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Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:52 pm
by nicktc
Hi
I have recently downloaded the excellent Mad Beetz (KJ Sawka) live pack.
I would like to be able to open the aif files in another program (ANY other program)... I have tried a number of editors/players and file converters but non can read the files.
Anyone know a work around??
N
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 6:16 pm
by 8O
Strange... the aif files that I generate in my own Live projects get played fine (e.g. in iTunes), but the Swaka and the AbleTen packs that I've downloaded don't play their aif outside Live... OS X Finder doesn't read them properly, saying they're empty... very odd...
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:54 pm
by nicktc
Yep .. it's wierd alright.
I guess it must have something to do with the .asd files that accompany them ...
not very friendly tho
N
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:19 pm
by colin301
Mysterious! I have the same problem. Pretty certain it's nothing to do with .asd files as only Live references these files. I can open them in my audio editor [Peak], which recognises them as 24bit 48k aiffs, but playback is just overloaded noise. You can always load the files in Live and export audio if you want to be able to use them in another app, but does anybody know WHY other apps can't open these files directly?
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:30 pm
by Atomikat
Oh yes, that's the
henke's curse, you can't use them outside Live or they will crash any program...

Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 9:59 am
by topaz
Maybe they are raw files with aiff as the name.
Or ableton have their own locked codec drm ?
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:39 pm
by colin301
I think i've found what's up. I opened a couple of the files in a hex editor and there's some data in the file headers [highlighted in image below] that's clearly Ableton specific and i guess that's what prevents them being opened by any other app.

Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:22 pm
by KrisM
Not friendly at all.
Export them from Live and stick it to The Man!
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 7:32 pm
by topaz
why do such a thing when you can just render/bounce etc
seems totally anal to me, sort it out ableton.
colin301 wrote: that's clearly Ableton specific and i guess that's what prevents them being opened by any other app.

Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:09 am
by nicktc
Thanx for looking into that colin301 ... interesting
Trying to strip out the Ableton code could be a bit tricky!!!
But it does point to the possibility that someone with a high geek factor could figure it out ..
oh yeah .. someone from Ableton could do it!!
N
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:36 am
by colin301
Looked into this a little more. It's definitely not a problem with the Live Pack format in general - when i create my own Live Pack, the samples contained play back normally in other apps. Same goes for samples from other Live Packs i've downloaded. It appears only to be samples in Live Packs i've downloaded from Ableton site [Sawka's + Samplification for sure - they're the only ones i've installed] that won't open directly in other apps. Seems totally pointless for Ableton to "protect" files in this way, specially as it's so easy to get around by loading any of these files into arrangement and exporting, or am i missing something?
Anyone from Ableton reading this thread, please give us your take on this issue.
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 12:22 am
by [nis]
Hi,
aiff files that belong to certain add-on products (e.g. EIC, Session Drums, Drum Machines, etc.) are encrypted and can't be opened in any other software.
Best,
Nico
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:09 am
by topaz
Hi Nico
why when one can just bounce, freeze or any other number of options.
This also effects all the live intro content .
Seems like a bizzare thing to do from here.
[nis] wrote:Hi,
aiff files that belong to certain add-on products (e.g. EIC, Session Drums, Drum Machines, etc.) are encrypted and can't be opened in any other software.
Best,
Nico
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:03 am
by nicktc
Thanks for the definitive response nico.
Not what I wanted to hear but pretty unequivocal !
Is there any reasoning behind this ...?
In fact do these modified files still come under the aif specification?
Re: Opening Ableton's aifs in any other program
Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:27 am
by bleblans
Hi Ableton,
Is this copyright thing still actual?
I'm trying to load my .aif files from the Ableton packs in Audiofinder (
http://www.icedaudio.com/site/)but it wont read the files (as described above) ...
I hope you can arrange something with Iced Audio to get this working.
Thanks,
Bart