Your Clients Don't Know What You're Capable Of

Every time you've sent audio to a client through a collaboration platform, there's a good chance they never actually heard what you made. Not quite, anyway.

Most platforms quietly compress your uploads to lossy formats before streaming them in the browser. It doesn't matter if you uploaded a pristine WAV or FLAC. By the time your client presses play, they're listening to an AAC or MP3 approximation of your work. The platform made that choice for both of you, and probably never told you about it.

Depending on the circumstances, standard quality might be fine. But if you're a composer waiting on approval for an orchestral cue, or a sound designer whose entire value is in the subtlety of a texture, or a game audio engineer who spent days getting the spatial positioning right on an environmental soundscape, "close enough" is a frustrating place to be. Your client is forming opinions about work they haven't fully heard. And you might be chasing revisions based on problems that only exist in the compressed version.

We built lossless streaming in Hummify because we think your clients should know what you are actually capable of.

The Problem with Lossy Review

This isn't an audiophile debate about whether you can hear the difference between 320kbps and lossless on your commute. This is about professional review contexts where the details make a difference.

When a music supervisor listens to your composition and says the strings feel "harsh," is that the composition or the encoding? When a director reviews your sound design and says a room tone feels "off," are they hearing your work or a compression artefact? When a game studio reviews your adaptive audio and the spatial imaging doesn't land the way it should, is that a mix problem or a delivery problem? Your clients shouldn't be making decisions without the full picture.

The frustrating part is that most people in these workflows don't even realise this is happening. The audio plays, it sounds reasonable, and everyone assumes they're hearing the real thing.

How It Works in Hummify

The setup is straightforward. Upload a lossless source file, whether that's FLAC, WAV, or another uncompressed format, and Hummify automatically creates a lossless streaming variant alongside the standard compressed ones. You don't need to do anything differently during upload.

If you're on the Team plan, you can switch on lossless in your audio settings. That applies to your own playback and, importantly, to your share links. So when you send a link to a client, they're streaming the full quality version directly in their browser. No downloads, no extra steps on their end. A "Lossless" badge shows up in the player so both of you know exactly what you're hearing.

It works on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari 17.1+ on desktop. On mobile, Chrome and Firefox on Android and Safari 17.1+ on iOS and iPadOS. If someone opens your link in a browser that doesn't support it, they get high-quality AAC instead. Hummify ensures that your listeners get the best their browser can handle.

Who This Actually Matters For

Not everyone needs lossless streaming. If you're sharing rough demos or early sketches for general direction, compressed playback is perfectly fine. But there are specific situations where it makes a real difference:

Composers sending cues for approval. Orchestral and acoustic work in particular suffers from lossy encoding. The harmonic detail and dynamic range that make a performance feel real are exactly what compression tends to smooth over.
Sound designers in post-production. If your work involves layered ambiences, detailed foley, or spatial audio, those are the first things to degrade in a lossy stream. Your reviewer should be hearing the full depth of what you've built.
Game audio engineers delivering environmental audio, adaptive music, or interactive sound effects. Spatial positioning, dynamic range, and the subtle behaviour of sounds in a 3D space are hard to evaluate on a compressed stream.
Mix and mastering engineers sending work for final sign-off. This is the most obvious case. If someone's approving a master, they should be hearing the master.
Labels, studios, and agencies where multiple people review the same file. When everyone hears the same thing, the conversation is about the work, not about who had the better playback setup.

Where Hummify Fits In

Some other platforms in this space do offer lossless playback, and that's worth acknowledging. What tends to differ is what else comes with it.

In Hummify, lossless streaming is part of a broader set of collaboration tools. You get role-based workspaces for managing your team, interactive waveform comments where you can click and drag to mark a specific region, version stacks that keep every iteration organised, and share links you can protect with a passphrase or set to expire.

Most platforms that stream lossless are built around delivery or playback. Hummify is built around the full review and collaboration workflow, and lossless is now part of that.

Frequently Asked Questions

What file formats support lossless streaming?

FLAC, WAV, AIFF and other uncompressed formats. When you upload a lossless source, Hummify creates a lossless streaming variant automatically.

Which browsers support it?

On desktop: Chrome 70+, Firefox 82+, Edge 79+, and Safari 17.1+. On mobile: Chrome and Firefox for Android, and Safari 17.1+ on iOS and iPadOS. Unsupported browsers fall back to high-quality AAC.

Do my clients need an account?

No. Share links stream lossless audio directly in the browser, with no Hummify account required.

Which plan includes lossless streaming?

Lossless streaming is available on the Team plan. You can see the full pricing breakdown for what's included at each tier.

Try It Out

Lossless streaming is live now for all Team plan users. If you want to hear the difference for yourself, start a free trial. If you have questions, get in touch.