I would like to take some instrumental CD’s that I have and import them into the Avid.  It takes forever to import the CD's and Avid has to convert them.  I was looking for an alternative way to import them so that the file doesn't take as long to import.

The audio settings for our projects are 48K – PCM – MXF.  I have a lot of CD’s and would like to create metadata and media on an external partition for easy access.  I was wondering if I should convert them to a certain file format before I import them into the Avid.  This way, the Avid will not have to do the conversion which will make for a faster import and maybe a smaller file size.

 

To summarize,

I want to be able to import all of those CD’s quickly?

Is it better to convert the files in a different program before importing into the Avid?

Is it possible to keep the file size low?

 

Any suggestions on audio file settings I should be using or software would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

I use iTunes as a "music/sfx database" for my edit system. 

Import your discs into iTunes, then you can add all the pertinent info (it it doesn't already get it from Gracenote CDDB) now you have a searchable database of .wav files that you can preview before you decide to import them into a project.

 

 

I might be committing audio heresy here, but I find 320kbps .mp3 files are perfectly acceptable for use in Avid.

Nope. No arguments here. I use 128kbps .mp3s in a lot of my work and no-one could tell the difference.

I even broadcast 128kbps on radio for a segment I produce which sounds great - the quality, not the segment. 

Kenton.VanNatten:

now you have a searchable database of .wav files

In my experience it is better to use AIF in iTunes. If you import as AIF, the metadata will be contained in the file. So if you move that imported file from one system to the next, the metadata comes along. With WAV, my experience is that this metadata is there on the original system, but not when you take the file to another system.

Getting audio from CDs isn't that easy task. When the CD-DA specification was designed no one could imagine how it would be used in future and for example the seeking precision is within + or - 200 samples. So using good software - I use the WaveLab - for that task is always advisable. And regarding MP3 "sounding good". Maybe from your timeline yes. But imagine the way to the viewers. It gets at least another compression (unless you are doing DVD mastering with PCM audio), sometimes even more. It's the same like the picture quality. (I couldn't resist to tell it as the sound portion of filmmaking is commonly undermined.)

PP

I use Easy CD-DA Extractor and Wav 48Khz or mp3 192kbps. If sample rate is same as project's, importing in Avid is (almost) instant.

i am using sound forge 6.0  it has a easy cd extractor and can resample to what ever you want and it is a great wav editor  i have not upgraded to  the sony version  as i do not like anything sony

 

Well, i'm mainly an audio guy- so- are you's guys actually recommending mp3's for broadcast program material? Well, I never...

Just because you CAN get away with it once in a while doesn't mean that mp3 is an acceptable format for quality audio! I'd recommend ripping to "windows lossless media format" or .wav or .aiff. The rip settings in Windows Media Player are under "options" and it's really easy to do.

Also, we did a very careful A/B/C of whether .wav, .aiff, or CD sounded better (or different)- the obvious results were that both .wav and .aiff sounded horrible compared to the CD. A silght "difference" between .wav and .aiff but neither was in any way definatively superior. It was tragic. They both sounded very frozen, digital, un-transparant, choked in the mids, unelastic, unpunchy, unmeaty, unsilky, non-"airy", non-dimensional... I could go on... sigh. (note: NOT using the D/A converters of a sound card- good ones, in the test) It amazes me the awesome detail that is paid to digital video by Avid, and the 2nd class attention given to SOUND.

But, heck- if you can get away with it, it doesn't really matter. Lots of people will never know! Especially if it will only be played on a TV!

Even so- it's always best to use the theoretically highest resolution you can, just as S.O.P.- I would suggest. So probably if you can, use a file type that is as uncompressed data-wise as you can. Like a .wav.

HTH-

Ev

evansmalley:

But, heck- if you can get away with it, it doesn't really matter. Lots of people will never know! Especially if it will only be played on a TV!

And the theoretical equivalent to that on the Video side is DV video. Welcome to the desktop publishing age of television.

spot on, Dog!

 

As a long time sound guy for television11 years NBC Burbank I have mixed 100's of shows for television I used a 1,000.000.00 SSL mixing console

neumann kmr81,s on the booms u87 for vo's then we mixed it down to a set of aurotones 4"box speakers  whats that say about tv audio  

  Now as a director  and filmmaker I dont even take a sound guy on the remotes because clients don't want to pay for something thats easer and cheeper to add in post .There is a reason the rf mic receivers clip directly on the  camera Producers  have to keep up with cable and those shows are being shot on hd  semi pro handy cams with cam mics no travel no rooms  no having to stop a great take because of a boom shadow!!! or mic in the shot

Is it better?  No it is not. Is it cheeper yes it is  and yes it is good enough for the people that are paying me to do 

 

evansmalley:

Also, we did a very careful A/B/C of whether .wav, .aiff, or CD sounded better (or different)- the obvious results were that both .wav and .aiff sounded horrible compared to the CD.

Maybe i'm misunderstanding you, but either your comment was meant to be ironic, or there must be some strange misconception in my fundamental knowledge of audio formats. I always told my students that WAV (16 bit stereo) is exactly the same binary LPCM data as stored on a CD, making it a losless copy, so there shouldn't be any audible differences at all; and as far as i know, AIFF is that very same (bitwise) content stored in IFF format, basically "WAV for macs", so there should again be no audible difference.

Any differences between CD, WAV and AIFF must either come from wrong format (e.g. 8 bit instead of 16 bit) or might be caused by different playback hard-/software.

Dear macjaeger-

That's EXACTLY what I thought- and what I still think! I was very disheartened with the test- frankly, I think some of it is Avid's way of playback from the timeline... it was an optical spdif out to a very nice D/A converter and SHOULD have sounded fine... it didn't! The science of what you're saying sounds exactly right to me- but the sound was clearly quite inferior. Now there's lots of variables that are possible in our test- but it should have been a pretty dang good opportunity for the wav and aiff's- nice converters and a great playback system as well. Certainly better than what those file types get most of the time! But I've often heard a little "wow and flutter" from the Avid timeline, so it could be that my computer's clock is inferior- my sound card, who knows?

Have any of you really tried to A/B the difference? Between a nice CD and importing that exact file as wav or aiff and playing it back from the Avid timeline? I'd be interested to hear if you don't hear a big difference!

There certainly shouldn't be a huge difference. Said the canary in the coal mine.

The Emperor's New Audio Critic- that's me-

Ev

Puh, thank you for saving my sanity, i'd hate to tell my students i've been wrong... ;-)

We did no actual comparing, but never noticed any difference between source CDs and the extracted WAV files, although our monitoring equipment is far from top quality.

Did you notice any differences between timeline playback and your finished media? What samplerates did you use? Maybe there's an up/down conversion from 44k to 48k or vice versa involved, which might be audible (although we are often mixing CD audio (44k) and consumer DV audio (48k) and didn't notice the differences either). I would not suspect any problems with your soundcard, as it should only hand through the bitstream to the spdif port.

Sorry, can't help you much there - maybe it's just that my ears are getting too old to notice the delicate differences, that would come with my job...