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In my band I record drums at a studio with Pro Tools. I take those files in Broadcast WAV and import it into my DP5 project do a little editing if needed, etc. When pulling it into it's track in DP it translates the Broadcast Wav file into SDII. Does that "do anything bad" to the file's sound? Any degradation at all? Now what happens is I do all the other instruments in DP as SDII's and then output that as WAV (or Broadcast WAV?) and go back to the original studio to mix. If upgrading to DP7 (no matter the $195) was something I did just so I can work my project in Broadcast WAV format instead of SDII, would it be worth it? I have other band mates who send me files as WAVs and we would then have no file conversions happening if I went to DP7. I'll probably make the upgrade at some point but just wondering if there's any concern with all the switching of formats. Thanks for your time.
I don't remember a lot about DP5 anymore, but assuming you have DP's Auto Conversions and Audio File preferences configured correctly, and you're not transferring 24-bit soundbites to 16-bit projects, there is no harm that will come to the audio.
You must make sure to choose the slowest-rendering, highest-quality conversion options of course, as well as maintain the bit and sample rates throughout the process.
IIRC, I read something to the effect that the only difference in full-res audio formats is the header information - the waveform data itself is the same. If this is correct, then switching back and forth from WAV to SD2 should not be a problem as long as the sample rate and bit depth are the same.
At the same time, I personally would prefer to change formats as little as possible, because there's still the possibility of header info getting corrupted during conversion. Maybe that's being overly cautious, but if you were planning to eventually update to DP 7 anyway - there are lots of other benefits in addtion to WAV support - then why not do it now? Depending on the size of your project, you might also save some time by not having to do conversions.
And if you don't want to upgrade now, you should be fine too - just make sure your data is all backed up.
I am fairly certain that BobK is correct regarding mono files in either format only differing in their header information.
SD II is a non-interleaved format though, and unless you are constantly working with ProTools folks, and thus need hard-panned Left and Right mono channels for your stereo tracks, I encourage you to convert your stereo tracks to BWAV Interleaved (this has no impact on the mono audio tracks in the project). You can always extract mono L/R tracks for PT later, if needed.
I didn't quite get around to converting all my old SD II files to BWAV before getting my new computer last week. I plan to do that this weekend, as a future-proof task to relieve stress. There are still some programs that read SD II format, but "better safe than sorry", as time marches on. Unfortunately, I have over 600 projects, but in your case it sounds like it will be a rather small time investment.
While you're at it, it's a good policy to zero your tracks, but this isn't absolutely necessary. It's more important if you share audio files with other DAW's, some of which aren't so good at looking at track start time data in the audio files.
Monkey Man is also right in that you should convert the file format to BWAV first, and only then consider whether you want to change the sample rate. If you are going from 16-bit to 24-bit, there's a slight chance that doing that first might be advised, for more headroom, except that it is unlikely that the audio data itself is altered during the conversion so the extra headroom probably won't matter.
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WAV, AIFF, BWAV & SD2 are all uncompressed PCM audio. Only bit rate and sample frequency apply regarding audio quality. If no conversion is done to those two parameters, no conversion is done to the audio itself between all these formats.
Headers do change though, and that brings another set of troubles, corruption being the worst, but maybe not that dreadful if backups are used in both systems during the process.
You guys are all great. Thanks for the info. I ordered DP7 and it's coming today. I'll see if I want to make new BWAV projects from the already started sd2 ones.
I have other band mates who send me files as WAVs and we would then have no file conversions happening if I went to DP7. I'll probably make the upgrade at some point but just wondering if there's any concern with all the switching of formats. Thanks for your time.
