. Like AVI, as long as the corresponding dDecode is installed, you can enjoy these WAVs.
Under the Windows platform, WAV based on PCM encoding is the best supported audio format and can be perfectly supported by all audio software. Since it can meet higher sound quality requirements, WAV is also the preferred format for music editing and creation, and is suitable for saving music materials. Therefore, WAV based on PCM encoding is used as an intermediary format and is often used in the mutual conversion of other encodings, such as MP3 to WMA.
WavPack
WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.
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WavPack Features
WavPackWavPack allows users to compress and restore WAV format audio files in 8, 16, 24 and 32-bit floating point representation. In addition, it also supports multi-channel data streams and very high sampling rates. Like other lossless compression mechanisms, the compression ratio of this algorithm also varies with the source data, but for ordinary pop music, it is usually between 30% and 70%, and for classical music and other music with a wider range, better results can usually be obtained.
In addition, WavPack introduces a unique "hybrid" mode, which uses an additional file and thus also has the advantages of lossy compression. Unlike other methods that only generate one file, this mode generates two files, one of which is a relatively small, high-quality lossy compressed file that can be used alone, and the other is a "corrected" file that can be used together with the lossy file to achieve lossless data recovery. For some users, this means they no longer have to consider whether to use lossy or lossless compression.
TAC
QQ Music, as the leading domestic music service platform, has exclusively developed and launched lossless format TAC music for users. Different from lossy compression formats such as MP3, TAC is a lossless audio compression technology encrypted and produced by Tencent on the basis of FLAC. It is essentially a modified FLAC format. Like other lossless formats, it can ensure no loss of sound quality. Due to the closed encryption method, this format can ensure that the music copyright holder's work will not be pirated or misappropriated, ensuring that the music can only be played on QQ players and will not be copied to any unauthorized players. Green Diamond users only need to select the high-quality music they want to download in the music library, select "Lossless Sound Quality" in the "Select Sound Quality" section of the download page, and click "Start Download". Users can easily collect unlimited good music.