Re: [Audacity-devel] Importing 16-bit WAV or AIF into 24-bit project fails

[Stevethefiddle <ste...@gm...>]

Michael Chinen wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Gale Andrews <ga...@au...>
> wrote:
>>
>> | From Michael Chinen <mc...@gm...>
>> | Wed, 4 Nov 2009 17:49:22 +0100
>> | Subject: [Audacity-devel] Importing 16-bit WAV or AIF into 24-bit
>> project fails
>>> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Gale Andrews <ga...@au...>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > | From Bill Wharrie <bi...@go...>
>>> > | Sun, 1 Nov 2009 18:00:20 -0500
>>> > | Subject: [Audacity-devel] Importing 16-bit WAV or AIF into 24-bit
>>> project fails
>>> >>
>>> >> On 1-Nov-09, at 5:08 PM, Gale Andrews wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> > [snip]
>>> >>
>>> >> > Setting Quality Prefs. to 24-bit, I imported a lot of 3 or 4 minute
>>> >> > WAVs
>>> >> > (a mix of those created by Audacity and otherwise) using On-Demand
>>> >> > and all were fine.  I did this by a clearing to a fresh project
>>> >> > window after
>>> >> > each import. Then I changed prefs. to "read directly" and the WAVs
>>> all
>>> >> > imported fine, except two which were noise (both had been exported
>>> by
>>> >> > some Beta version of Audacity or other).
>>> >> >
>>> >> > I quit Audacity and re-imported the first of the two troublesome
>>> files
>>> >> > i.e. reading directly and got noise. Quit and restart, import the
>>> same
>>> >> > file and it's fine. Quit and restart and import the second
>>> troublesome
>>> >> > file and that's now fine also.
>>> >
>>> > Firstly, apologies for the confusion of terms above. To clarify, I
>>> changed
>>> > from on-demand  (*read... directly*, where there was no problem
>>> > importing a variety of WAV files into a 24-bit project) to *make a
>>> copy*
>>> > (not aliased). Then two of the files I was testing failed with noise,
>>> but
>>> > only for a time.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >> Well, I can reproduce this to order. I created three WAV files from
>>> >> within iTunes and tried importing them. Reset prefs
>>> >> (NewPrefsInitialized=1). On-demand was fine. Change to "read
>>> directly"
>>> >> and every attempt on all three files produced noise, following your
>>> >> "new project window between attempts" method, and also with quitting
>>> >> between attempts.
>>> >>
>>> >> Same for AIF files created by Audacity but that have burned to CD
>>> >> without problem.
>>> >>
>>> >> Steve reports this on Windows (though I don't know if he was as
>>> >> thorough as you were), but reports no problem on Linux.
>>> >>
>>> >> The forum poster who reported this problem has had it constantly for
>>> >> years! Clearing his config file worked, but probably only because
>>> that
>>> >> reset him to 32-bit float.
>>> >
>>> > Steve was importing files created by Audacity. I know you weren't but
>>> > the reports I've seen are mostly of Audacity-created files. They are
>>> > the ones that are much more likely to create problems for me, as per
>>> > the P3.
>>> >
>>> > When I was trying to figure out the P3 problem, I always saw the same
>>> > "noise sometimes" behaviour importing non-aliased WAV/AIFF into
>>> > 24-bit projects. And sometimes there was a crash instead. But Leland
>>> > (also on Mac) could not reproduce this at all when he tried. Also I
>>> have
>>> > seen noise with on-demand too, but that was a while ago.
>>> >
>>> > I've seen old (1.2-influenced) .cfg files from four users (one on Mac,
>>> > three on Windows) where AIFFs/WAVs were "importing as noise".
>>> > Only two of these were on 24-bit "make a copy". In all four cases,
>>> > initialising .cfg removed the problem, and I know specifically that
>>> > one user (Windows) had gone back to 24-bit "make a copy" and had
>>> > no problem importing AIFFs or WAVs. He then told me later the
>>> > problem had come back (he had supposedly uninstalled Audacity
>>> > 1.2.6 and removed the Audacity registry key).
>>> >
>>> > I've little idea what to make of all the above, or why the problem is
>>> > not mechanistically replicable here. It would be great if we can find
>>> a
>>> > replicable problem we can fix.
>>>
>>> I just checked in a fix.  The treatment of non-OD importing is now the
>>> same as OD.
>>>
>>> I don't know why you couldn't reproduce the bug.  But for those
>>> curious the problem was that audacity was claiming an array of floats
>>> was an array of int in the non-OD 24 bit case.
>>
>> Thanks, Michael. Have tried to give it a good going over on XP by doing
>> things that (sometimes) caused me trouble, like generating 24-bit tones
>> then exporting as 24-bit AIFF and re-importing into a 24-bit copy-in
>> project. No problem here.
>>
>> Also did a check on Linux, which was fine with WAV, but I noticed that
>> AIFFs import at 32-bit float when the Quality is set to 24-bit, both for
>> OD and copy-in (WAV comes in at 24-bit). Should we fix that and
>> re-check AIFF import is OK on Linux?
>>
>> I also found a note from someone on Mac that they were having "no
>> problems" importing AIFF into 24-bit "copy-in" projects 6 weeks
>> ago, despite ImportPCM.cpp hadn't changed for a couple of months
>> prior to your fix. And WAVs (I think) from some CD ripper still won't
>> give noise for me in a pre-fix build if I do 24-bit copy in...
> Hi Gale,
> Whether the bug would be hit also depends on the wav/aiff file.  If
> the wav/aiff file is something better than 16 bit, the import method
> defaults to float.  The case that should be tested is audacity prefs
> in "copy-in" and quality at "24-bit int," and the wav/aiff file in
> question should be 16 bits.
> 
> From line 171 of ImportPCM.cpp
>    if (mFormat != floatSample &&
>        sf_subtype_more_than_16_bits(mInfo.format))
>       mFormat = floatSample;
> 
> Michael
> 
>>
>> Anyway if confused "hybrid" .cfgs are part of the problem, they have
>> one reason less to be confused now.
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>> Gale
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> > As you know there are occasional cases where .cfg just seems to
>>> > interpret things wrong and the only answer is to reset it, but these
>>> > usually tend to be "hybrid" .cfgs where some settings are being taken
>>> > from 1.2. I think we're still planning to leave old 1.2 settings in
>>> situ
>>> > for 2.0.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Gale
> 

Working OK here on Linux (Ubuntu 9.04 - Audacity cvs Nov. 6th Unicode).
(Issue was previously 100% repeatable on this machine).

Steve
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