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mark_765
Participant
September 23, 2010
Question

Raw PCM or Unsupported Format

  • September 23, 2010
  • 2 replies
  • 28973 views

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?

      2 replies

      C
      Captain_Quick
      Participant
      August 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.

      ryclark
      ryclark
      Participating Frequently
      August 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.

      C
      Captain_Quick
      Participant
      September 7, 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.

      SteveG_AudioMasters_
      Community Expert
      SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
      Community Expert
      September 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.

      M
      mark_765Author
      Participant
      September 24, 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.

      SteveG_AudioMasters_
      Community Expert
      SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
      Community Expert
      September 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.

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