How to change the default audio filetype in CS5.5?

[Guest]

I begin recording in the Multitrack and 5.5 insists on saving it as a .wav file.  At our company we only record at 320Kbps, 48Khz, Stereo .mp3 files.  How can I change the default in 5.5?

[_durin_]

We haven't been ignoring this conversation! I've added the notes to our feature record, and I think it's certainly bumped the priority up a bit. Thanks to everyone for the detailed workflows and stories supporting the request - these are very valuable to the process.

[charlieboy808]

_durin_ wrote:

We haven't been ignoring this conversation!  I've added the notes to our feature record, and I think it's certainly bumped the priority up a bit.  Thanks to everyone for the detailed workflows and stories supporting the request - these are very valuable to the process.

Well that's a relief. I'm glad I brought the dead topic back to life! To put it bluntly, workflow is life and to throw a few extra steps in it just causes more stress that isn't necessary. I myself do a lot of production but I'm also the IT Administrator. In my lifecylce of audio editors I've seen some really great features out of all of them but Cool Edit was always the one for me and many others. However, with my situation I understand that software changes and so does workflow. Now, try explaining that to people who just don't care and have the same amount of work as I do but don't care about all the fancy features that AA6 can do. They want Cool Edit back. Out of the 3-4 people who I have given AA6 to, only 1 person uses it exclusively. The rest sneek through our Nexgen system and use the Cool Edit that was installed on those systems instead. This, also a bigger issue with the fact that I bought 4 licenses and only ONE IS BEING USED!

Just another point of view to consider.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

It's very difficult. The devs learned years ago that dropping or altering even the most obscure features in Audition would cause somebody, somewhere, to complain like stink about it. Which can make implementing features rather difficult, especially when their workings impinge on other features, which have also to be revised. This really came to a head with 5.5, where there were some stark choices to be made about what there was time to include in a working, stable release with an absolute time constraint on it. Audition 3 was arguably the most 'complete' version there's been up to now, but this is getting harder to argue when more, and different, features get added to newer releases.

I think that for myself, a lot of these problems could be solved simply by extending the Settings feature to include more options, especially ones that people complain about. And yes, you could include default pathways and save formats in this quite easily, I would have thought. That way everybody might be happy...

[voiceimaging]

Yes, it's got to be difficult to developers to be sure.  I can only imagine if somebody using photography software that it would only save to "TIFF" and never to JPG.  (unless you took additional steps)  That would certainly cause an uproar.  I'm sure the devs have a lot to juggle, but it's safe to say this was a dropped ball.  Nice to know they are listening.

[_durin_]

Applications such as Photoshop default to lossless, uncompressed formats for new files.  Only if you open a JPEG and don't add layers or other unsupported functions does "File > Save" write a JPEG by default.  Microsoft Word doesn't default to TXT when you hit Save.  It's a very common approach to make certain the default format doesn't lose any data and continues to be editable.

But as we've discussed, there is obviously a demand for the option to override these defaults, so we'll be taking a look at how to best approach this.  Thanks again to everyone for the perspectives.

[charlieboy808]

I will say, I was up in arms when "Burn to CD" tab was taken out. The amount of clients/Account Executives who would ask for it to be on CD was huge. However, I haven't had to send someone a CD in a very long time since they have been getting it immediately emailed to them. Albiet lossless, it isn't a huge file that needs to go through someone else's email. So there has been some, "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING TAKING THAT OUT!!!?" that really hasn't mattered. Just this one issue we are talking about here. 😄 thanks for looking into it.

[voiceimaging]

Yes, restoring the option that used to be there for every version up until late.

[Bob_Howes]

Hmmm...mention of Photoshop gives me an idea.

Photoshop has three save options:  Save, Save As and (well separated from the other two) a Save For Web option which defaults to JPEG or GIF.  This remembers your last settings and keeps using them until you change something.

I wonder if something like this could work in Audition...it gives the default option some need but also protects those of us who DON'T want to save to MP3 the protection of it being a separate command rather than just a default option on the normal ones.

[ryclark]

Bringing back scripting in Audition, with file operations included this time (unlike the otherwise earlier AA 3 scripting functions), would allow those who need to customise Audition much more freedom to do so to their own requirements without having to wait for the Adobe development cycle to incorporate new features.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

charlieboy808 wrote:

I think a lot of the people in favor or the WAV setting are completely missing the point.

No, we heard the point, for what it's worth. Still don't want anything like MP3 as a default, but I think that some consideration might be given to an easy MP3 export option for those who claim to have zero time available for anything during their working day...

[voiceimaging]

but I think that some consideration might be given to an easy MP3 export option for those who claim to have zero time available for anything during their working day...

You are correct Steve.  Think of it this way.  When you turn the wipers on in your car you twist the handle on the steering wheel.  Now you buy the same type car, newer model, and you have to always open the glove box FIRST then twist the knob on the steering wheel to get the wipers to work.   Nobody dies.  It takes but just 3 seconds to open the glovebox.  How much time does it take to do that really, and why lose sleep over it.

But then again, how would one feel having to go thru that hokey pokey motion just to do something each time?  That's the rub.  Which by the way, if my illustration with rain was like voiceovers, I would be turning my wipers on about 60 times in one day.   That's a lot of glove compartment openings lol.

[ryclark]

Or safely save them all as .wav by default and use the Batch Process to save them all out as .mp3. You then have a safety .wav uncompressed back up file should you need to go back to any of them in the future.

[voiceimaging]

MP3's go out all day.  Can't save morning mp3's to be batched in the afternoon.  All time sensitive.  When they are done, they need to get to their destination asap.

