What is a .riff file and why has cubase converted my wav files into them?

When I drag and copy a wav file into media bay it copies it as something called a .riff file. Never heard of this before. When I try and play the file back in media bay it plays fine. When I try and play from the finder it doesn’t open or play back.
Why has it converted it to this file? What is this file? How do I get it to just copy it as the original wav?

Mac osx big sur 16 core pro

Bump. Any idea why mediabay converts wav files into whatever a riff file is?

AFAIK, .riff files are the Mac versions of .wav ones. So, I guess that, as you are using OSX, there is a kind of automatic conversion occuring.

Maybe there is an OSX setting to prevent it, I don’t know - Windows user, here…

The Mac versions of wav files are aiff, not riff.

What does that have to do with my issue. :man_shrugging:

Yep, sorry… I mixed up the two. :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

But basically, .riff files (as well as .aiff ones) are compatible with .wav as both share the common IFF (Interchange File Format) structure defined 30 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Interchange_File_Format
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIFF

After this, I indeed wonder why there is such an automatic conversion in luke7020 case…

Hi cubic sorry I was referring to the other poster.

It is indeed very strange. In years of using a Mac I have never even come across this file. And now mediabay is converting waves to this by itself. I couldn’t find any preferences that change this.

Having a Windows based setup, I’m afraid that I can’t be more of help, sadly : all the audio files I have listed in MediaBay are .wav ones.

And, as you, I see nothing related to an eventual automatic conversion in the Preferences… :confused:

No worries thanks for the reply. It’s really bizarre though right. I’ve used cubase for years and years and never encountered this issue.