Import WMA into CS5.5

Native WMA support did not make it into CS 5.5 for either platform, although perhaps ironically wma/wmv files import just fine on Mac with the the Flip4Mac QuickTime plug-in.  A feature to implement native support, at least on Windows, is in the feature database for Audition.

That's one of my disappointments with the Mac version. The older versions allowed you to save as mp3's, wav's, aiff's, wma's etc. Now you can only save as wav's, mp3's, aiff's.

I know this is an additional step...but import the .wma

into soundbooth CS5 (assuming you didnt uninstall it:) and save it as a .wav file then open it in Audition 5.5

cheers

steve

I downloaded the trial of CS 5.5 and not being able to import WMA is a big disappointment seeing as our business records in that format and seeing as WMA (Windows Media Audio) is the standard for Windows operating systems.

Admiral Cook wrote:

 

I don't want to use Soundbooth.

It's too late anyway now - it's been unceremoniously scrapped.

This was a huge disappointment for our shop - we work daily with a library of thousands of archival WMAs made from reel-to-reel masters, processing them for web streaming, radio programming, etc. CoolEdit/Audition has been the tool of choice for over 15 years, and I loved all of the Audition upgrades until this one.  I was really looking forward to multiple core support, etc. but every job requires a format conversion before I can get started. Very frustrating.

-Sam-

How is it that cs5.5 does not support the cs3.ses file and that there's not even a convert function included. this means that all my cs3 projects are pretty much useless as i can not import them into cs5.

if im not mistaken cs3 use to save all your audio files in your session as wma which is even less helpfull so cs5 doesnt support cs3 at all its like i way diffirent program.

Mitch, you are quite mistaken about that.  Audition 3 will save to whatever you last used, and there is no format default for sessions.  In fact, unless you're using wma lossless, saving session audio as wma could be disastrous because it adds noises and distortions typical of lossy codecs.  So stick with uncompressed wavs!

So far as opening AA3 sessions, you can do that by saving the session as .xml from AA3, then opening that in AA4/CS5.5.  However, track effects are not ported.

As to that, and why all this is the way it is, you ought to grab a cold one, sit back and get comfy, and read through some of the major threads posted here recently.  Those answers and far more are right here at your fingertips.

Or use the Ses2Sesx third party utility to move your .wav file saved .ses into CS 5.5.

http://www.aatranslator.com.au/ses2sesx.html

I too work with WMAs fairly often. I don't have soundbooth to work with either. But, as quick work-around, the Adobe Media Encoder works pretty well. It can convert from WMA to MP3.

Maybe to help you out, you could create a "Watch Folder" that housed all your WMA files and let Media Encoder convert them to MP3s.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass on my work-around.

Thanks Dustin!

Bob Butler

Reporter, KCBS Radio

Vice President Broadcast, National Association of Black Journalists

Vice President, AFTRA

925-381-1890

bobbutler7@comcast.net

While it's not nice to rain on anyone's parade, I would NOT recommend following Dustin's advice, because of the lossiness and resultant poorer audio quality that the conversion will give you.  Worse still would be if the WMA originals are also in lossy-compressed mode (but WMA does have a very cool lossless option), then after conversion to mp3 you'll have two different kinds of losses munging up your audio.

WMA in all its flavors is a great format and I look forward to its return in a future version of Audition.

I understand your warnings, and it is good advice. I should have mentioned Media Encoder also supports AAC.

While neither may be the first choice for audiophiles, I imagine that most will find some suitable settings with one of the formats. A 320 kbps MP3/AAC file sounds pretty good to me.

What would be the most preferred format?

Kind regards,

Mitch Shuttleworth

(+27) 76 440 3220

Tel. (011) 795 1669

Fax (086) 568 6699

Info@sproductions.co.za

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Preferred format is .wav files since this is Audition's internal format. Then transcode to compressed format after editing is completed. If possible keep the .wav files in case you ever need to revisit the edit.

Thanks Ryclark,

I think that's what I've been using never actually checked just opened audition and started recording.

And thank you everyone else for your input, it's always good to learn from someone else's mistakes before you make your own.

Kind regards,

Mitch Shuttleworth

(+27) 76 440 3220

Tel. (011) 795 1669

Fax (086) 568 6699

Info@sproductions.co.za

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CONFIDENTIALITY DISCLAIMER

This email is confidential and intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above and may contain information that is privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify us immediately by return email or telephone and destroy the original message

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Copyright © 2010 Shuttleworth Productions.

Imagine my surprise when I realized that Soundbooth had been replaced by Audition. No big deal I thought. It's supposed to be a "better" program. So I tried to open a WMA file and nothing. I then tried to open one of my Soundbooth project files. Nothing.

I've been producing podcasts for the last two years with Soundbooth CS4 and CS5. My audio recorder records in WMA format. Now because I "upgrade" I can't use either file format?

This is riduculous.

I get that I can convert from WMA to WAV, but the whole reason I figured out how to use Soundbooth was that it supported WMA files when the podcast editing software I was using at the time didn't support it well (for some reason, if a project used a WMA file, the project could only be exported as a WMA file, not MP3).

I'd hoped to be able to uninstall CS5 to get the space back, but it looks like I at least need to keep Soundbooth around.

Is there some utility that will convert Soundbooth project files to Audition project files?

Glen

I know this is an old post, but I found it so I know others will too. The best solution would be to follow the Adobe Media Encoder advice, but use WAV as the output. If you get an audio file in WMA, this is a very quick way of converting to a usable, lossless, uncompressed audio file for editing.

I appreciate the workaround suggestions, but for those of us with an existing library of multiple thousands of WMA masters taking up hundreds of gigabytes of space, this extra conversion step is a huge, deal-breaking PITA.  Durin, the Adobe guy above, said that native WMA support for the Windows version of Audition is "in the feature database."  Does that mean that support is going to be restored sometime soon for this widely used standard audio format, or are we stuck with using 3.0 forever?  Our shop's investment in CS5.5 has been of no practical benefit whatsoever for the last year, and I know we are not the only ones in that boat.

We realize this has been long in coming, but WMA is now supported in CS6, along with several other new formats:

http://helpx.adobe.com/audition/using/supported-file-formats.html

Nice catch, yes it certainly can read WMA quite nicely, although an 8-channel WMA file reads in as 5.1.  Great to have this back.

In all fairness, WMA is an import-only format.  The Windows Media Encoder can be used for the return trip back to WMA, or Audition 3 or earlier.  Someday we'll get this back in directly, right?

Export audioformats are presently limited to: AIFF, APE (Monkey's Audio lossless compression), FLAC, OGG, mp2 (yay!!!), mp3, mov (audio-only), and wav, plus a whole raft of odd formats from the libsndfile interface.

Thank you - thank you - thank you!  I have finally left 3.0 behind and am using CS6 Audition on a daily basis to process material out of our extensive WMA audio archives for radio and web broadcast production. Really love the performance gain from multi-processor support, improved navigation, and some enhanced features I am still figuring out.

:-)

Appreciative regards,

-Sam-

use Format factory, it will import/export audio, video, to different formats, and has a couple of other tricks it can do ;-)