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?

[Melissa_Voicer]

We are doing the same things you are, just not processing after the fact (we usually have our pre-amps set "once and done" or clients require a "no processing" completely dry read)...we also rarely add music or sound effects. This is why we are able to complete our edit in "one pass/one save." The editing we do is to eliminate second takes, remove breaths, adjust spacing, etc. In other words, we are only saving to a lossy format one time...and that is required by (most of) our clients.

[ryclark]

Thanks for explaining.

[Bob_Howes]

Yup.  That makes more sense.  The work I do involves churning out the "finished product" rather than just a raw voice.  I'm adding music, effects, etc. etc. in multiple stages.

The one comment I'd make is that, if there's ever a chance that you do several sequential recordings, save them, then go back and do your editing, I'd still not use MP3 for the initial recording.  However, if you record, edit, then go back and save every time then your request makes total sense.

[ryclark]

Still I would always keep a .wav safety copy for some time afterwards in case anybody came back wanting changes or lost their .mp3 copy.

[voiceimaging]

Usually the way we work it is we save it to the cloud or server as an mp3 and the client downloads it.  If they lose a copy they can simply go back to the cloud or server and download another mp3 copy.  Again, no need to save as a .wav since that would be another step we don't have to take.

[RichardW60]

Hi - I appreciate the concerns about preserving audio fidelity and accidents, however..

My workflow has slowed down  after "upgrading" from Audition 2 to the lastest CS5.5  due to the lack of presets - both for Save As as well as Export As...

Could you not at least provide us this option so that if we choose to use other formats, it doesn't slow us down..

[Coby Randal]

Thank you. The "File>Export" feature is exactly what I needed. This still applies and works well in Audition CC 2018.

As a side note, some of you may find automating recordings and saving files useful. I have successfully done this with a free Windows 10 app called AutoIT. You can make simple scripts in minutes by watching Youtube tutorials on it. I made a simple script that creates a new file in Audition, records for the amount of time I specify. Stops recording, and then exports the file as a .Flac file. Really nice for ripping cassettes while I sleep. Instead of recording for 6+ hours, it only records for 1.4 hours and saves it for me. It's far less risky. Well, I do have to try the real thing first. Shorter recording durations have worked so far. Cheers!

[BitBangBoom]

Well, this is a bit heartbreaking. We're jumping from Aud 3.0 to Aud 6.0. I'm working with a test machine before rolling it out to staff, and was dumbfounded when I could see no apparent way to set a default save format. If I understand the discussion here, this was a design decision by Adobe.

Has anyone found a workaround? If you primarily save to one specific format, can you tell me how this has affected your workflow? Advice, anyone?

If Adobe is reading this, count me in with the many producers who are disappointed by the disappearance of the default format prefs screen. Here's why: Ordinarily, there are only two formats I use. One is a custom WAV format, 44.1kbps, 16 bits. It triggers a special plug-in that writes a custom header. When it was set as the default, then my Save operation involved a single keystroke.

But now it seems I have to run the gauntlet of a Save dialogue with multiple pull-down menus. Worse, I have to teach my staff, many of whom have very limited experience, to ALWAYS look at EVERY menu in that dialogue and select the same ones. A wrong setting in bit-depth, samplerate or channel number will NOT trigger a warning—but the exported file will later fail in our playback system.  My one-click operation is now a several-click operation, with several areas for error to creep in. Adobe, really?

[voiceimaging]

To my knowlege there has been no attempt to update CS6 to default to whatever standard you want it to be.   Perhaps somebody here has learned of it, but I've contacted Adobe and nothing yet.  I feel your pain.  My workaround was to purchase another program, which I'm sure is not in Adobe's master plan.  But you and I need to be productive and your 7 step scenario as opposed to 1 step sounds worse than cumbersome and more like impossible to translate to your staff. Especially since CS6 will do just about everything under the sun!  Not having an opportunity to have a default save  is like missing turn signals on a car for heavy producers.

