Why do we need to ? cubase 11 is not cheap.
Free apps like VLC and Audacity do it.
Studio one 4 does it.
poor show for a premium product.
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use convert in itunes, simple. Failing that VLC. File .media . convert.
Pi**ed off with Steinberg for this inconvenience
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Audacity
It’s a free audio program that imports anything and exports/converts to anything. I’ve had success with Mp4 recorded from various formats. Zoom, for example, stores audio in Mp4 format and using Audacity, I’ve converted to WAV, or even FLAC. Then I’m fine with importing into Cubase. No issues, very easy, and Free.
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Hi, I use a isotope Rx8 elements (29€) if discounted) to open m4a and save them as wav ( 2 clicks) . It’s a standalone app and doesn’t interfere with its vst brother in cubase
Works faster than wavelab.
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just ran into this problem here as well,… interesting Cubase 11 has support for the older mp3 format, but not the newer more industry standard m4a…
I do not recommend converting m4a files to mp3 (mentioned above) as audio quality will be further degraded. Both are lossy formats. Convert to WAV or AIFF if you are using it in a project.
Seriously. I’m regretting having spent so much on this software and replying here to vent. I suppose it’s my fault for assuming something so expensive would be the best tool for all my music/audio needs. I really like Cubase when it’s useful, but there have been at least half a dozen instances now where I’ve wrestled with Cubase, spent hours troubleshooting and sifting through forums only to end up using alternative software to do something that seemed so basic. Working on a project last weekend, I had better results with Windows Voice Recorder of all things. Going back to it now, I’m realizing those .m4as can’t even be read by Cubase and I’ll have to go elsewhere once again. Ugh.
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Totally agree MrChicken! I too wonder why I spend years of my precious life wasted on the massive encyclopedia of things that Steinberg can’t be bothered to sort out, as well as knowing how they don’t listen to their customers.
There is already a feature request for that but it only has 4 votes:
Vote for it if you think it is important! I suspect that the developers don’t have time to read every post…
PS. I use Sound Forge to convert m4a files to wav/flac but I agree that I would not expect the lack of support for such a common file format in a program that is sold for 500€. Unfortunately there are other problems that are even more serious (see most voted feature requests).
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Hi! The SpectraLayers version included in Cubase 11 Pro can read m4a and many more formats. So I open it in standalone mode, open the file and export to a format Cubase can read.
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