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Biscut
Inspiring
April 16, 2017
Answered

Single Large Audio File and Nondestructive Edits

  • April 16, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 933 views

I'm new to Audition and am using CC 2015. I've been looking through the forums on this for awhile but still can't work out exactly how to do the following. Would someone please help walk me through this?

I have a long MP3 file, nearly 9 hours long, 500MB. I want to make some edits to clean up the recording, such as increasing the volume (it was recorded too low), removing accidental and random knocks of things in the background making clanking noises, and taking out a whole section where an engine passes by. Just one track is fine, no mixing or anything. Don't really need effects. I need to be in Waveform making these edits, and imported the file and have been working with it as an MP3 since the switch to .wav would result in a huge file. I'm on an iMac with 16GB RAM, but it's still hefty as an MP3, and some of the spectral frequency display isn't resolving very well. My end product I would like to have is a clean 9-hour MP3.

Since it's so long, I can't do all the edits at one time, so I'd like to save the project and work on it another day. But it appears I can only export the file, writing a new MP3 each time I want to step away from my computer for awhile. Over time, this would result in several rewrites of the file, significantly lowering the audio quality, correct?

How can I go about my project and have the cleanest final audio file after I'm done editing? Is there a way to save my edits from each session, then apply them to the original MP3 file so that I only have to make destructive edits to the file one comprehensive time?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Bob Howes

    If you have to be in Waveform View (say because you want to use the Noise Reduction (Process) or some of the Spectral Display tools then I'm afraid you're stuck with destructive editing.

    However, I now do more of my editing in Multitrack view--even single tracks can be edited quickly there but not change the original files.

    Given the size of your file, I'd probably load it into Audition once, then split it into a bunch of shorter chunks to work on.  You can do this various ways...I'd probably highlight chunks then use Copy to New and name them Part 1, Part 2 and so on.  Then I'd work in Multitrck View unless I had a specific reason to need a Waveform-only effect.  Once all my changes were finished in Multitrack, I'd mixdown each segment.  Finally, when everything was done, I'd reassemble it and save the result to MP3

    However, one other consideration would be how the final product is going to be used.  At the file size and length you're talking about you may start to run into trouble with a fair number of MP3 players, computers, etc.  You may find that a bunch of separate 30 minute-ish files will travel better.

    1 reply

    Bob Howes
    Bob HowesCorrect answer
    Inspiring
    April 16, 2017

    If you have to be in Waveform View (say because you want to use the Noise Reduction (Process) or some of the Spectral Display tools then I'm afraid you're stuck with destructive editing.

    However, I now do more of my editing in Multitrack view--even single tracks can be edited quickly there but not change the original files.

    Given the size of your file, I'd probably load it into Audition once, then split it into a bunch of shorter chunks to work on.  You can do this various ways...I'd probably highlight chunks then use Copy to New and name them Part 1, Part 2 and so on.  Then I'd work in Multitrck View unless I had a specific reason to need a Waveform-only effect.  Once all my changes were finished in Multitrack, I'd mixdown each segment.  Finally, when everything was done, I'd reassemble it and save the result to MP3

    However, one other consideration would be how the final product is going to be used.  At the file size and length you're talking about you may start to run into trouble with a fair number of MP3 players, computers, etc.  You may find that a bunch of separate 30 minute-ish files will travel better.

      ryclark
      ryclark
      Participating Frequently
      April 16, 2017

      And since Audition uses .wav files as it's native file format you should always save your files in that format despite the large file sizes. As you have discovered opening and resaving .mp3 files results in untenable losses in audio quality. It might help to actually split your original .mp3 into smaller chunks before importing into Audition to work as Bob suggests. There are various apps available to split and join .mp3 files available on the net.

        B
        BiscutAuthor
        Inspiring
        April 18, 2017

        Thank you both! I've tried working with the file now in Multitrack but haven't gotten far. Changing the file to .wav made a new 25 GB file (the .mp3 was 500 MB). I'll see if I can work with it but it's massive and took 5 hours just to create.

        Now to split it into multiple files, as least during the editing process. You mention various apps to split and join .mp3 files—does that mean that Audible isn't good / is inconvenient for doing that? Maybe I'll try the Copy and New method Bob Howes mentioned before exploring other software.

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