[charlieboy808]

I think a lot of the people in favor or the WAV setting are completely missing the point. The fact that it isn't an option is really annoying. I myself need to go through thousands of voice tracks that I'm sent on a regular basis, add a beds, SFX, and any other bells and whistles to make a spot. Once I'm done with this it is either dubbed straight into our audio server to be played on air or (and this is the key feature right here) saved as an MP3 to be given to the client through email. Every time I have to click through to get to the BOTTOM of the list to get to MP3, I'm wasting time that could be spent on the next element. Am I exporting the entire session to WAV? Nope, I just save the session. If there are changes because (and most people in spot production understand this) the client has a change, I just open the session. I am a very keyboard intensive worker and so far the only things that have helped me save time is tabbing to file type, hit "End", and then Up on the keyboard. HOWEVER, you can't just push "Enter" from there, you would then need to Shift+Tab up to the directory field or tab all the way to save on the bottom of the pop-up menu.

I don't care what the Pro-WAV format people have to say. It's not a matter of quality to some of us, it's a matter of time that we don't have.

[Bob_Howes]

I don't want to be contentious...I know everybody's needs are different.  However, I have a question for all of you who record then save straight to MP3 for the client:  why are you using a programme like Audition?

Audition is an extremely capable audio editor and comes into its own when you're editing together multiple takes, applying EQ, adding compression, limiting or any of hundreds of other processes.  If doing any of that, you need to be in wave.

If you genuinely don't do any of that, then a bit of free ware like Audacity or even Windows recorder is completely capable of doing a recording and saving to MP3.

That's the bit I don't understand.  I've recorded thousands of hours of voice overs in my day and never not needed to do at least some processing before it was finished. 

[voiceimaging]

Actually Bob, it's not contentious and a good question.  I can only speak for myself but I'm certain many have followed my footsteps.  Being in radio and voiceovers for a long time, back in the 90's we looked for a program that could do production and v/o editing.  The program was called "Cool Edit" by Syntrillium.  I used that for years until finally Adobe purchased Syntrillium.  Then I upgraded to Adobe Audition 1.0.  Then 1.5.  2.0.  Then 3.0.  Then finally CS.5.  Every time I bought the program it allowed me to have a default save until the latest version.  What a company wants is a loyal customer that continues to open their wallet over and over again. That was me.  Now, because a decision was made, for whatever reason, not to include a default save, Adobe has pushed me to, yes, get another program which is not Adobe.  Now I am pleased with that program and while I still have CS.5 I probably won't consider a future program from Adobe. Perhaps a audio programmer said "hey, the end user should NEVER default to mp3, that's not good for them".  I don't know if that's true or not, but the reality is it forces people like me to look elsewhere. 

And that's not good for the people that make the software. 

[charlieboy808]

Bob Howes wrote:

I don't want to be contentious...I know everybody's needs are different.  However, I have a question for all of you who record then save straight to MP3 for the client:  why are you using a programme like Audition?

I get what you are saying Bob and this has nothing to do with the audio that I create with Audition. In my case, it's a saved session. If the session has no changes then I dub the session live into our Audio Server to be played. I save said MP3 for the client to hear. Two completely different situations here. It's not a matter of "OMG THIS SOUND LIKE AN MP3!" because it honestly doesn't matter. It's going over FM air waves and most won't hear the difference anyways. Especially through their post process $50 deck they bought from WalMart.

[Melissa_Voicer]

It's very simple: because the CLIENT asked for it! You can save the original wavs if you feel there will be cause for revision later, but ultimately, you do what the person who pays you wants you to do.

[BitBangBoom]

This has been a fun thread to follow! Not only because it's so, um, lively, but because I have empathy for everyone here, and have found myself agreeing with each argument. In a single day I might have to harangue new employees—perhaps a little too passionately—about the evils of recording and editing your work files in MP3…then turn around and hammer out a string of MP3 voiceovers without bothering with an intermediate save…then store a dozen mixdowns in a format that is NOT Aud6's unchangeable default

So I feel your pain.

The change to Audition 6 killed me. So much of my Aud3 workflow was rendered useless. Adobe says my custom presets should have transferred, but I couldn't make it work; I had to rebuild dozens of presets and Favorites. (I still haven't found the secret scripting language, if it still exists in Aud6.) Plus, my new workstations are incredibly crashy. I won't even start to get into that nightmare here.

