Concepts
Short, practical explanations of the ideas behind StudioTools — useful on their own, whatever tools you use.
Audio files
Audio files & formats
PCM, sample rate, bit depth, channels, WAV / AIFF / CAF, chunks.
Broadcast Wave (BWF)
The bext chunk, the time reference, coding history.
Audio metadata
RIFF INFO, AIFF, CAF, ID3 — where metadata lives and how it gets lost.
Studio integration
Glossary
- bext
- The Broadcast Wave chunk in a WAV file. More
- Bit depth
- How precisely each sample is stored (16, 24, 32-bit float). More
- Chunk
- A labelled block of data inside a WAV, AIFF or CAF file. More
- dBFS
- Level relative to digital full scale. More
- dBTP
- True-peak level. More
- Dual mono
- A stereo file with identical left and right channels. More
- EBU R128
- European loudness recommendation: −23 LUFS. More
- FourCC
- The four-character ID of a chunk or metadata field, e.g.
IART. More - HUI
- A control-surface protocol DAWs use over MIDI. More
- iXML
- Production sound metadata in WAV files. More
- LRA
- Loudness range, in LU. More
- LUFS / LU
- Units of perceived loudness / loudness difference. More
- PCM
- Uncompressed digital audio. More
- RF64 / BW64
- WAV variants for files over 4 GB. More
- Sample rate
- Samples per second, e.g. 48 kHz. More
- Time reference
- Where a Broadcast Wave file starts on the timeline. More
- True peak
- The estimated peak between samples. More