Lost Files in ADOBE Audition

[davidl76434072]

Hi!! I was recording on Adobe Audition earlier and left it unsaved but with the laptop still turned on and plugged in. When I returned the computer had crashed and I had to disconnect it from the electricity supply and take out the battery to restart it. When it finally restarted there was a lot of the files I had recorded still on Audition but several more had disappeared. Can anyone offer me any advice as to whether I can retrieve these files or should I just be glad that at least there's some of them still there and go and re-record the missing ones (about four hours work!!!)? Many thanks in advance for your help, DLarks

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

If you were recording in Waveform view, be grateful that you've retrieved anything at all after a crash - you were lucky! If you were recording in Multitrack view, you should have everything intact up to the point of the crash, as it would have been written directly to disk, as opposed to a temp file in Waveform view. In Multitrack, the only thing that would trash your files completely would be a catastrophic HD failure.

[davidl76434072]

Hi Steve and thank you for your answer. I was recording in multitrack / edit view. All the music tracks I had loaded are still there but there's only five out of about maybe twelve of the tracks I had recorded myself and added. I didn't notice anything that would have indicated a crash and would have been working for at least three hours or more after the last track that's left on Audition was recorded, but as I said I left it temporarily and came back to a blank grey screen. Many thanks for your help, I think it's time to get behind that microphone again!!!

DLarks

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

It does rather sound as though something failed without you realising it...

[davidl76434072]

Thanks again Steve, much appreciated!!

[ryclark]

If you had actually recorded the audio onto tracks in the Multitrack view then it should still be on your computer somewhere. The Audition session that you had open when you left the computer would not have the location of the new files saved in the .sesx unless you had done so before you left the PC to it's own devices. If you are running the latest version of Audition then it might possible have auto saved the info if you that option turned on in Preferences.

Anyway the moral is if you are going to have a break from running any sort of software always do a save before you leave the computer.

[Ryan31871081nfho]

I work in radio and so I default to recording in WAVEform view.  I was just finishing a recording interviews and a co-worker log me out of Adobe at his desk so he could use one of our 2 licenses.  Me and another co-worker were already logged in and he logged me out without asking who was using it.  From what you are saying here is that because I was recording using WAVEform view there's a 99.999% chance those interviews are gone.  Again being in radio I am so used to recording "the old fashion way" that I only use the multi-track view when piecing spots together.  Sounds like I have to change the way I use ADOBE.

[emmrecs]

Yes, unless you are very fortunate and the temporary files which contain your interview recordings were actually being saved to your computer (and hence may be recoverable if you have not shut down or restarted it since).  

Did you have "strong words" with the colleague who logged you out?  I must confess I'm intrigued how one user can log out another user.

[angelat92401595]

I am new to Audition. I was told to record in wave files because I could track edits And it would always come up even if the system shut down. When I need to add a music bed I cut and paste into the multitrack. From reading this thread it sounds like I should always use multitrack.. is there any downside to doing it this way?

[SuiteSpot]

No - none.  It is the safest and most efficient way of doing things and it is nondestructive

[Bob_Howes]

Yup.  Multitrack has evolved over the years and I now probably do 90% of my work in there, only moving to Waveform for effects that can't be done in real time.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet is the Auto Save facility in Multitrack.  If you go to Edit/Preferences/Auto Save you can set things up to save your session and content files at specified time intervals...to specified locations.  The location can be a second HDD or even some cloud storage.  This won't help the OP's problem this time but can be a life saver in the future.

[ryclark]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Bob+Howes  wrote

One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet is the Auto Save facility in Multitrack. 

Actually I did Bob, but only in passing since we had minimum info at that point. #

If you are running the latest version of Audition then it might possible have auto saved the info if you that option turned on in Preferences.

[angelat92401595]

Great tip .. thanks a million. I love the idea of saving to the cloud, as my laptop sometimes crashes.  Wish i did this on an earlier show i was recording, but live and learn!