I guess I should probably get around to having a point. I've got two: First, I eventually learned keyboard shortcuts that solved my default format problem and let me work really fast. Let me share one more. In Prefs, I mapped a key combo that existed in Aud3; it creates a mixdown of a multitrack session that is NOT named or saved anywhere. (Why? Because I don't want to save it in Audition's default format, which is what the traditional Mixdown command does. My unsaved mixdown is a way to intercept the file before it gets committed, and during this interception stage I can use other commands to save it in MY preferred format.)

So here's what happens when I'm satisfied with my session, in rapid sequence:

ctrl-alt-shift-M (mixdown but no save)

ctrl-A (select all)

ctrl-alt-S (Save Selection As, described in an earlier post)

Type filename for my WAV

Enter to save

(OPTIONAL EXTRAS)

ctrl-shift-E (to Export, which is set as high-quality MP3 for distribution.)

Type name

Enter to save

ctrl-shift-E again

tab-arrow in dialogue (to change save location and to alter the bitrate for a much crummier, lo-fi "listening copy" that's too ugly to steal.)

Type name (appending “for approval only")

Enter to save

Wow—looks like a lot, when I write it all down. But honestly, it takes just seconds. I can automate with Batch, but for a single finished file, this is just as fast and happens now by muscle memory.

I said I had another point, too, and it's this: I want to say thank you to all of you who have contributed to this thread. It's been enlightening and entertaining. I'm glad I stumbled across this feisty smart crowd.

[voiceimaging]

Agreed on a great thread.  One where you can agree on everybodies point.  Especially the last couple of of comments like yours that give some degree of direction for people.  Everybodys needs are different here, and if a program is to be for the majority of users it should probably have features that compliment that.  CS.6 has so many features it will pratically bake a cake for you.  Features that some of us will never use or have heard of.  Default saving is a biggie. You have found some workarounds for your production which is good.  My path of least resistance was purchasing a program called twisted wave.  How I save now:

Step one: Hit the "A" key (assigned to be "save as") 

Step two:  There is no step 2.  It defaults to my last setting. 

OK, I'm lying now.  I do have to put a name on it and hit save again so I'm exaggerating but you get my point, it's simple, for a simple guy like me.

[BitBangBoom]

Twisted Wave…hmm, can run in a browser?? Cool. Looks good.

I admit, the loss of a user-defined default save format KILLED me. I couldn't believe it. That's what brought me to this forum in the first place; I was certain I was just looking in the wrong place. The workarounds saved the day.

The jump from Aud3 to 6 is huge. I still haven't figured out looping on this new version, because I don't need it that often. I'm glad to know this community exists. I'll be back with questions, I'm sure.

Marty Bishop

on iPhone

[ryclark]

BitBangBoom wrote:

(I still haven't found the secret scripting language, if it still exists in Aud6.)

Unfortunately it isn't a secret. It never made it across from AA3 to the newly coded CS 5.5, CS 6 or CC.

I blame it all on Mac users also wanting a version of Audition which we PC users had used so successfully up until then.

[BitBangBoom]

"Unfortunately it isn't a secret. It never made it across from AA3"

ARRRGH!! Really?? So sad. My pitiful workaround has been to build some useful commands in Favorites, map them to function keys then play a "glissando" up the F-keys. Well, I guess in this metaphor it's more like playing an arpeggio, tapping out a quick sequence of semi-automated steps.

On some days, though, the more accurate F-key pseudo-script metaphor would be "throwing softballs at stacked milk bottles in a carnival." I know what I want to accomplish, but I don't have the skills and the game seems rigged!

[Bob_Howes]

Melissa_Voicer wrote:

It's very simple: because the CLIENT asked for it! You can save the original wavs if you feel there will be cause for revision later, but ultimately, you do what the person who pays you wants you to do.

For the record, although I've had clients request DELIVERY as an MP3 (and these requests are getting few and far between) I've never once had a client ask me to produce in MP3.

