Wav to uLaw conversion

[Dave Labrecque]

Thank you all for this information. As it turns out, the client wanted to transcode the 16/44.1 wave files himself! I did a test run with Sound Forge and it seemed to work fine. I don't have Audition so I can't compare it to the SF conversion.

Thanks again & have a happy and safe Independence Day!

I just got a call from a client who says he has a Sound Forge batch converter preset file (*.bj) to output the format of choice for an IVR system. I'm interested to see the process chain used (and hope I have all the plug-ins).

[bcorkery]

Fingers crossed!

[Tom M]

Fingers crossed!

Fingers crossed? Why? I thought your client is doing the conversion him/herself?

[bcorkery]

Fingers crossed? Why? I thought your client is doing the conversion him/herself?

Well, I hope they know what they're doing and they get the right resultant files. I hate when S's splatter!

[Tom M]

I know the feeling of handing over your "baby" to some IT guy who is likely working on eleven other projects at the same time.

If it quells your fears at all, I am always very surprised by how "OK" my files sound over the phone after that horrible u-Law compression is applied. You can barely listen to them on speakers and the S's splat all over the place. Maybe it's because our ears have been trained for such poor telephone audio over the past decades of cell phones, but I actually don't cringe when I hear them in that context.

It kills me even more when I deliver a great sounding .wav or .mp3 to be played over the phone via a digital broadcaster and it sounds phenomenal through the local speaker, the local office phones, and any landline anywhere, but turns into complete crap when someone calls in and hears it over a cell phone (as 95% of all callers do!) Makes me want to go back to recording on my 4-track cassette portastudio - and maybe mixing down to a roll of masking tape.

[bcorkery]

Yeah, it's surprising how clean an 8bit file sounds on the phone!

[TotalSonic]

I will put in my usual plug for FMJSoft's Awave Audio - it's an excellent batch converter that supports around 90 different file formats - uLaw being one of them - and currently is only $20 - very well worth having in the toolbox to me - especially given that it has excellent sample rate conversion options available in it - http://www.fmjsoft.com/awaveaudio.html#main

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[bcorkery]

Thank you Steve. I think I'll spend the 20 bones. It is a nice tool.

[Tom M]

Bill:

How did the conversion work out for you?

[bcorkery]

Tom,

I sent wave files to the client. No push back so, as you know, no news is good news.
They said they'd do the conversion to uLaw.