Editing a FLAC file without quality loss?

[AudiOw]

Hello!

I want to edit a FLAC file without having the quality reduced, what is the best program to do that with? Audacity? Also how do I do that?

Thanks.

[steve]

If you intend to apply any “processing” (apply any effects), then it is impossible to do that entirely 100% losslessly (in any program), because the processed samples have to be rounded in some way to 16-bit or 24-bit sample values. This is the case even for simple effects such as Amplify or Fades. Nevertheless, the “losses” if you do this in Audacity are extremely small (inaudible).

If you only perform cut / copy / paste / delete type “edits”, and no “processing”, then Audacity can do that entirely losslesly by temporarily turning off “dither”. To do that, open “Preferences” from the Edit menu, then in the “Quality” section, set “High Quality conversion → Dither” to “none”.

Note that for normal use of Audacity, “High Quality conversion → Dither” should be set to “Shaped”, as this provides best sound quality when processing audio.

[AudiOw]

@steve

If you intend to apply any “processing” (apply any effects), then it is impossible to do that entirely 100% losslessly (in any program), because the processed samples have to be rounded in some way to 16-bit or 24-bit sample values. This is the case even for simple effects such as Amplify or Fades. Nevertheless, the “losses” if you do this in Audacity are extremely small (inaudible).

If you only perform cut / copy / paste / delete type “edits”, and no “processing”, then Audacity can do that entirely losslesly by temporarily turning off “dither”. To do that, open “Preferences” from the Edit menu, then in the “Quality” section, set “High Quality conversion → Dither” to “none”.

Note that for normal use of Audacity, “High Quality conversion → Dither” should be set to “Shaped”, as this provides best sound quality when processing audio.

Thanks a lot, steve. What music do you listen to?