Raw PCM or Unsupported Format

Report · Sep 22, 2010

I am trying to import some .mp3 songs into Audition.

When I use the shortcut import button, nothing happens.

When I'm in multitrack view, I use

- Insert>Audio.

- I highlight the track I want to import

- In the "Show File Information" box it says "Raw PCM or Unsupported Format".

- I click open

- A box comes up saying

Could not open file:

blah blah blah.mp3

The selected file does not appear to be a supported file type.

To attempt to open this file and interpret it as audio data, select PCMRaw Data as the File Type, enter an asterik (*) in the File Name field and click Open to display all files.

Any ideas about how to fix this so I can import these .mp3 files into Audition?

Report · Sep 23, 2010

You can't import an MP3 like that, it has to be decoded to a wav file first, so that it's the same format as your session. The easiest way to do this is to open your MP3 in edit view (which will do this automatically) and then insert the resultant file into your multitrack session.

Report · Sep 23, 2010

Cheers Steve but thats still not working.

Tried the same process in edit mode (both shortcut and File>open) but I'm still getting the same message.

I tried changing the file extension to .wav but still got the same message.

I tried changing the file extension to .pcm and only got 30 seconds of white noise (it should be a 3 minute clip).

I downloaded a crappy mp3 to wav converter off the net but that only changed the file to half a second of white noise.

Report · Sep 24, 2010

mark_765 wrote:
I tried changing the file extension to .pcm and only got 30 seconds of white noise (it should be a 3 minute clip).
I downloaded a crappy mp3 to wav converter off the net but that only changed the file to half a second of white noise.

Okay, useful experiments, and now I'm pretty sure that you've got MP3 files with corrupted headers - which is why Audition won't open them. 30 seconds of white noise is about correct for a 3 minute file (remember it's compressed...), and if an external converter won't open them either, that pretty much indicates correct content and a stuffed header.

The fix that often works in this case with audition is to open the files as .raw files, and then specify that this is MP3 data. You may have to take a guess at the rate, but the compression ratio indicates that they may well be 128k files. If you can get them to open like this, then resaving them as fresh MP3 files will correct the header data. Inevitably, whenever you have to do this sort of operation to MP3 files you lose quality - strictly speaking this is a distribution format only.

Report · Sep 24, 2010

I agree that it's likely to be corrupted headers. You may be able to find a program designed to fix corrupted headers, e.g. foobar2000 has a function to fix corrupted vbr headers

Report · Sep 24, 2010

You astound me sometimes. Are you really one of the three people on this planet that know more about this program than anyone other than the programmers?

Report · Sep 25, 2010

There are, in fact, quite a few people that do - but not so many that are actually prepared to share the information...

Report · Apr 21, 2011

Finally tried what you suggested...I changed the extension to .raw and opened it. It's come up with an "Interprit Sample Format As" box with options to change the Sample Rate (which I've been keeping at 44100), Channel (I've kept it on Stereo), and Resolution (16-bit). Theres nothing about the 128k. I click OK and the next box of options come up saying "PCM Raw Data (no header)". The options here are Data Formatted As, When opening, offset input data by, and a tick box to Create .DAT header on save.

I've tried playing round with all of these but it still ends up as white noise. I tried mixing the white noise down as an MP3 file which didn't work.

Any ideas how to get it working?

Report · Apr 22, 2011

I should perhaps have made it clearer. Try using 'Open As', don't change the file extension and then specify the numbers, and see if it opens then.

Report · Aug 26, 2011

I see that this is an old thread but still open.My apologies in advance if I should have opened

a new thread.

I am having the same problem as mark_765 and was inspired by the very knowlegable

replies.The issue I am having may or may-not-be related to the original post.

Turns out that my MP3 files that Autition 3.0 will not open are 44100Hz / 32-bit float / 320 bps

format files. After thinking about it, it seems that this is not a standard format and obviously

one that Audition 3.0 doesn't like.

As an experiment I opened the MP3 file(s) in Audacity (freeware) and exported the file as a

44100Hz / 16 bit 320bps mp3 file. Audacity uses the LAME v3.98 encoder.

The reworked file then opened with no problem in Audition 3.0

Hope this helps anyone with a similar situation.

BTW - I used Audition CSS5.5 (4.0) but it took over my computer and so I removed it and

went back to 3.0.

Report · Aug 27, 2011

As a matter of interest how did AA CS5.5 appear to take over your computer? No one else seems to have reported this.

Report · Sep 07, 2011

ryclark wrote:
As a matter of interest how did AA CS5.5 appear to take over your computer? No one else seems to have reported this.

Some new processes that came with CS5.5 were using up system resources and slowing the

machine down.

Also had frequent system freeze and chassis fan would jump to full speed for no obvious

reasons.

Only reboot would reset the fan speed. All symptoms went away when I removed CS5.5 from

the machine.

Report · Aug 27, 2011

Captain Quick wrote:
Turns out that my MP3 files that Autition 3.0 will not open are 44100Hz / 32-bit float / 320 bps format files. After thinking about it, it seems that this is not a standard format and obviously one that Audition 3.0 doesn't like.

If they were reported as that, then whatever reported them was cruelly misinformed. All MP3 files are inherently integer-based compressed files. Audition can decode these to a 32-bit FP format, though. If you have an MP3 file reported as floating point, then the header information is broken, and the way to open it in Audition is slightly different, as described earlier in the thread.

Report · Sep 07, 2011

SteveG(AudioMasters) wrote:
Captain Quick wrote:
Turns out that my MP3 files that Autition 3.0 will not open are 44100Hz / 32-bit float / 320 bps format files. After thinking about it, it seems that this is not a standard format and obviously one that Audition 3.0 doesn't like.
If they were reported as that, then whatever reported them was cruelly misinformed. All MP3 files are inherently integer-based compressed files. Audition can decode these to a 32-bit FP format, though. If you have an MP3 file reported as floating point, then the header information is broken, and the way to open it in Audition is slightly different, as described earlier in the thread.

Thanks for the info. You are in all likelyhood right and I can't say otherwise.

Audition reports the files as "Raw PCM or Unsupported Format" and Media Info

reports the files simply as MPEG Audio / 320 Kbps / 44.1 KHz Lossy audio files.

I did try the other ways described in this thread. Audition unfortunately will not

play the files as anything other than noise regardless of the settings or method I use

to open or import them in. The workaround I described at least got me up and running

and was able to complete the project at hand.