MPEG 3 saves as 32 bit

PatBarr · Post by **PatBarr** » Wed Jun 05, 2019 5:30 am

Hello all. Lately, my converted files from FLAC or AIFF to mp3 have been saving as 32-bit, 44.1kHz, which won't play on my car stereo. I can convert them in Amadeus Pro 2.5.3 (2090) TO 16-bit, but saving the file results in 32-bit again.

Post by **Martin Hairer** » Sat Jun 08, 2019 3:48 pm

There is no notion of "16 bit" or "32 bit" for Mp3 files (of course they will be decoded to one or the other by Amadeus Pro when opened, but this is unrelated to the file itself). I rather suspect that maybe they end up being saved as VBR files which some players don't support. This can be adjusted in the settings. Regards,

Martin

--
HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/

OllieL · Post by **OllieL** » Mon Jun 10, 2019 5:28 pm

I have a similar issue under 2.6. ALAC files saved as 16 bit suddenly appear as 32 bit when opened. Previously they would all stay 16 bit, you could see that when you opened them plus they would all be small files. Traktor 3 Pro doesn't like this at all!

Been using Amadeus Pro and Traktor Pro for many years, so I notice when things no longer work, although I'm a bit slow on this as I have not digitised any files for 14 days or so which is unusual for me. My last files that I created were literally **just 2 days** before the 2.6 update.

I've now reverted back to 2.5.3 thanks to my daily Time Machine backups I was able to do a full restore back to a few weeks ago before the update.I can confirm all working normally again!

This strange bug *may* be connected to users running old Macs that are not 100% supported. I'm using a 4.1 converted to 5.1 which runs Mojave just fine, as I installed a new Metal compatible card, that the Mac likes (native drivers work fine) a Radeon RX 580 Pulse.

However....

Mojave 10.15 introduced a bug that causes glitching sounds. The cause of this has been identified on line as most likely due to my XEON E5520. The problem is apparently solved with later Westmere chips such as those found on a 5.1

I'm back to 10.14.3 and AP 2.5.3 and have now turned off updates permanently. Still testing to see if my latest restore has really fix my problem or if I really need to buy a new MAC!

Post by **Martin Hairer** » Mon Jun 10, 2019 6:51 pm

Let me try to clarify this since there appears to be confusion.

For lossy compressed formats like AAC, Mp3, Ogg Vorbis, etc, there is no notion of "16 bit file" or "32 bit file". When such a file is opened, the compressed data it contains is converted into an uncompressed waveform that can be edited and / or played back by the software reading the file.

This waveform is represented internally either by 16 bit integers or by 32 bit floating point numbers and it is the bit size of this internal representation which is displayed in the sound window. (When you open an uncompressed sound file, this would coincide with the bit size of the uncompressed sound samples stored in that file.)

Now it used to be that by default Amadeus would convert such files to 16 bit integers since these take up less space. Space is much less of a problem on modern computers so, a few versions back, I made the decision to use 32 bit floating point numbers instead by default. The advantage is that these are typically processed a bit faster and they survive the application of many effects without any degradation.

Lossless formats like FLAC and ALAC do have a notion of "preserved bit depth" which is a guarantee that the compressed data is a faithful representation of the original up to a certain bit depth. Choosing a preserved bit depth higher than 16 bit does indeed result in larger files (for typically no discernible quality gain) and should usually be avoided. This is something that can be selected by clicking onto "Settings" in the file saving dialog.

If you find behaviour that is not consistent with this description, then it may of course be a bug. In this case, please send me precise instructions on how to reproduce the bug, together with links to sample files. Regards,

Martin

--
HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/

OllieL · Post by **OllieL** » Mon Jun 10, 2019 8:33 pm

Thanks for your reply Martin, much appreciated

I save my files as 32 bit WAV to begin with, then when I am done editing, convert using the batch process, converting to Apple lossless and select the 16bit option.

Before, I assumed I would then loose that original bit depth, if I converted back to WAV, which is cool, can’t hear the difference anyway!

I noticed after 2.6 that now if I reopen any ALAC file, and resave that they go back to 32bit file sizes. Took a very long time to open some of the tracks, minutes for a whole album (approx 8 tracks) which used to take seconds. I guess we need to resave and update the settings back to 16bit for each save?

Post by **Martin Hairer** » Mon Jun 10, 2019 9:17 pm

Could you send me a download link to one of these files so I can have a look? Regards,

Martin

--
HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/

OllieL · Post by **OllieL** » Tue Jun 11, 2019 5:37 pm

Hi Martin
Here's a link to one of the files in the album I had problems with
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PAeyc ... 1dU3vjjUk5

I tested it again today, and this album is not recognised by Traktor Pro 3. It gives an error message about missing ID3 tags, even though they are tagged fine and show perfect in iTunes where I added the tags according to my normal workflow.

NOW....since I've reverted back to 2.5.3 with OS 10.14.3 everything is working perfectly like a month ago

I made a copy of the album, and converted again to 16bit lossless using Amadeus Pro batch processing. The resulting files all work perfect and are now recognised by Traktor

Thanks for looking!