imported clips sound bad in audition

Report · Nov 01, 2022

I record my podcast using Zencastr (free version) with someone who can't be in the same room as me. Zencastr spits out 4800k mp3 files (can only get wav if you pay), which I can bring into Audition as individual tracks to edit and mix.

Somehow I turned on a filter deep in the bowels of Audition b/c now the imported tracks sound tinny and robotic when played in Audition but sound warm when I play them from the Finder (hover the file and click the play icon) or in the Music app.

I choose "no template" when I start a new multi-track file and have tried creating the file with both 4800k and 4100k options.

Any idea of what settings I may have triggered? Probably with a keyboard shortcut that I didn't intend.

Report · Nov 02, 2022

Audition doesn't do anything to any file at import time, so whatever is happening is almost certainly a playback artifact, or something to do with the MP3 decode (although I think that's unlikely). If you open the track in waveform view does the same thing happen?

Report · Nov 02, 2022

I didn't suggest that Audition was doing something to the files on import. Rather, some kind of sound editing setting had been turned on that was changing how it was played. Something that someone else might have turned on intentionally was unintentional by me. I'm aware that when you select one of Audition's templates when creating the file, it "flips a lot of switches" in an effort to save someone time. I learned a long time ago not to use the "podcast" template b/c it sounds like garbage.

In the end, and b/c I'm on a time crunch, I "fixed" this by deleting all my settings and preferences, which is only somewhat less painful than having this bad sound on my clips. It did work.