I wrote some PowerShell scripts called UE4PrepareAudio that transcode audio files from a variety of formats to PCM 16 little endian WAV files so they can be imported into UE4. The transcoding is done by ffmpeg.
Feedback and pull requests welcome.
Ideally, these scripts are just a stopgap and the UE4 editor will be enhanced to support importing a wider variety of audio files.
Looks like 4.22 will have audio import improvements. I haven’t tried 4.22 preview yet, but hopefully it makes my scripts obsolete.
We have an implementation of libsndfile to support our import conversion:
Thanks for the info @dan.reynolds. I presume the import improvements will handle re-sampling as well as format conversions?
There is no need to convert sample rates on import. The Audio Engine will playback files at any sample rate as it does real time sample rate conversion during playback. I would not recommend the practice.
There are options to convert the sample rate of your files on cook if needed.
Oh right, I forgot. The current (as of 4.21) import restriction is on bit depth, not sample rate. I had a bunch of files I purchased that were 24-bit WAV that didn’t import by default.
Bit depth conversion is handled.