Supported formats

Audio

• WAV
• AIFF
• MP3
• M4A / AAC / ALAC
• FLAC
• CAF

Video

The audio inside a video file is a legitimate source, and a good share of sampled material comes from one. DropWave reads it without any extra step: MP4, M4V, MOV, and anything macOS treats as a movie.

The extension is not a gate

DropWave works out whether it can open a file by opening it, not by looking at the last letters of the name. A bounce with no extension still works, and so does a file someone renamed or one that came off a sampler or a phone. If it can't be decoded, you get a clear failure rather than a confident wrong answer.

Folders

Drop a folder and DropWave walks it, including the folders inside it, and lists every audio file it finds.

Limits

• Very short files: under about half a second there is nothing to measure.
• Key and tempo confidence need length. Under about 30 seconds DropWave can't compare sections of the song against each other, so the most it will say is Medium.
• DRM-protected files can't be decoded by anything, DropWave included.

What it does not read

Project files, session files, DAW documents and MIDI files. And nothing is fetched from anywhere: your audio never leaves your Mac.