I find it hard to believe that people are using a programme as expensive and capable as Audition to simple record then deliver an MP3 without any processing whatsoever.  However, this being the case, maybe some form of option to set your default to MP3 would be the solution.  However, I'd want it very hidden and failsafe to prevent me from accidentally enabling this option during the production process.  That's the rub--a default is a default and Audition can't know whether you're saving an intermediate step (which should be in wave) or a final product (that you might want as MP3).

Finally, I just did a test and, with the default as wave, it just took me under 3 seconds and 2 extra clicks to "Save As" my wave file as an MP3.  I can see this being in the "minor annoyance" category if you're doing a bunch of short recordings every day--but I find it hard to believe that anyone is so booked up and busy that 2 seconds per save is the difference between delivering on time or not.

As others have said, an interesting discussion.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Bob Howes wrote:

Finally, I just did a test and, with the default as wave, it just took me under 3 seconds and 2 extra clicks to "Save As" my wave file as an MP3.  I can see this being in the "minor annoyance" category if you're doing a bunch of short recordings every day--but I find it hard to believe that anyone is so booked up and busy that 2 seconds per save is the difference between delivering on time or not.

Quite... and I thought that everybody working at this level knew about the keyboard shortcuts. But there again, if people are having to keep their noses absolutely to the grindstone every single second of the day, then maybe they never get the time to discover them!

[voiceimaging]

I really think one has to walk in somebody elses shoes.  Again, if you bought a new car and if it took 2 steps to turn on the wipers instead of 1 step (and every car you bought before had just 1 step to turn on the wipers) it's not the time of 2 or 3 seconds to turn the wipers on.  Time has nothing to do with it.  I record between 60 to 80 single mp3 projects a day.  Lets go back to the car illustration, that means it would rain on you 60 to 80 times a day with your 2 step process to turn the wiper blades on each time.  You know every car you owned beforehand only had 1 step, you would get pretty disgusted in the new 2 step process, even if it only added a couple seconds each time.  You probably would want to go out and buy a new car.  (if the car didn't cost $20,000 that is) 

So please, let's extinguish time as the culprit here. It's not about 3 seconds.  It's about convenience and what the end user wants and needs.  (and at one time had)

[BitBangBoom]

Another tale of genuine business pain caused by the loss of a user-defined default save format:

Audition is the editor recommended by Wide Orbit for radio stations that use their audio server system. After customization, Audition will show a new special format in the Save dialogue. It's a version of lossless PCM WAV; I'll refer to it here as WO WAV. When chosen, it triggers a plugin that writes a special header into the saved file. That was simple under AA3—just save. The WO WAV format was the default.

After the upgrade to version 6, we had to teach my staff to jump through the extra hoops we've been discussing in this thread. Many are inexperienced part-time operators who are following a recipe for loading files. But no matter your skill level, you can get tripped up by this new flaw—

If you accidentally forget to switch to the special WO WAV format, your save will fail, and nothing in the system will warn you of that failure. It gets worse. If any one of the dialogue settings is off, the save will fail without warning. (And on our workstations, if the bit depth is set to 24, the application will crash.)

The save operation appears to work. You may not know that anything went wrong until the next day when your new commercial simply doesn't play on the radio. (And you might not even know about THAT until the NEXT day when you get a failure report and an email from an angry salesperson.)

It's just too much room for human error. Every new potential mistake in the workflow multiplies the chances of final failure—and Audition 6 introduces three failure points that didn't exist under AA3. This is not a theoretical problem. We've learned to cope with it, but the lessons were not without significant cost.

To be clear: I love Audition. And I am certain this problem will disappear. Eventually the devs on both teams will work out a way to prevent operators from loading incorrect files…or will at least throw a warning on the screen. But for now, our only defense is enhanced diligence.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

BitBangBoom wrote:

Another tale of genuine business pain caused by the loss of a user-defined default save format: Et seq.

Well as I said before, some thought should be given by the devs to an acceptable workaround as far as exporting is concerned. And hopefully, one of the devs will read about your situation, and take some notice.