[Godsson]

Reaper and Ableton don't seem to be able to work with mpeg 4 clips. What is the best way of converting or repacking these files for work?

 

[GREQ]

mp4 clips are lossy - converting the audio to lossless is totally pointless, unless the goal is to fill up your hard drive with overly large files.

 

[bgentry]

MP4 is a container for audio and video tracks.  Sort of like AVI.  You need a program that will let you save the audio separately to a new file that Reaper can work with.
 
Something like AVIDemux will allow you to do that.  Depending on what kind of computer OS you use, there are probably several other software choices to do this.  AVIDemux is one I've used successfully in the past.
 
Good luck,
 
Brian.

 

[bgentry]

I should also add:
 
If you want to work on the audio for a video/audio file, it *is* normally a good idea to export the audio to a lossless format like WAV to do your work.  MP4 files normally use AAC for audio, but they can contain almost any kind of audio.  AAC is just the norm.
 
Whatever audio manipulation you need to do can be done on the WAV file until it's where you want it.  Then export it from your audio editor as AAC (or whatever it was originally) and you can MUX it back into the MP4 file.  AVIDemux can add or overwrite audio tracks in MP4 files too.
 
Brian.

 

[Godsson]

Brian checking it out now mate. 
I should clarify that I'm looking for repackaging them rather than converting them to maintain as much fidelity as possible.
And the file is already extracted from mp4 video in AAC .

 

[bgentry]

Ok, I see.  To maintain perfect quality, you'd use WAV or another uncompressed file format.  That's what I'd probably do if I was doing "real" audio editing with a serious tool like Reaper.
 
I just tried a few files to check and Reaper definitely doesn't like the AAC or M4A extensions.  It will read MP3s, but you don't want to convert from one lossy format to another, do editing, and then convert again for distribution.  I'd stick with WAV, AIFF, or something similar for the edits.
 
Brian.

 

[Godsson]

I'm using Super right now, has some well known conversion tools built in a i'd say half decent interface. But the installation is tiresome.
Converting to WAV auto upsamples to 1411kpbs not really sure why but the bitrate isn't something I'm worried about.
I'll be trying out quite a few conversion tools as it's become imperative to my practices now. Why these aren't built into daws I don't know.
I guess I could just use vegas or premier pro aswell.

 

[bgentry]

For future use, you might consider using a tool like AVIDemux that can save the audio and transcode it at the same time.  You can select what format you want when you split the audio out and have it saved (for example) as WAV.  Then use your DAW software to work on it and save it as whatever format you want, either for distribution, or further editing work.
 
Super works, but it's interface flat out sucks.  I got it to do what I wanted, but it's one of those programs you have to really research to make it do it's job.  I'd never use it again if I had an alternative.
 
Brian.