Transferring Skype Audio to Audition

[ThankPod]

I recorded an interview for a podcast via Skype, but when I try adding the audio I get a lot of clicking and feedback. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it sounds like the interview has been stretched out and every other millisecond is filled with a click. Listening to the Skype interview itself, there is minimal feedback. But no clicking. Initially I believed this was caused by the quality of the recording. The audio from Skype is recorded in 16,000 Hz and the base sample rate for the podcast template is 41,200 Hz. So I tried two things:

-Adding the audio. Audition would remind me the sample rate didn't match and it would have to make changes. I clicked okay, listened to the audio, and heard the clicking. I applied a pop and click filter. It had no effect. The audio quality remained awful.

-As the sample rate is not something you can change within the template, I tried a editing the file in Sublime Text to change the sample rate to 16,000 Hz. Again, the audio quality remained awful.

Confusingly enough, I did the same thing for an interview just a week prior and the audio worked seamlessly. The only difference between that interview and my most recent one was the first was on their computer while the second was on their phone. Still, I'm not sure that would be enough to wrench the audio.

The most frustrating piece of this is the Skype audio sounds perfectly fine in the Skype interview and the mp3 audio file I exported when testing all the options I could think of. I'm very new at this, just hopping from youtube video to youtube video trying to understand all the buttons and levers, but this has stumped me. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

There may well be several things happening here. For a start, we really can't recommend using the Podcast template in Audition, especially if you're starting out - it has weird settings that have caused a lot of people to wonder what the heck was going on, and sometimes not to get any results at all, even. It's much better to start with a neutral session and learn to add what you need to improve the sound.

Now it's perfectly possible that something in that template is affecting your audio, although there are a few things we need to clear up here: If you have a Skype audio track as an MP3 and it's recorded at a 16k sample rate then firstly, it isn't going to sound too good anyway, but secondly you can't import it directly as it is - it has to be sample-rate converted to 44.1k (not 42.1k!) before you can put it into the session. Audition won't open MP3 files directly anyway; they are all converted to wav files upon opening, and it's the wav file that you have to convert, not the MP3. And to make sure that you get this working properly, it's best to do these methodically in separate stages.

So, if you open the MP3 file in Waveform view, does it sound okay? If it does, then go to Edit>Convert sample type and set it to convert the file to 44.1k 16-bit (or you can use a greater bit depth if you want - it makes no odds at this stage) and make sure that it still plays. At that point you'll know that it's okay to put in the session file.

So go through those steps first, and let us know how you get on...

[ThankPod]

Hey Steve,

Thanks for the response! I tried re-adding the audio to a new waveform session and it was giving me the same terrible quality. So I re-downloaded the interview and added that. And it worked! But it also cut off 10 minutes. So now I'm just as confused as ever.

I tried cutting the clip for just the missing 10 minutes and adding that, but then the audio issue came right back. I'm not sure if that was because I'd added the first portion to a multitrack session already (I had some quality audio and I was not about to lose it) or what.

My plan is to trying re-downloading the interview, precut it for those final 10 minutes, re-add it to audition in waveform view (as I did previously), and saving it to be added to the other piece. I'll report back with how that goes!

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

Have to say that we've had another report of Skype audio being cut mysteriously - I suspect it's them. There are other Skype recorders around, and I've heard better reports of them - nothing getting cut off at all. Might be worth trying one of those...

[ThankPod]

Apparently the third download did the trick! I guess we'll just chalk the bad audio transfer to the original Skype file? Thanks again for your help!