AIF versus WAV versus MP3 - importing samples

[liftoff]

Hello! I am new to Ableton Live. When creating and building your library of samples, do you prefer importing .aif, .wav or .mp3 files? Or does it matter? Can you mix them? Do you like to keep your samples on your computer or on an external hard drive? Any advice on building, storing and keeping your samples organized is greatly appreciated!
THANKS!

[jlgrimes]

No real tangible difference between WAV and AIFF. Either one is fine. WAV might be a bit more popular but most DAWS read both so it really doesn't matter.


MP3 compresses your audio, so it is recommended to use uncompressed audio but that said, MP3 is very convenient and if you are using high bit rate mp3 like 320 kps, you might not even be able to hear the degradation of the quality.

[yur2die4]

When you load an MP3, Live renders it as a wav and stores if in the cache. So you might as well skip that and use wav or aif. If you have a really large set with a lot of long MP3 files, it might sit there churning through them for a few minutes instead of just being immediately ready.

[Tarekith]

Don't use MP3s for making music, follow that and the rest rarely matters too much.

[beats me]

Don't use MP3s for making music, follow that and the rest rarely matters too much.

Luckily Live doesn’t export to mp3. For years what seemed like a major lacking feature for Live might now be seen as more of a forward thinking Apple-like “Flash is garbage” type move.

Ironically Logic exports to mp3.