Composers Desktop Project Forum

Re 16/32 bit file outputs:  as it happens, none of the main CDP programs supports command flags to nominate an output format. This is mostly for historical reasons: the CDP system was conceived first for the Atari ST with a custom filing system "(sfsys") with explicit options to read/write either 16bit int samples or 32bit floats. At that time the very concept of a 24bit file barely existed.

Fast forward to Windows media formats, and to begin with, again, only 16bit audio was supported by the API (plus legacy 8-bit formats). In a short while, Microsoft added a new format flag option in the header to define 32bit floats (so-called "type-3" file). CDP always had basic tools to convert between 16/32 bit files. More recently, to give access by users to high-resolution formats, we added the possibility to request a floats output by prefixing the output sound file name with "-f". This is supported in Soundloom, and, I assume, Soundshaper.

As Robert indicated, CDP programs read the input file format (e.g. 24bits, but there are others) and use that to set the output format; thus you can give a 24bit file to a program and it will output in the same format. To create such an input file (from 16bit/floats etc), you will need to use what is now the "workhorse" CDP tool "copysfx" to  generate whichever sample and channel format you want from quite a long list.

It is certainly a reasonable idea these days, with GB of disk space to play with, to work entirely with 32bit floats sound files (CDP programs themselves always use floats for internal processing). So long as the file is in the strictly correct "WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE" file format (which CDP programs ensure), native Windows media players (relying on the Windows Media API) will play it on whatever hardware is available, making sample conversions if necessary. Third-party apps are typically more forgiving.  You would then only convert your final master output file to, say, 24bits, for distribution.

So the modern choice is between working with 24bit or 32bit files. In most cases there will be no audible difference, and of course 24bit files will be that much shorter than 32bit files. There is however one rather cool aspect of the 32bit floats file format (as defined by Microsoft), which is supported by CDP programs. Being a floating-point format, the nominal sample range is +- 1.0 (in audio terms, 0dBFS). But there is a lot of headroom available, which matters most with filtering and some mixing operations where that limit can easily be exceeded. With the integer formats the inevitable result is clipping. However with 32bit floats there is no need for that clipping, and the PEAK sample value is also recorded in the file header (these days using a so-called "PEAK Chunk" added to the header, though CDP has always had its own non-portable ways of doing this).

The upshot of all that is that, for example, you can generate a floats output with over-range samples, and the CDP play program "paplay" (I must declare an interest: I wrote it) will automatically apply a scale factor to play the file without clipping.

The merits or otherwise of various soundfile formats is not something I can usefully comment on, other than to say more bits are more accurate (give a wider dynamic range). I'll pass this question to Richard Dobson, who may have a thought or two on the matter.

I agree with you, but this is a matter for CDP, not Soundshaper, which uses the CDP program copysfx when loading source files for internal use. copysfx supports a lot of formats (look it up), but not mp3 or flac. Having said that, the BASS audio library I use does support both mp3 and flac, so it might be possible in a future release to use that to convert to some other internal format that CDP could use.

Hi
I see that you only can import wav and aiff formats.
It would be very convenient if you could also import formats like mp3 and flac.

Hi Robert
It's a pleasure to read your comments, you always learn something new and interesting.
They say the best quality is 32 bit but I guess that's if you create an original wav from synth-synthesis-wave. What I'm not clear is when you import in soundshaper samples of different format, 16 or 24 bits, which is the best quality to export it, if you respect its original bits or transform them (with soundshaper processes) and export them as 32 bits?
* For now, the workaround is probably to change the sound output in Windows settings to the card you want to use, and the WaveMapper will use that.
- Ok, Thanks for the suggestion, I will try to see if it detects it this way.

Quote from: Lunatico on June 19, 2025, 09:51:01 AMI want to assign it [sound output] to my Traktor Audio 10 card.

I've investigated this and found the bug, but have no immediate fix. When reading the settings file on startup, the program compares the listed playback device with a Windows list of available devices; if there's no match it uses the default (WaveMapper). The reason there's no match is something to do with CDP device numbers not matching Windows ones. However, there's more to this than changing a device number, because I tried to force one, but didn't get any change. I need to look more closely at how these devices are assigned for playing. When I've found this, the rest should be fixable. For now, the workaround is probably to change the sound output in Windows settings to the card you want to use, and the WaveMapper will use that.   

Thanks for raising this issue.

1) Soundcard: I can confirm your finding. The settings page does always seem to display "WaveMapper", even when the settings file has been saved (and presumably loaded) with a specific choice. I'll need to check the code on this and post another reply. It's worth noting that "WaveMapper" chooses Windows' default sound output - whatever you've set that to.

2) 16 versus 32-bit is not really what it seems. The distinction is really between 16/24-bit Integers and 32-bit Floats, which CDP handles slightly differently. In general CDP's output format matches the input, so 24-bit integer files will be handled by the '16' setting OK (I've just tested this to confirm). It should be easy enough to change the choices, but that could lead to a bit of confusion if a '24' setting appeared to preclude 16-bit files, which it doesn't. I'll consider changing the choice to 'Int' versus 'Float', which will be clearer.

Another option would be to convert all input internally to 32-bit floats, which would be better in many ways. Files could then be saved to 24-bit integers if the user wishes. 

In Settings - Sample Type (Bits) there are two options: 16 and 32 bits.

Why is it not possible to choose 24 bits?

Hi
In Soundshaper Settings, under Sound Playback, by default, the option: Media Player/WaveMapper is selected.
I want to assign it to my Traktor Audio 10 card.
I choose 12 Main Output Traktor Audio 10.
How to save this new configuration? 
I have tried all options; Initial Setup Save, Change Settings OK and Save Seetings File SAVE and when I reopen Soundshaper the Media Player/WaveMapper option is back.

Hi
A lot of thanks for your help Robert.
Yes, it would be very interesting to have Dry/Wet and Morph parameters in the processors.