Sound Forge 10 Save/Export distortion!

Mif wrote on 9/4/2024, 2:13 PM

Hello, I have been using Sony Sound Forge 10 for a very long time now with no problems and recently (in August 2024) I started having some issues with audio files distorting when simply SAVING (or exporting)! I use my Sony Sound Forge 10 for Voice-Over recordings (commercials, cartoons, audio books, etc.) through a Sure SM 58 Dynamic microphone and a Focusrite Scarlett Solo 48 volt amp and edit the raw tracks (recordings) using mostly the Volume, Noise Gate, EQ and Normalize functions that are available in Sony Forge. I then save the recordings to .mp3 files and had no sound quality issues of any kind when saving until last month when I noticed the saved files having a flange like sound distortion that is quite annoying! Why would this be occurring now where it had not ever been a problem prior to last month and what can I do to fix the issue???

Comments

rraud wrote on 9/6/2024, 6:13 PM

Welcome to the Magix Sound Forge users community @Mif.

A fianging type sound is usually an artifact of a very low bit rate MP3. Encode MP3s at a minimum of 128 kbs or higher (320 kbs is the maximum MP3 bit rate). That said, It is best to save new recordings in a PCM format (WAVE) for editing and processing, An MP3 can be rendered from the PCM file if a small file size is wanted.
PCM tip: for spoken word material, a single channel mono PCM file will be half the size of a stereo PCM file. Stereo is typically not needed for VOs and dialog.
MP3 tip: A mono MP3 file will have twice the resolution of a stereo MP3 at the same bit rate and approx file size as a stereo MP3.