Argh - caught out by no export quality settings in prefs

[mr-b]

Hi

I've just discovered that all of my supposed 32-bit 96KHz recordings are only in 16 bit.

The problem was that although the recording quality is clearly displayed on the track, the exported file quality is not. Normally I'd expect there to be a preferences global settings page containing the bit depth options that I'd configure up-front, but this seems to be rather buried under the Options button on the per-export File Save dialogue box.
Also originally I'd started exporting in wav format, not realising that it was only 16 bit wav (I thought the 16 bit signed was referring to something else) and then progressed to flac (but this defaults to 16 bit). And I've only just found:

1) the prefs page has a note saying that the quality options are on the export dialogue options button,
2) >16 bit wav is only available by selecting "other uncompressed files" - I'd never thought of looking there

It's too late for me to go back and re-rip hundreds of discs so hopefully this sorry tale will help prevent someone else hitting this.
Or maybe the quality options can be made more visible (or even a warning indicating that you are exporting in a lower quality than the recording).

[kozikowski]

Can we assume that the rips are at the higher quality? Just because the Exports are at 16-bit, doesn't mean the Projects have to be. Or didn't you save the Projects?

This is an old wound. There is nothing straightforward about the way Audacity handles audio specifications and it's schizophrenic. It tries to help you out by changing things around in the background to be "better."

Further, there is a Feature Request to add a panel that tells us what we really have. Currently, there isn't one. What is this sound file and what are its specifications? Once the file is inside Audacity , you may never find out.

Macs have the QuickTime Info Panel that will tell you all these things quickly and easily, and you can force most Windows installs to do it, but many editors have internal ones, too. It would be good to avoid having to drop out of Audacity to figure out what's going on. Even better if Audacity was predictable, and I don't mean predictably schizophrenic.

Koz

[mr-b]

Unfortunately I ended up deleting the projects since soon after I started using Audacity it started complaining about running out of disk space, and since I was creating (what I thought was 24/96) wav (and later flac) masters I didn't see any value in saving big files that were unplayable by my media streamer.

I think the file quality options need to be much more visible either at save time (not buried under Options) or globally set under Preferences.

As for an audio file properties applet, it never even occurred to me that the exported file wouldn't be 24 or 32/96.
MediaInfo displays audio properties for Windows, but that is really checking the state of the stable door after the horse has gone.

[kozikowski]

<<<MediaInfo displays audio properties for Windows, but that is really checking the state of the stable door after the horse has gone>>>

Only the latest Windows versions.

And you only lose one horse. If you're paying attention, you can get him back. As it is now, you left the door open for the month of May.

Koz