Animations with Uncompressed/Lossless Audio Possible?

[DigitalDesignDude]

I use .WAV audio files with the following publishing settings and specs. in my Adobe Animate ActionScript 3.0 projects, but I find the audio sounds compressed or distorted in the final exported SWF and uncompressed .MOV files.

 

Specs From Test Audio File

• File Type: Wav
• Sample rate: 44100 Hz
• Bits per sample: 16 (also tried 32)
• Bit Rate: 2116 kbps
• Codec: PCM S24 LE 6241)
• Channels: Stereo

You can hear the difference in audio quality with the following Audio Sync Tests I did comparing exported video from Adobe Animate with After Effects using the same 10-minute WAV file and looping animation frames.

After Effects Audio Sync Test
https://youtu.be/dgR-wZQf11o

Adobe Animate Audio Sync Test
https://youtu.be/C4V99muI3Ng

The After Effects video has no audio issues but audio distortion is noticeably present in Adobe Animate's video. On top of that, Adobe Animate's audio progressively goes out of sync as you get closer to the end of the video, but that's an issue that might be worth discussing in a separate forum post.

Are there any workarounds for the distorted audio that don't involve exporting a video and then replacing the audio from a video editor?  

I ask this because I make Adobe Air apps and SWF files for real-time, interactive or randomized animations.  So if there is some alternative method for playing audio files in lossless quality through an ActionScript 3.0 library that might solve my issue if there's no other choice.

Thank you for reading this and for any input you can provide.

[n. tilcheff]

Hi mate,

@Interinactive and I had a discussion about the sound issues a few years ago. It may be of some interest:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/animate-discussions/the-audio-system-is-completely-broken/td-p/124171...

After that, he has posted multiple times about the problem in the prerelease forum, and all his reports and complaints have been ignored.

[Interinactive]

Crazy that this is still a thing.

Here was the project, by the way. 6 years of animating ~6.5 hours worth of footage:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1008860/Repella_Fella/

Thankfully the audio comments are few and far between, but clearly Adobe does not give a damn about this. I must have reported on it dozens of times over the years.

I spent days, if not weeks trying fixes for this. Combos of file formats at different frequencies, export settings, trying to use other audio to drown it out etc etc. The only way to eliminate it is to not rely on Animate itself for the audio, which is a shame. For a paid product, it's embarassing.

[DigitalDesignDude]

I'm sorry to hear you went through all that and that there's still no built-in solution for you, me and everyone else who has to make compromises with Animate's/Flash's audio issues!

We're not even able to use SWF files for web-based content anymore so it would be great if we no longer had to use the same audio compression options that were developed in times when SWF files needed to be small. It seems fixing the issue or providing other compression options is not a big enough priority for Adobe or it's not that simple to do sadly.

I think my best option is to use the Speech 44 kHz compression option with WAV files as that seems to remove the crackling/distorted audio issue for me.

It's also unfortunate that the export as WAV option from Adobe Flash CS6 was removed, as that gave me decent combined audio of all the audio clips on the main timeline. It just doesn't work with audio from Movieclips or code-based animations which I like to work with.

It might be worth noting I also tested sound quality and audio syncing in other animation apps like Toon Boom Harmony and Moho and they do not have the same issues that Adobe Animate has. At least not from what I can easily see or hear. 

Toon Boom Harmony Audio Sync Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OASat_dwem0

Moho Audio Sync Test
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMrOEMPca-w 

[DigitalDesignDude]

Update:

I just tested out exporting another Adobe Animate audio sync test using the same 10-minute WAV file with Speech 44khz compression and somehow that solved both my syncing and crackling audio issues!

The audio quality sounds decent enough for what I need, and there doesn't appear to be any progressive audio desync even near the end of the below video:

Adobe Animate Audio Sync Test With No Desync or Audio Crackling Issue

https://youtu.be/xQi0Fn6fdGM

I hope this wasn't by sheer chance that this export worked out so well, but it seems using the Speech 44khz publishing setting with WAV files is the way to go until another solution is developed.

[lllihp]

It generally depends on the audio, sometimes entire music tracks will play perfectly but then a 0.5s sound effect will crackle. Some are much bigger offenders than others.