Saving compressed WAVs in Adobe Audition
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I just found out that Adobe Audition, the WAV editor I use, on my new laptop is unable to save sound files in the Freelancer format (that is: mp3-compressed audio files with a .WAV extension).
I can select the proper option (ACM Waveform, options > filter: MPEG layer 3, 80 kBit/s 22050 Hz stereo) but when I try to save, I’m informed that “this wave format does not support the current sample type, or is not functioning properly”. This also happens with stock Freelancer audio files; I can import and play them in Audition, but I cannot save them in the format they come.
This was not a problem for Audition on the laptop I used before, so I assume it must be a codec issue. Maybe the version of WMP that comes with Windows Seven no longer supports this kind of file…
Does anybody have experience with this, and/or does know how to solve it? Googling it didn’t help…
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Some background info:
Though a WAV file can hold compressed audio, the most common WAV format contains uncompressed audio in the linear pulse code modulation (LPCM) format. The standard audio file format for CDs, for example, is LPCM-encoded, containing two channels of 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample. Since LPCM uses an uncompressed storage method which keeps all the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts may use the WAV format for maximum audio quality. WAV audio can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software. The WAV format supports compressed audio, using, on Windows, the Audio Compression Manager. Any ACM codec can be used to compress a WAV file. The user interface (UI) for Audio Compression Manager may be accessed through various programs that use it, including Sound Recorder in some versions of Windows.
Audio Compression Manager (ACM) is a Windows multimedia framework that manages audio codecs (compressor/decompressors). ACM can also be considered an API specification. A codec must conform to the implicit ACM specification to work with Windows Multimedia. ACM files can be recognized by their filename extension .acm . ACM files also use RIFF-compatible filetypes such as WAV or AVI as a “wrapper” to store audio data encoded by any audio codec supported by ACM.
ACM is considered an outdated framework/API and Microsoft now encourages the use of at least DirectShow. However, unlike ACM and the related Video Compression Manager (VCM), DirectShow provides no means to encode files for end-users but requires developers to build end-to-end graphs for encoding content. ACM also does not support VBR audio streams; therefore newer codecs like MPEG-4 AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC etc. cannot be supported through ACM if using variable bitrates. Though many sources state the contrary, Ogg Vorbis does work well with the ACM, e.g. when embedded in a RIFF-compatible file (such as a WAV or AVI file as mentioned earlier), provided the Ogg Vorbis stream is encoded at a constant bitrate.
So, it looks like I gotta find me an ACM that works in Windows Seven…
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Sound Recorder does it (XP) - is it also in Win7?
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StarTrader wrote:
Sound Recorder does it (XP) - is it also in Win7?It is, but there’s only one button on it; I don’t see how it could be used to convert WAVs.
EDIT: and it can only save in the .wma format; no options for other formats or further configuration.
Also I’m pretty sure this is not a program issue but a codec issue… Otherwise Audition would have simply done it, as it does on my other computers.
The point is: I don’t dare to just install some codec pack… I’m afraid that might mess my machine up! So I’m hoping someone who is using Win7 and does audio stuff with FL, would give some advice.
Of course, I’d rather live in a world where XP would be the perpetual state of Windows. Maybe an update here and there, every once in a while, but no loose of functionality for ‘legacy’ stuff.
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Win7 does have sound recorder under accessories, but it literally just records a sound, it’s not the same as in XP.
ST put up a tutorial on the process for getting audio into FL Moonhead, but unfortunately it does require use of the sound recorder in XP. For reference - http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?55225
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I know how to get sounds into FL - provided the software cooperates
Thanks anyway!!I got the advice to install the K-lite codec pack; in the full version there are two ACM codecs:
• ACM audio codecs:
- MP3 (LAME) [version 3.98.2]
- AC3ACM [version 1.5]
I think it’s the second I need. Got it downloaded, but I’m in a long download right now, and got some other stuff to do before I can install it. Which will either bring salvation, wreck my laptop, or don’t do anything and all (in which case I might be doing the wrecking myself
)The Fraunhofer codec comes with Audition, so that alone is not enough. Neither is the LAME encoder. What we need is a compressed WAV encoder. The compression part is done by either LAME or Fraunhofer, but to wrap it into a WAV file is something special. Too bad we can’t just change the extension
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If you use Sound Forge (dont know if still around) all you had to do was pick the mp3 codec to save it to and give it a .wav extension. It would then smply attach a riff header onto a mpeg file. No problem with FL recognizing and playing it.
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LancerSolurus wrote:
If you use Sound Forge (dont know if still around) all you had to do was pick the mp3 codec to save it to and give it a .wav extension. It would then smply attach a riff header onto a mpeg file. No problem with FL recognizing and playing it.Yeah Sound Forge! I used that on my old comp for exactly this thing! I liked Audition overall better than Sound Forge, and found out how to this in Audition, and I deinstalled Sound Forge. I don’t think I still got an installer for Sound Forge - that was ages ago and storage space was often an issue in those days, for me at least. So I might have just deleted it.
Anyway, the K-lite codec pack didn’t solve the issue, although it initially seemed it did (Audition can now at least save existing files, but not if I paste new sound into them, and I can at least select the format I want, but when I his ‘save’ I get the message that my disc is full - which of course it isn’t).
