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Inspiring
January 31, 2020
Question

Confused about "32-bit Mixing" shown (vs Session bit depth)

  • January 31, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 3865 views

Hi, I'm a bit confused as I realize that no matter what bit depth I choose for my Audition session, it always shows "32-bit Mixing" at the bottom next to the session sample rate. Should it not be showing 24-bit if I created a session at 24 bit depth?

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1 reply

SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 31, 2020

No, that's quite correct. There's a huge difference between the format that the mixer works in internally, and what bit depth a file is saved as. The only reason the mixing bit depth is listed at all is historical - Audition used to be capable of doing 16-bit integer mixes, but there was so much confusion caused when people did this and ended up wrecking files that a decision was made a long time back now to do all mixes internally as 32-bit Floating Point ones. These are essentially lossless when it comes to level changes, which integer ones most certainly aren't - you can lose a lot of bits very quickly with integer mixes! So essentially your final mixed output is streamed from the mixer as a 32-bit file, but there's nothing to stop you saving it in any format you like or need. Ideally it's good practice to store at least a copy of it as a 32-bit file, even if you don't necessarily need it at the time - that's the highest quality and most flexible file you'll have. If you are desperate, I can tell you why, but it's technical and essentially boring...

Inspiring
January 31, 2020

Thanks for your reply - so if I understand correctly then, the 32-bit mixing is NOT the same as the file/session bit depth. It is built-in to Audition and is unchangeable. The fact that it is displayed is just because it's always been that way. Correct?

(personally, if all the above is correct, I feel like Adobe should just not even display it!)

This brings me to my 2nd question... I created a session in 24-bit. When I go to export the multitrack session, I'm not looking to do any conversion of bit-depth or sample rate, and by default it is set to Same as Source. However, everything in the menu is pre-populated to 32-bit, which is NOT the same as source. See screenshot...

I mean, at this point, I just want to export a 24-bit file (to match my session) as WAV and MP3.

 

 

Inspiring
February 8, 2020

**bump**