The Logic Off Topic list

mercutio@... wrote:

>Murray McDowall wrote:
>> Yes the compression achieved by WinRAR is usually impressive although 
>> there
>> are more efficient algorithms for audio files.
>
>I think rar was efficient enough that emagic had no great reason to 
>continue with Zap.
>
>as an experiment I tried compressing audio files with both - and there 
>was little difference between the two.

I once used Shorten to decompress some archives of piano samples. The
compression ratios were quite spectacular. It is worth bearing in mind that
piano samples with long decays would be highly compressible because the
last half or more of the sample has quite low amplitude. Shorten is free
for personal use but is not available on the Mac.

Here's a link to Shorten and there is some discussion on the site of the
relevant issues. 
http://www.softsound.com/Shorten.html

Just checking on the web site it seems possible that the lossy mode had
been used because the compression ratios were large (in lossy mode Shorten
can achieve 3:1 to 5:1 and about 2:1 in Lossless mode. 

Regards,
Murray