God bless you

[angelat92401595]

Thank you! I will do it from now on that way.  It just seems like a. More confusing interface... do i just make sure I like the R for record on the left side of the screen?  Also is there a standard dbu i should be set to?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

angelat92401595  wrote

I was told to record in wave files because I could track edits And it would always come up even if the system shut down. When I need to add a music bed I cut and paste into the multitrack. From reading this thread it sounds like I should always use multitrack.. is there any downside to doing it this way?

Ah, I see where the confusion is. Wave files are the native uncompressed file format that Audition records in, and the format in which you should be saving files whilst you're still working on them. That's not the same as the Waveform editor! 'Wave' as a file description and 'Wave' as in waveform don't mean the same thing. Yeah, it's confusing... I'll try to explain:

The difference between Multi-track recording and Waveform recording is significant. In Waveform recording, everything is written to a temp file, and not saved in a permanent form until you've stopped recording and actually done the save. Yes it's sort-of a wave file up to that point, but not a particularly safe one, as it only exists as a temp file that you can't open directly. After that, it's a 'normal' wave file.

Recording in Multi-track view is different though. You have to name the file before you start, and the recording is made directly to that file. So if anything goes wrong, you should still be able to rescue it and play it up to that point. Yes it's still a wave file.

Why are there two views you can record in, you might be wondering? It's not really about recording, as such. The Waveform editor is what's known as 'destructive' - so if you change anything about a waveform and save that change, then that's it - you can't go back. This is necessary for tidying up files, etc and trimming them to length to make distribution copies. The Multitrack editor is different, though. It's non-destructive; what look like edits are nothing of the sort, really - all that's happening is that selective parts of the file you have placed on the track are being played, at the time you've set them to. And this is incredibly flexible, as you can use the same bits over again it you want, and mix them with as many other files as you want. But, you only get a final mixed file when you either export or mix down the results. That's the one you might need to trim in the Waveform editor.

I hope that makes it a little clearer!

[angelat92401595]

It sure does.. great job explaining all of this.

May I ask a follow up question.. on that save option there is the option of MP3 as well as wave.  I inadvertently saved as an MP3.. do i lose something by editing that file, or do i need to go back to the original wave file.  (I did quite a bit of editing )

Thank you Steve and God bless you

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

angelat92401595  wrote

May I ask a follow up question.. on that save option there is the option of MP3 as well as wave.  I inadvertently saved as an MP3.. do i lose something by editing that file, or do i need to go back to the original wave file.  (I did quite a bit of editing )

Yes, unfortunately you do lose, and it can be significant. MP3 files are what's known as 'compressed', and when they are compressed, some of the (supposedly) less audible sounds are saved at a much lower bit depth, giving something called a 'coding gain'. In English, this means that they take up less room on your hard drive. That's fine, except that to open them for further editing, they have to be decoded - which means that you can only edit the lower-quality file. If you do that, and re-save the result as another MP3 things get even worse, as you are obliged to re-encode the file each time you do this. MP3 was only ever intended to be a distribution format - not an editing one.

Wav ('wave') files are different. They are uncompressed, so there is no loss - unless you've been very silly - when you save and re-open them. That is why Audition's native format is wav. Large numbers of people, either willfully or in ignorance, choose to ignore this, and that is why there is so much appallingly bad audio around!

So the process is quite straightforward - you record and edit using wav files, and send out distribution copies as MP3s. Unless, that is, you are producing CDs, in which case the master has to be a 44.1k 16-bit stereo wav file.

[angelat29271274]

I just checked the tascam we use for recording and the recording setting was MP3 unfortunately.

ANy suggestions?

[ryclark]

Well first make sure that it is set to .wav for future recordings. However working on the .mp3 file that you do have won't get any worse if you continue to work on it in Audition as a .wav file and keep saving it as such. Unfortunately you won't get back anything that was lost in the original .mp3 compression but if it was a reasonable level voice recording saved at a fairly high .mp3 bitrate it shouldn't be too bad.