Interpolation of Clipping and Bit-Rate Questions., Adobe Audition Help for a Noob. Options

[Engelsstaub]

I've been testing out the trial of Adobe Audition and have noticed that it is a bit more detailed in analyzing and manipulating peaks and "clips" than Audacity. My immediate example is a needle-drop of Krisiun's "The Great Execution." (One track--1st illustration below.) The CD and iTunes Matched AAC files are a complete mess in that most of the entire recording is clipped or squashed or whatever. (Same track--second illustration below.) (Krisiun is a Brazilian "death metal" band, so there's quite a bit of sound anyway!)

LP Rip @ 16/44.1


iTunes Matched AAC file



If you look at the needledrop in the first illustration you'll notice five places (bottom/right channel) where the sound clipped for a small fraction of a second. I was thinking of zooming in and doing a simple "auto heal" on those as I'm very pleased with the sound of this album when burned to Redbook CD-R. You'll also notice that, if you look at the bottom-right of both illustrations, that Audition is working at 16-bit for the vinyl rip (recorded at 16/44) and 32-bit float for the iTunes AAC file.

Some questions: will working on those few clipped samples and exporting the results at the same bit-rate reduce the quality of the original recording? Why does Audition indicate that it is working at 32-bit float for a 16/44 AAC file while it remains at 16-bit for the FLAC?

[AndyH-ha]

dither bit depth 0.5 bits
p.d.f. shaped triangular
noise shaping C1

These are the CoolEdit settings I use for LPs, primally because these settings add the minimum amount of noise that works well. Ten times as much noise added probably would make no difference in the sound, especially from an LP. When I write "works well" I come from my experiments with simple tones. Actual music recorded from an LP has so much disk background noise that ignoring dither is an option unlikely to be detected in the final result.


Noise shaping, like dither itself, is always a good idea, never a detriment. Lack of noise shaping might add audible hiss to some music, but all LPs are so noisy that it probably makes no practical difference, so the advantage is just theoretical.

You can do some easy tests to see the Audition result (in Spectral View) by generating a few seconds of silence in a 32 bit space, then converting it to 16 bit with different dither settings. All that will exist in the final result is the dither itself.

You ask about importing into Audition. I don't know if "importing" is the correct term, especially for wav. You simply open the file, no modifications take place in the process. When you are completely done with everything, convert to 16 bit and save. Don't go through the process multiple times. If you don't do all work at one time just save the floating point format, then re-open the next time you want to work on it.

This post has been edited by AndyH-ha: Jun 14 2012, 11:51

[Engelsstaub]

dither bit depth 0.5 bits
p.d.f. shaped triangular
noise shaping C1

Thanks for your insight, Andy.

I know Cool Edit was bought by Adobe and is what Audition is based off of. I think the only setting presented as yours is the "triangular shaped." Under "Noise Shaping" I find: None, High Pass, Light Slope, Neutral (Light,) Neutral (Heavy,) U-Shaped (Shallow, Medium, or Deep,) Weighted (Light, or Heavy.) There's also in some instances "Adaptive Mode" which can be defined as Constant or Dynamic (Light, Medium, or Extreme.)



I'm thinking this should still be beta software until Adobe actually publishes more comprehensive help on it. Supposedly it's coming this month.