In audition how do you save audio channel label information in wav files?

[sb_lupo]

I used audition to extract the soundtrack from a video which has 5.1 audio and when I open that wav file in audition I can see that each channel has a label to the right (L, H, C, LFE, etc.) (click here to download file 1) (screenshot below).

However if I create a new file with multiple channels (click here to download file 2) which is basically an upmix of the above audio file from 5.1 to 7.1.2 and then I try to name the channels manually on the right by right clicking and assigning each channel to a speaker (L, R, C, LFE, etc.) and then save it back to WAV (file 2 here), when I reopen it, all channel information is lost and all the tracks go back to being numbered 1-10 (screenshot below).

This is really annoying. I am sure I am doing something wrong but I can't work out what that is. Could someone please help me? The output does not need to be in wav format as long as I can retain the channel information when adding this audio file as the sound track in programmes such as Premiere. Thanks in advance. 

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

There have been questions about this before, and reference has been made to Premiere, which also has the same issue. Unfortunately it's unfixable because the one thing that even the most comprehensive wav spec (Broadcast wav, which is what Audition uses) doesn't allow for channel names at all in its metadata.

I think that part of the reason for this is to do with the way the information is stored in the wav file. Each bit for all of the channels is stored sequentially, so all the channels are effectively intermingled into one sequence. This keeps them in order - so the most important part of the metadata as far as this is concerned is for it to have a record of how many channels in any given file that there are and the sample rate, etc, so that it can unpack them correctly. So the metadata is essentially about the characteristics of the file as a physical entity, and no thought at all was given to any means of storing and then reallocating channel names. The complete spec for broadcast wav files is freely available from the EBU, and nowhere in it can I find any reference to channel naming at all. This is why Audition doesn't really have any choice about the labels it puts on the end of the waveform displays, and won't store whatever you rename them to - there's simply nowhere to do it in the present specification.

[sb_lupo]

Thanks for your reply. Given that it can be done (the first WAV file has this detail), do you know which software can achieve this if audition can’t?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

It's not stored in the file at all - Audition just assumes that any 6 channel file is actually 5.1 and labels it as such upon opening. If you create a file with any other number of channels it doesn't remember anything about them, so just numbers them sequentially. It's the same with a stereo file - it'a automatically labeled L and R. This labeling only happens when the file is opened, though. Even a 7.1 file is opened with just channel numbers. It doesn't even recognise 8 channel files as potentially 7.1 - it just labels them 1-8.

This isn't about software - it's entirely about the restricted metadata of the format. No software can get around that at all.

[sb_lupo]

thank you for that! It is precise and accurate.

Is it possible to create a custom 7.1 file in audition at all and have it retain the channel information or is is unsupported functionality?

thanks

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Please re-read the last two sentences in my previous reply - I think that's pretty clear. Just in case it isn't, the answer is no, because there is no metadata entity to store it in; it was not allowed for when the specification was developed. There is nothing that Adobe - or any other app provider - can do about this. Yes it would be possible for Audition to 'interpret' an 8 channel file as being 7.1 and label it as such, but if it did, it would annoy just about every user of an 8-channel location recorder rather a lot!