Wav you heard? 👂
WAV (or WAVE) is a digital raw audio file format, created by Microsoft and IBM for playing audio on personal computers. It is used for storing waveform data, and can store audio data, track numbers, sample rate, and bit rate. WAV files are uncompressed, lossless audio.
WAV files are usually converted to other formats; even though they are a great way of storing original, raw audio without losing any quality, they are inconveniently large. This is because no amount of data has been compressed.
It’s unlikely that you’d ever download WAV files from music sites, as these are much larger than other high-quality formats, and it doesn’t really change the experience for the listener. This is why for digital distribution, FLAC is usually the way to go. FLAC will compress the data and give you a smaller download with the same quality as it’s still a lossless file.
Please note! When uploading to RouteNote, please upload using FLAC for high quality distribution.
If you have any further queries, feel free to get in touch with us!
See also:
Does my audio meet RouteNote’s quality standards?
Can I edit or replace the audio on my release after it has been approved?
What is lossless/lossy audio?