Sound Formats?

[dcr]

I have a number of sounds (mostly short sound clips from assorted sources as well as ones I recorded myself) from the System 7 days.  Most of these are in the SND format that I think was the Mac's default format.  They worked as system sounds and double-clicking them would auto-play the sound.  Some even have .snd as an extension even though System 7 didn't use extensions like Mac OS X, but I think those were downloaded files from various sources.

Anyway, nothing I have on Mac OS X seems to open or play these sounds.  So, I use a System 7 machine (or emulator) to convert the sounds from .snd to .aiff which will play on a modern Mac.

What I am mainly looking for is a suggestion for a format to store the sounds in.  Is AIFF is good choice or should I be using something else?  I plan to keep the original source sound file so I'll have them available for older Macs if need be, but am looking for suggestions for maximum compatibility with current and future (as best as can be guessed) systems.

Thanks!

 

[Cory5412]

AIFF or WAV is probably good enough, System 7 Sound wasn't, to my recollection, spectacularly high quality by any means so you're probably not going to lose much by compressing them as, say, MP3s, though it really depends on the kind of volume we're talking here (though, in reality I doubt we're talking about more than, say, a gig, even as high quality AIFFs) and what your intent is. For example, MP3 might be better if you wanted to share them or put them on a mobile device for consumption, or use them as alerts on a modern computer, but AIFF or WAV might end up working better if you wanted to, say, put them into a DAW. (Although, I don't know much about DAWs, video editing programs like premierepro and final cut got better at handling "bad to edit" formats, DAWs might have as well.)

 

[dcr]

Thanks.  There are not a lot of these sound clips.  Right now, it's about 40 MB and that's with maybe half of them being in SND & AIFF and the rest still as SND files that need to be converted.  Most will just be for personal use.  I don't imagine I'll likely do much with them besides have them available for older Macs and occasionally play them on a current Mac just for nostalgia.  There are a handful of sound clips that I recorded myself.  Many cannot be re-recorded, so they are what they are.  The ones I recorded myself are the only ones I'd might sometime use in a DAW or video editing program.  There is a soundboard app (can't recall the name offhand) that I may use some sounds with, and I believe it can handle AIFF, SND, WAV, etc.  Or, rather, the paid version can use all those and the free and/or demo version can only do AIFF.

 

[Crutch]

There has been a lot of confusion about the various System 7-era classic Mac OS sound formats even going back to the 90s.  My memories are hazy but I think this is generally correct:

A “System 7 sound file” (file type “sfil”) normally is an AIFF file.  AIFF supported, even back then, storing sounds as either compressed or uncompressed, and samples at various bit rates and bits-per-sample sizes.  A typical “high quality” sound of the era would be 8 bits per sample at 22kHz, however 16 bits per sample at 44kHz (CD quality) was certainly possible (the bit size and rate could be specified in the file), so it’s not necessarily true that these are low-quality sounds or that compressing them wouldn’t cause any loss.

A “snd resource” is a different format that could support either sampled sounds or direct instructions to the various built-in Macintosh synthesizers of the era.  System 7 supported both “sound files” and “snd resources” natively.  Details are in Inside Macintosh Volume VI, chapter 22.

 

[cheesestraws]

A “snd resource” is a different format that could support either sampled sounds or direct instructions to the various built-in Macintosh synthesizers of the era.  System 7 supported both “sound files” and “snd resources” natively.  Details are in Inside Macintosh Volume VI, chapter 22.

You just cleared up some stuff I have been confused about since about 1993.  Thankyou very much. :-D

 

[Crutch]

Thanks!  I caught an error though regarding file types:

“Sound files” should actually be of file type ‘AIFF’ (easy enough) or ‘AIFC’ if AIFF-C (i.e., with compression extensions).

’sfil’ is the file type the Finder uses for “movable sound resources”, i.e. if you drag a ‘snd ‘ resource out of the System suitcase and onto the desktop, the Finder would create a little file of type ‘sfil’ and stick the ‘snd ‘ resource in there.

It is possible that someone is saying “sound file” when they really mean a “movable sound resource” (sfil), which would not then be an AIFF.

Inside Macintosh Volume VI, p. 22-32 and 9-34