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  #1  
Old 12-01-2008, 09:14 PM
tha]-[acksaw tha]-[acksaw is offline
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Default Making Seperate Left & Right files into 1 Stereo

I'm gonna be a little picky on this one. LOL. I'm trying to keep away from using the built in ProTools bounce to disk.

I've been able to route all my audio tracks out of a ProTools 44.1/24bit session, into my Apogee Rosetta 800, and then use the Apogee's UV22HR to dither it down to 16bit. I can then route my Rosetta digital outs sending 44.1/16bit, back into ProTools. I then make up a stereo track within the session and make an internal bounce.

I'm wondering if anyone knows of a program, or any other way without using PT bounce to disk, that will allow me to create a single stereo file using the Left and Right tracks from my 16bit internal mixdown. I'm not looking to burn these two files to a CD.

I guess, to simplify things, what I'm looking for is a MASTER 16bit WAV file that has a nice pure Apogee sound. I don't want to have to print a CD everytime i need to check it out on other systems. I'd rather just move a file around. BUT I WANT THE APOGEE CONVERSION ON THE BACK END!

Also, if I'm way off page here with my logic, let me know! I'm always looking for info, and good ways to pull my head out of my rectum. haha!

Thanks guys, for any help!

Nick
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  #2  
Old 12-02-2008, 06:10 AM
Carl Kolchak Carl Kolchak is offline
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Default Re: Making Seperate Left & Right files into 1 Stereo

If I'm reading this right you're ending up with the 16bit dithered output from your Apogee back into your 24bit PT session, correct?

All you need to do is select the new region in the region list and select "export regions as files".

From the prompt select stereo interleaved 16bit.

This will interleave your two L & R mono files into one stereo file and truncate off the bottom 8 bits, but they are redundant as you've already dithered them off anyway.

Hope that helps.

P.S. also disable the dither option in your prefs so that the exports don't get double dithered, which I seem to remember was a bug/problem that may not have been fixed anyway, so you may be stuck with an automatic pass of dithering whether you like it or not.

Last edited by Carl Kolchak; 12-02-2008 at 06:16 AM. Reason: turn off dither in prefs
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  #3  
Old 12-02-2008, 05:20 PM
tha]-[acksaw tha]-[acksaw is offline
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Default Re: Making Seperate Left & Right files into 1 Stereo

Carl, thanks so much for the great info, your the man!

I understand you completely. This is a great solution. It did inspire two BIT related question.

I don't know anything about dither aside from the fact it takes 24 bit audio and makes it 16 bit audio. If I record 16 bit converted audio out of my Apogee, into a 24bit PT session, will the audio be 24 bit again? Thats my first question.

If so, am I gonna lessen the quality if I use the "export regions as files", because of the fact I'm cutting off 8 bits, that arnt there, and doing it for a second time? I do realize that I will be losing quality when I go from 16 to 24 bits anyway, but I don't wanna make it any worse!

I've been reading so many things about quality loss with bounce to disc and riping from anything other then a master disc. I just wanna keep the audio as pure from the Apogee as possible!

Thanks for any extra help!

Nick
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  #4  
Old 12-02-2008, 06:33 PM
Carl Kolchak Carl Kolchak is offline
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Default Re: Making Seperate Left & Right files into 1 Stereo

If you record back into a 24bit session, yes the file will be at 24bits but the audio information will have been reduced to 16bits. The remaining 8bits will be completely unused though inherently part of the audio file because PT cannot use mixed bit rates within a session currently.

It is completely safe to truncate (i.e. just chop off) those last 8bits as they contain absolutely no audio information (not even hiss).

Two things I should point out are, as I said (and I'm afraid I don't have time to research this for you now) there was a bug, which may have been fixed, that automatically applied the default Digidesign dither to fades and exported files. If that is still the case, your already dithered recording would then have dither applied to it again, which is best avoided as you can get a buildup of audible hiss from the noise shaping and possibly even quantization errors between the two different types of dither.

The other thing is that many people (myself included) prefer the results of using POWr Dither to UV22HR, so you could effectively kill two birds with one stone and save yourself some headaches by using that as the final plugin on your master fader before bouncing to disk.