@ cata123: Thanks for the tip! I’ve tried CDex. Nice proggy, seemed to do what I want, but I found that for some totally obscure reason, the resulting WAV is truncated?? First I got one that was only a second (3MB in size though), then I used another bitrate and got one that was about a minute, while the source file is exactly 3 minutes. There is nothing in the settings that governs this behaviour, so I wouldn’t know how to overcome it. If you know, please fill me in!! Weird detail: I can play the RIFFed mp3s in Audition, but the counter remains on 0:00
@ Gisteron: I assume you referred to M0tah’s tutorial and the plugin he made? He did this for a program that’s not freeware. I won’t be paying for something that I can still do for free on another laptop. Thanks anyway!
Too bad I can’t get this working on my new laptop
But I can still easily do it on the old one. (Which actually is my girlfriend’s - I emotionally blackmailed her into letting me use it. Now I have a new one, and she wants it back to do all the dreadful things women do with laptops - like browsing page after page with pictures of shoes.Btw I assume there is no way to copy an installed driver from one computer to another? Especially when they run on a different OS…
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@ cata123: I upgraded to CDex 1.70b - doesn’t make a difference.
Also, it doesn’t make a difference whether I convert an existing mp3 (made with another program) to a RIFF-WAV, or encode a normal WAV directly into a RIFF-WAV: the resulting audio track is only a fraction of the source track.
What settings (CBR/VBR, bitrate etc.) do you use, to have t working properly?
EDIT When I convert the Audio file to 22050 Hz, and then save it as a 80 kbps constant bitrate Mp3, which the FL audio files are, according to Audition, then CDex turns the 3 minute source file into a 19.5 seconds RIFF-WAV…
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well, i can’t remember to have paid anything. there was just lame.exe and mpa2wav.exe. i just throwed the mp3 i needed for FL to the second and it copied it adding a riff tag and a wav extension. to convert wavs to mp3 i did the same but using lame.exe.
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If you can get a copy of XP Sound Recorder try it in your machine.
If you have an XP CD, make your machine dual-boot.
Here’s how you can convert in Sound Recorder, in case you didn’t already know, and for anyone else…
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I don’t really have power now to read the whole story, I thought it will be much shorter… If I guessed right, here is my solution: http://www.music-editor.net/index.html
Just open the audio file and “save as”. Totally free, totally leagal, and you can even edit some stuff with it and save straight to Freelancer’s WAV-MP3 format!!! -
@ ST & DVDMan: I already tried 3 programs. It’s a codec thing, not a program thing. So trying diferent programs won’t help, unless they come with a codec.Thanks nonetheless!
@ Gisteron: O, you prolly use it as a command line utility? I’m a complete and utter moron with that… If you’re willing to spell out what to do, I can give that a try (wrapping it does not involve a codec so I have more hopes this might work).
But I can do it on the old laptop, of course. Too bad I didn’t get Audition to do it, but we all spend enough time on it now. I will try the command line thing if Gisteron talks me thru, but that’s it.
Btw - aparently the RIFF-WAVs are considered outdated. This is way beyond me, but wouldn’t it be possible to get FL to work with proper (non-wrapped) MP3s?
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well, yes, via command line it is possible, too. however, you can just open the folder with the program, the folder with the wav file (you want to make an mp3) or the mp3 file (you want to make a riff-wav) and drag and drop the file on lame.exe/mpa2wav.exe. the result file will occur in the initial audio file directory you dragged the files from.
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@ Gisteron:
You know what?
It is working that way!!!
So thanks a million, Gisteron!!!
The VBR mp3 seems to be kinda screwed up in the process though (weird ‘ruptures’ of silence are woven thru the music) but the 80 kbps CBR is working fine. In Audition that is; I’m now gonna test it in FL.
Btw I hope this message gets thru. I’m on some crappy public access network now.
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Moonhead wrote:
Btw - aparently the RIFF-WAVs are considered outdated. This is way beyond me, but wouldn’t it be possible to get FL to work with proper (non-wrapped) MP3s?after many years (and many different audio editor FAILS) I have now a PC that only has basic XP installed… just to output audio for freelancer…
It’s a darn-right pain to be honest… If there was a hex switch to enable a better (more up to date and less tricky) format im all for it!!& it really sucks having to rip the nuts out of a great soundtrack just so the game plays it error free.
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Xarian_Prime wrote:
after many years (and many different audio editor FAILS) I have now a PC that only has basic XP installed… just to output audio for freelancer…
It’s a darn-right pain to be honest… If there was a hex switch to enable a better (more up to date and less tricky) format im all for it!!& it really sucks having to rip the nuts out of a great soundtrack just so the game plays it error free.
Hear hear
I’m a complete layman to this, but if I understood the news post correctly, the Free Worlds team managed to implement a newer generation of visual technology into FL. So I can imagine that it would somehow be possible to also upgrade the game’s audio handling.
Weird thing is: on my older machines I can rather easily wrap up a VBR mp3 into a WAV that FL can handle, but on my new laptop the best I can do is a CBR. I dunno if it has to be a CBR with a 80 kbps bitrate or thagt I can also use higher bitrates (haven’t tried yet), but I do know my hi-quality VBR mp3 got messed up by the Mpa2Wav.exe wrapper - which is the only tool sofar that can actually render usable sound files. So, I might be finding myself doing the audio stuff on one of the other machines too. Which kinda sucks - I prefer having all the stuff at hand at one machine.
