Supported Audio File Formats

Ableton Live natively supports mono and stereo audio files in the following formats: WAV; AIFF and AIFF-C; FLAC, and OGG Vorbis. MP3 and M4A files can be also imported into Live. 

Supported audio file formats
Supported file attributes
Unsupported file attributes
Viewing audio file data
Decoding MP3, M4A, and AAC files
Troubleshooting file import

Supported audio file formats

Natively supported Supported Unsupported
  • WAV
  • AIFF and AIFF-C
  • FLAC
  • OGG Vorbis
  • MP3
  • M4A (macOS only)

Supported file attributes

To be imported into or played back in Live, files in compatible formats must also be encoded with supported attributes, such as number of channels, bit depth, and endianness. 

Supported for all formats
  • Channels: Mono or Stereo
  • Bit depth: 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit
  • Sample rate: up to 192kHz
Format-specific supported attributes WAV
  • 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit integer Little Endian (pcm, aflt, araw)
  • 32-bit float Little Endian
  • 32-bit integer, as of Live 12.1
  • Less commonly, WAV can also be a container for a compressed format such as mp3. In this case, the file extension may need to be changed, for example from .wav to .mp3, for Live to open the file. 
AIFF AIFF-C
  • 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit integer Big Endian and Little Endian (pcm, twos, sowt, s8)
  • 32-bit float Big Endian
  • AIFF-C files with the file extension .aifc can only be loaded after changing the file extension to .aif or .aiff
  • AIFF files with the file extension .snd can only be loaded after changing the file extension to .aif or .aiff
OGG Vorbis
  • OGG files containing a Vorbis audio stream.

Unsupported file attributes

Files with unsupported attributes can not be imported into or played back in Live, regardless of the file format.

Unsupported for all formats
  • Multi-channel audio
    Live does not support audio files with more than 2 audio channels, such as multi-channel, surround, or ambisonic files. Multi-channel FLAC files can be loaded, but only the signal of front left and right channels will be played back.
  • Split stereo files
    To open a split stereo file in Live, save it to another format such as stereo SDII (not split), WAV or AIFF, or drag each channel of the file into individual, hard-panned tracks.
Format-specific unsupported attributes PCM (WAV or AIFF)
  • 12-bit integer 
  • PCM MU-LAW (mlaw) 
  • PCM ALAW (alaw)
  • ADPCM, e.g. "AIFF G.726 ADPCM Audio (g726)" or "IMA WAV ADPCM Audio (ms)"
AIFF
  • 32-bit integer
WAV
  • "GSM Audio (gsm)" 
  • "Microsoft GSM Audio (agsm)"

Viewing audio file data

There are several ways to look up the attributes of an audio file, using either your operating system's file info or a third-party tool. Not all attributes may be shown for all files, depending on the tool and format type.

Online analyzer

To see complete attributes and metadata for an audio file, including bit-depth, you can use a third-party tool, such as the free online analyzer offered by MediaInfoOnline.

VLC Player

  1. Open VLC and navigate to the file
  2. Double click on the file name to playit 
  3. Press CMD / CTRL + I or go to Window → Media Information
  4. Open Codec Details

macOS Finder

  1. Select the file in macOS Finder
  2. Press CMD + I 
  3. Unfold More Info

macOS Music

  1. Select the file in Music
  2. Press CMD + I or go to Song → Info
  3. Open the File tab

Windows Explorer

  1. Navigate to the file in File Explorer.
  2. CTRL + Click the file name
  3. Select Properties > Details

 

Decoding MP3, M4A, and AAC files

MP3 and M4A and AAC files are converted to WAV format when imported into Live, using an external codec as described in the table below. The converted file is stored in Live's Decoding Cache, found at the following paths:

Windows: C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Ableton\Cache\Cache\Decoding\

macOS: Macintosh HD/Users/[username]/Library/Caches/Ableton/Cache/Decoding/

Format

 Details Codec

MP3 (MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III)

 lossy compressed audio
  • On macOS, and on Windows as of Live 12, MP3 files are automatically decoded in Live.
  • On Windows in Live 11 and earlier, Live encodes MP3 files either with the DirectX codec which comes with the operating system, or with a third party codec.
M4A/MP4

 MP4 is a container format for video and audio streams. M4A is the 'audio only’ version of MP4. The audio stream in a MP4/M4A container is encoded either in the lossy AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) format, or in the lossless ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) format.
  • On macOS, the required external codec for M4A/MP4 (AAC and ALAC) files comes with the operating system, which means that those formats behave like natively supported file formats in Live.

Troubleshooting file import

If you encounter an error when importing an audio file into Live, follow these steps to troubleshoot:

  1. Check that the file is in a supported format and doesn't have unsupported attributes, such as more than two audio channels, as listed above. If the format is not supported, you can convert the file using a third-party conversion tool such as Audacity or VLC.
  2. Try opening the file in another DAW or in a music player such as Apple Music, Windows Media Player, or Audacity to make sure it's a valid audio file. 

  3. If you see one of the following error messages, visit the linked guide for troubleshooting steps:
    Unable to import files when Live is run as administrator (Windows)
    The file cannot be opened or changed (Mac)
    The file is too large to be decoded
    The audio file [file path] cannot be read. [file path]: EOF

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