The advantage of that is you don't have to record to track then export the files to the correct format and truncate the superfluous bits (and possibly risk double dithering if that bug hasn't been fixed).

The disadvantage is that you lose the benefits of printing to track over bouncing to disk, but I find that bearable with a 3 min pop song - less so with a 20 min film reel or hour long concert.

I used to just import the 24bit multi-mono files directly into Wavelab and apply UV22HR during the cd burning process, but I felt my cd's were not an acurate representation (maybe a little smeared in the top end detail or something) of the 24bit multi-mono files monitored through the UV22HR for 16bit playback.

Whereas bouncing to interleaved 16bit through POWr, then just burning the files to cd seemed (to my ear at least) more precise, though I realize that you're not talking about burning cd's and concede that if indeed there was a problem with UV22HR in Wavelab, it may well only occur during the cd burning process.

So in summary, if that bug is fixed and you really can turn off dither for exported files in PT prefs, then just continue as you have been doing, then export the files as stereo interleaved 16bit.

Hope that helps.
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  #5  
Old 12-02-2008, 07:34 PM
tha]-[acksaw tha]-[acksaw is offline
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Default Re: Making Seperate Left & Right files into 1 Stereo

Carl... thanks so much for all the info. You have been more then helpful. I can't thank you enough. I will take the question about the dither bug over to the host forum and see what I can find.

Also, do you know where i can find the POWr dither. I did a quick search and just camp up with tips and random info.

Really... thanks!

Nick
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  #6  
Old 12-03-2008, 05:53 AM
Carl Kolchak Carl Kolchak is offline
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Default Re: Making Seperate Left & Right files into 1 Stereo

You already have POWr dither.

If you have your plugins organized by category it will show up under "Dither" (and "Other" I think) or probably under "Digidesign" by manufacturer.

Hope that helps.

EDIT:

I just found out that the dither bug was indeed fixed in PT 7.3.1cs4


Quote:
Fixed: Dither Was Incorrectly Being Applied During "Bounce To Disk" Operations (Item #94510)
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=32373

The problem was that when a file was converted to 16bit it was automatically dithered by mistake.

EDIT # 2:

It seems that the noise shaping bug was finally fixed with the release of PT 7.4 which is the good news (especially re. fades / Audiosuite plugins etc).

The bad news is that when exporting a file from 24bit to 16bit PT will automatically dither the file and it seems, will use noise shaping even if it's turned off in prefs.

So as far as I can tell, the only way for you to have your Apogee UV22HR dither as the final process is to either output to a separate digital recorder, or is it possible to use the Apogee as a digital hardware insert and use bounce to disk? (*see EDIT #3)

And for the record, if you're concerned about Bounce to Disk sounding different or inferior to Printing to Track, that's a complete fallacy. The only major advantage of printing your final mix to track is that you can stop the recording without loosing what you've already printed and punch in any alterations if needs be.


EDIT # 3 :

Solved it!

Here is the relevant section from pg 264 of the PT 7.4 Manual


Quote:
When you export regions to a lower bit
Dither (with or without Noise Shaping) applied
as shown in Table 15.


Table 15. Dither and Noise Shaping with Export
Selected dialog


Bit Depth : Dither : Noise Shaping

24-bit to 24-bit : No : No

16-bit to 24-bit : No : No

24-bit to 16-bit : Yes : Yes

16-bit to 16-bit : No : No

24-bit to 8-bit : Yes : No

16-bit to 8-bit : Yes : No


The Dither setting used for any conversion is the
Digidesign Dither plug-in (with or without
Noise Shaping enabled, as noted in Table 15).

For more information about using Dither,
see “Dither” on page 746.


So for you to achieve what you are trying to do you would have to print your mix to an audio track through your Apogee as you have been doing, then:

use the bounce to disk function whilst soloing that track

Most importantly do not use any dither plugin on your master fader

choose stereo interleaved 16bit as the output format.

This will result in the remaining bits being truncated without dither being applied.

From pg 834 of the manual


Quote:
If you do not use a dither plug-in on your
bounce source path, and you choose to convert
to a lower resolution during or after a Bounce to
Disk operation, the resulting file will be converted
by truncation.
Hope that finally does the trick for you.
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