Cubase and FLAC files

Cubase
1

Hi,
I want to know how Cubase manages FLAC files. I have lots of free multitracks that I use for practicing, and I converted all those files from 24 bit Wav to 24-bit FLAC, to save space.

Cubase converts from FLAC to Wav when importing, my question are, where does Cubase store those temporal WAV files? are they stored in RAM? temp folder? is it bad to use FLAC in terms of CPU or RAM usage?

Thanks.

2

They are converted to wavs stored in the project folder. No cpu or ram impact, you are working with the wav like any other wav file.

3

I don’t see any temporary files in the project directory, actually I searched through all my hard drive (with one of those FLAC projects open) and I couldn’t find any temporary Wav copies of the FLAC files.

Cakewalk/Sonar creates a temp folder with the Wav files, and they stay there even after the project is closed. Cubase certainly does not do the same. Now I’m intrigued.

4

Have you set cubase to record in .flac ?
Cubase Can handle .flac files directly without converting, and has been able to for some time.
Can be set in preferences.

5

Ahh…you’re right Peakae…it plays them natively. Though the record setting is in project setup rather than prefs.

I was assuming they would be converted and tested with an mp3 which does get converted to wav in the project folder.
So would be interesting to know if there is any additional cpu for the flac playback.

6

oops sorry about that, thanks for correcting me.
There should be no noticeable impact on CPU usage, that was the claim anyway.
From my testing, I have not seen any decreased performance in both CPU and HD.
But I don’t use it enough to be sure, it could potential be an increase in performance when recording on slow 5400rpm drives.

7

Using flac works with the same impact on CPU as with wavs.

Sometimes they create graphical glitches like disappearing waveforms at certain zoom levels (very rarely - converting to wav resolves the problem).
Pulling flac events on a sampler track doesn’t work (needs wav).
Recording very long flacs (like 1h+) leads to some waiting time when recording is stopped. Can be spooky but really just needs some patience.

Otherwise flac is a nice thing, even in times of huge cheap drives!