Odd Sound Forge Error

[Wagonmaster_91]

I edited some stereo 24-48 files using Sound Forge 8 and then processed them through Plogue/Bidle SPEC 4.86-Zag 3.0 Slice (yes, I know that's old but this particular PC is running XP and has worked great up until this problem) to create stems. I used a layout I have used over 50 times on various projects.

Here's the weird part: When I try to open one of those stems in SF8 (the same program that created the original edited stereo file), it won't open and I get an error message saying "An error occurred when opening a codec". I also have SF 10 and it can open and play the stem. Foobar2000 can also play the newly created stem.
If I save it (either as new file or overwright the original), then SF8 (and SF6) can now open and play the new saved file.

I am able open stems from older projects with no problems in any of the three SF programs.

I haven't (knowingly) changed any settings in the Plogue - and frankly wouldn't know what settings to change that would affect the codec of the generated stems that SF 8 suddenly cannot open, but SF 10 can. Never had this problem with SPEC or SF and not sure what is causing the problem. Do you?

 

[zeerround]

Plogue has .wav, .aiff, .flac, and .w64. That's in the current version anyway. It seems to me that in older versions there was another wav option. something like extensible wav or not? I'd look for that in the recorder or recorder save file dialog, to see if you changed that.

For debugging, you could use mediainfo to tell you the differences in files. https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo Don't know about running that on XP, however.

 

[Wagonmaster_91]

Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned in my first post that I took some of the "problem" stems to my newer PC running W11 that also has all three SF programs with the same results - They would only open in SF6 or 8 unless they were first re-saved using SF10. All of the files - the original, SPEC generated and SF10 saved files are all 24-48 wav. I will check what you have suggested and report back.

Another difference that suddenly appeared (and I don't know if the two problems are related) is that the Z-Meter & Recorder window is now very wide horizontally with the meter readings to the far right of the window. I can re-size the window but then I cannot see the meter info if I do that. The information inside the window doesn't re-configure to the re-sized window. (Does that make sense? I hope so.) I have always been able to have the Z-Meter & Recorder in a square window small enough to fit under the Audio File Player window with plenty of space to see the Zmon and FL Peak Compressor window to its right*

*(That's to be sure the compressor is engaged before starting a new file processing. Sometimes you have to jiggle that to be sure.).

As always, thanks for your help.

 

[zeerround]

Yeah I can't go back and see what happens with old PB on old Operating Systems. At least not easily. That last machine that was running XP is now running windows 11. PB is 64 bits now, as well.

 

[mandrix]

I'm running Win 11 and 64 bit Plogue as well. All I can say is everything displays fine.
Sometimes I miss those RMS Buddies though. Guess they never made a 64 bit version.

 

[zeerround]

Rms buddies; zmeter was made for that, but these days I have moved on to lufs as a loudness metric. Specweb and spec script come with command line tools for that. In pb, there are free lufs vsts (and lufs can be seen in the unlimited 5.2 vst as well). I’m not at a computer at the moment but can give more vst info, if needed.

But, if you want to match an upmix loudness with the original stereo, and want to use pb for the upmix, you can measure both with the command line tools I wrote, subtract the two to get the difference, and then set the unlimited threshold for that value (assuming the upmix is less loud) and re recording the upmix. That’s what specweb and specscript do.

FYI the command line tools can be drag and drop.

 

[mandrix]

I use lufs when I get it all into Audition.

 

[Wagonmaster_91]

As you suggested I, I checked to be sure my PB output was set to wav. (It was.) I then ran the same 24-48 stereo file through PB saving the stems as wav64 (I have never seen that option to be honest), then Flac, then AIFF. SF 6 & 8 can open the wav64 files (SF 6 & 8 cannot open any Flac or AIFF files, but I knew that) and SF 10 and AA3 can open all three generated formats.

I installed MediaInfo (thank you for that) and I think I may see what the problem is. The wav file stems PB is creating (and saving) according to MediaInfo are"WaveFormatExtensible" files. If I open one and re-save it with SF10, it becomes just a wav file and then will open in all 3 SF programs.

Is there a setting in PB or SPEC I can change back to wav?

And I figured out what the problem was with the Zmeter & Recorder window. For some reason the projects were opening an older version of PB. Using V9728 put everything back as it was. So, that part is fixed, but it is still creating WavFormatExtensible files. If there isn't a way to change that in PB, is there a way to install that codec in SF 6 & 8 as a last resort?

 

[mandrix]

As you suggested I, I checked to be sure my PB output was set to wav. (It was.) I then ran the same 24-48 stereo file through PB saving the stems as wav64 (I have never seen that option to be honest), then Flac, then AIFF. SF 6 & 8 can open the wav64 files (SF 6 & 8 cannot open any Flac or AIFF files, but I knew that) and SF 10 and AA3 can open all three generated formats.

I installed MediaInfo (thank you for that) and I think I may see what the problem is. The wav file stems PB is creating (and saving) according to MediaInfo are"WaveFormatExtensible" files. If I open one and re-save it with SF10, it becomes just a wav file and then will open in all 3 SF programs.

Is there a setting in PB or SPEC I can change back to wav?

And I figured out what the problem was with the Zmeter & Recorder window. For some reason the projects were opening an older version of PB. Using V9728 put everything back as it was. So, that part is fixed, but it is still creating WavFormatExtensible files. If there isn't a way to change that in PB, is there a way to install that codec in SF 6 & 8 as a last resort?

In Plogue
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Preferences
Audio

Set wavformatextensible to never