[ryclark]

OK, I understand.

Just been having a play in CS6 and if you use Export File instead of Save As then it does remember the format between closing and reopening Audition. Also it is available as a Keyboard Shortcut so it could be made very quick and easy. Hope this might help.

[voiceimaging]

Excellent.  That could be a workaround for those that wish for a way to default their saves.  Nice of you to suggest that!

[BitBangBoom]

I'd like to share a fast trick for getting your files saved the way you want them, with the same format and settings every time. It only adds one keystroke to your workflow. Instead of ctrl-S to Save, do this:

crtl-A (to Select All, highlighting the entire recording)

ctrl-alt-S (to Save Selection As…)

That's it. That's the whole trick. The first time you Save Selection As, you'll need to define your preferred settings in the dialogue. Apparently MP3, for a lot of you here. From then on, Save Selection As will default to those settings. (It remembers the last settings you chose for SSA. So don't ever change them.)

That's not the same behavior as Save, which defaults to the format you just opened, or Save As, which defaults to standard PCM WAV.

You can take this one step further. My required format is a specialized type of WAV that triggers a plugin. But I also frequently need to make mp3 copies of the same finished file. For that I choose Export, which is ctrl-shift-E. (I'm doing this from memory, so I may be mistaken on the keystroke!) Just as SSA will retain settings from the last SSA, Export will remember settings from the previous export. As long as I don't change anything, that's always MP3. I can tab-arrow in the dialogue box to change the bitrate if I want.

A typical session ends with a mixdown followed by these rapid keystrokes:

ctrl-A

ctrl-alt-S

Type filename (for WAV)

Enter

ctrl-shift-E

Type name (for MP3)

Enter

Two files, saved to two different drives in different formats, in a couple of seconds. Not quite as fast as the selectable default format I had in Audition 3. But I'm more than happy to trade that for time compression across entire groups of clips. That is just miraculous. That and the ability to change one clip without ungrouping and tediously regrouping. Why, it's changed my life.

Marty Bishop

[charlieboy808]

You see Steve, this is what is called useful help. Thank you Marty for this. I'll give it a try on Monday and see if I can make this a routine of mine. Mostly just export probably.

but I think that some consideration might be given to an easy MP3 export option for those who claim to have zero time available for anything during their working day...

Are you kidding me? How much work do you do in a day. It's not a matter of claiming to have zero time, it's wanting to put that extra bit of time I could have spent doing a better job on a spot.

[w0lfling]

I have a completely different reason for asking this thread's question; storage.

We have the need for lossless editing, yes, so MP3 is not an option except for distribution. BUT, we are a donation-based organisation where everything is distributed free. We have to save up to buy DIs, let alone more storage. So with the amount of recording we do (twice a day) 0.5GB per track on a 17-track recording and have to archive everything. So that's a lot of wasted space using WAV files. Since most media is moving from AAC and MP3 to FLAC, it'd be great to have a setup where I could either live record to FLAC, or auto convert all the WAV files to FLAC on first save.

Reaper does this, but we can't afford to retrain everyone to use it. At the moment, though, it looks like we might have to.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

w0lfling wrote:

Since most media is moving from AAC and MP3 to FLAC, it'd be great to have a setup where I could either live record to FLAC, or auto convert all the WAV files to FLAC on first save.

It sounds as though it would make sense to add this to the Export options. Audition could only ever live-record to its internal working format, and that's only available in multitrack mode anyway. But some means of establishing a default Export option and having a single keystroke to activate it does seem like a reasonable option, considering all of the previous discussion in the thread.

[hobsonmedia]

I've read this entire thread (many months after it was launched) because I, too, was searching for the obvious default so many have been clamoring for. I appreciate the suggestions of a workaround, but find myself stunned at the oddness of Bob's arguments.

Does he have some sort of authority in the Audition world? If so, I can't fathom being on the receiving end of so many clear consumer requests for something simple, and repeatedly replying to those requests by essentially questioning the knowledge/ability of the consumers.

Bob, it would be immensely simpler to create an update, share the plug-in, and have everyone happy. Those who choose not to use it, wouldn't. The rest of us would face the oh-so-perilous journey of working with mp3.

What am I missing here?

[AudioGuru-vZElno]

I've ran across this thread a few times in the past, researching how to change the default "save as" format, and thought the same thing about Bob's replies.

Quite simply, I think the misunderstanding is most of us are not editing .MP3's numerous times.  We record as .WAV and save as .MP3's.   I know that I record directly into Audition, which could be TV audio, voice work, guitar, etc., I then edit and then save the mix-down to an .MP3, which is then emailed out so radio stations have access to the clips. (I work for a radio prep service.)

I realize this feature request seems small to some, but to me it was a big deal.  I still use Audition 1.5 99% of the time because of this missing feature.  I usually only switch to 6 to take advantage of the auto crossfading as that makes short work of some of the editing I need to do.

After reading the later replies I think by creating a couple of shortcuts I can do what I need to do.  I just did a quick "Ctl-A" to "Select All" and then a "Ctl-S" to "Save Selection As" and it seems to work fine.

Bob, I realize a few seconds, and a few extra clicks, isn't a big deal to most people, but I went back and looked, in the last 10 years I've recorded / edited / saved and sent over 61,000 clips, so, yes, while those few seconds do make a difference, more than that, those few less mouse clicks will cause less damage on someone like me that has serious repetitive stress injures from doing their job.

AudioGuru

P.S. Thanks Adobe for putting this on the radar.