# Mobile games - .m4a vs .aac?



## Zhao Shen (Jul 2, 2016)

Hey guys, so I'm doing the music for a few mobile games, and since some of them will be on both Android and iOS, it seemed that AAC was the best file format to export in. But then I came across the dilemma of M4A vs AAC - lots of discussion online about how M4A in encoded with an AAC codec or something or other, and some discussion claiming they're both the same. Which file format is better to use for mobile game audio, or is it ultimately inconsequential?


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## MA-Simon (Jul 9, 2016)

I have never heard of those formats, but if the mobile game is made within unity, the audio will most likely be automatically compressed down to platform dependend formats. 

_"Unity supports most common formats for importing audio (see the list below) and will import an audio file when it is added to the project. The default mode is Compressed, where the audio data is compressed with either Vorbis/MP3 for standalone and mobile platforms, or HEVAG/XMA for PS Vita and Xbox One."_
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/AudioFiles.html


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## Noam Guterman (Jul 9, 2016)

Yeah if they're using Unity the best choice would be delivering the assets in Wav format, for them to compress in-engine. If they're using Adobe Air, it's likely that you'll need to use Mp3 (in this case you need to pay extra attention to looping points, I found that using Audacity and not opening the exported file until it is in-engine is a good workaround). I've done many mobile projects and never needed to work with M4a nor Aac.


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## marin (Jul 9, 2016)

Just adding that this is the same with Unreal as it is with Unity--you import wav files and the engine takes care of the compression.


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## vicontrolu (Jul 9, 2016)

Aac is the encoding. M4a is just the container. You can use a m4a containing aac encoded files


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## Zhao Shen (Jul 9, 2016)

vicontrolu said:


> Aac is the encoding. M4a is just the container. You can use a m4a containing aac encoded files


OK thank you!


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## Apolooseb (Aug 2, 2017)

Zhao Shen said:


> Hey guys, so I'm doing the music for a few mobile games, and since some of them will be on both Android and iOS, it seemed that AAC was the best file format to export in. But then I came across the dilemma of M4A vs AAC - lots of discussion online about how M4A in encoded with an AAC codec or something or other, and some discussion claiming they're both the same. Which file format is better to use for mobile game audio, or is it ultimately inconsequential?


hi man, do you know that AAC is not format but an encoder? The .m4a file signifies the audio layer of MPEG 4 movies and is encoded with advanced audio coding (AAC) that is a lossy compression. As a new codec supposed to be raised as the new standard for audio file compression, M4A is generally regarded as the successor to MP3 and produces better audio quality and smaller size than the MP3 file. So obviously, M4a can use for game audio, but M4A is seldom compatible with devices except for Apple devices. So I'd like to suggest you convert M4A to WAV http://www.videoconverterfactory.com/tips/m4a-to-wav.html because If you want to play audio on devices other than Apple, then you’d better transfer M4A audio to WAV. Compared with M4A to MP3, M4A audio to WAV can keep the original audio quality.


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