Importing .WAV files

[bluemt]

Is anyone aware of any problems with importing/converting .wav files in PT24? Does the conversion to SD2 affect the quality at all? Thanks

[Chris Lambrechts]

do it all the time without any problems.

Can't answer the quality question, I convert 16-bit .wav's to 24-bit PT sd2 files, can't hear the difference to be honest, never paid much attention to it anyhow.

Chris Lambrechts

[carson]

I had the following problem last week:

Needed to import approx. 200 48 khz .wav files (burned on an ISO9660 CDR under Windows 95) into a 48 khz PT5 session (under OS 8.6). If file names were A01, A02, A03...A22 PT would import all the even filenames and A01 and A03. After that I would get "End of file" errors. Then when I tried other files named B01, B02...B22 all the even numbers would convert again and B01 as well but with B03 processing would end with the same error. After 2 studio days wasted the penny finally dropped on me. I converted everything to mono .wav (L/R) in CoolEdit and PT was happy. Was I wrong in assuming that PT should be able to convert and import exotic formats like wav? Even when it's this fancy *stereo* thing....

[This message has been edited by carson (edited August 31, 2000).]

[Denis N]

Hi ! I don`t remember the problem with converting of files. And the quality always at the high level !!!

[dcornutt]

Just a couple of guesses,
depending on how PT "views" this import process, you may have been running into the "1gig" file limit of Mac OS 8.6.
(ie..if Mac OS considers that process to be "one" file...then..you would reach the end of file limit at 1 gig).

2nd guess, is that the CD dir was bad.
But, since you were able to do it in Cool Edit, I guess that answers that.

3rd Guess is..that is has to do with the diff in how Mac OS reads sequential files..such as Image seqence..etc.
My guess here is that the A, B is what is throwing it off. In my experience, Mac OS..and other Mac apps..."usually" read the last numeric. IE... "Filename001, etc.
Not AFilename001, BFilname001. This would also depend on how PT is set up to read it. A Digi Tech could answer this.

I know that in Quicktime..if I load an image sequence...that..Mac OS considers that process to be "one" file. If it reaches over 1 or is it (2)? gigs (the theoritical file limit under anything earlier than OS 9)...it will give you a "..end of file error".
If this is the case..an upgrade to OS 9..may solve it.

Even though youve already found a solution, thought Id throw this out there for speculation in the even you need to do this again. No sense lowering the quality of your file. Lowering the bit depth..probably lowered the file size..under the OS 8.6 file limit. As well..it could also be a function of any of the above..ie..how PT reads incoming seq..and..as a result...the combination of switching apps...and...lowering the size..got it through.

Just a theory

dcornutt

[carson]

dcornutt, thanks for the thoughts!

About the 1st guess:
If I remember correctly I tried to import the problem files seperately but it didn't help so the 1G limit shouldn't be the problem. The files were anywhere from 1,3 Mb to 65 Mb.

2nd guess:
You said it! Unless it's a platform problem. I don't even know if there's a Mac version of CoolEdit, but anyway I opened the files (which were created under Win95 in the first place) in CE under Win95.

3rd guess:
Yeah, a Digi tech (not Digitech ) oppinion would be nice. Hopefully it will appear here for everyone's benefit. Or if I find out something, I'll post it. However, I tried giving the problem files other names - like "x" or whatever, with no result. (My first solution was to save everything as AIFF in CoolEdit but PT couldn't even see those files, which might not be PT's fault, though).

About lowering the quality. My last way out would have been to convert everything to 44.1 khz and burn an audio CD, which shouldn't cause problems for PT(!), but when I realized just how long sample rate convertion takes I gave my brain an extra squeeze, and luckily found that splitting files in mono was the way (converting to mono is much faster than sample rate convertion). I didn't have a reliable soundcard for the PC handy so I had to burn a CD to get the files out.

So anyway...I couldn't help thinking...PT is very specialized and professional. There's a lot of stuff it can't do and isn't supposed to do, and in general it does what it's suppoed to do very well. On the other hand it is not very hospitable to foreign file formats (I mean...who would claim that Digidesign products are the most hospitable products? But maybe I just say that because I'm so hooked on laptop audio...) Those two, to me, sound like there's some kind of phase cancellation going on between the different directions in the Digi philosophy. Like, if I wanna do loop based audio I might prefer to do some work in Samplitude or something and maybe I have some MIDI which was done in Logic, and then I would wanna put it all together in PT in sync with a movie. This time it didn't quite work that way. Getting to the point where PT could do what it's supposed to do was just such a hassle. (It's just so much more fun when you have some audio in your session!)

But to be fair, the system I used was on an old upgraded Mac (I forget which), and it isn't the most stable system in the world.

[This message has been edited by carson (edited September 04, 2000).]