Trimming a mastered WAV without losing quality

[deathy]

Uni, also worth noting, from the page Tarekith linked:

Rendering is a neutral operation under certain conditions:

* the sample rate of the rendered file is the same as that set for the audio hardware in Live‘s Preferences.
* no non-neutral operations have been applied.

While I did say that it was unlikely that it wasn't, this is still a concern to make sure you check for - according to the fact sheet there, your sample frequency must be set the same in Ableton as your original file if you're going to have uncolored export. Double check that before you do this.

Hrm... upon further testing here, my actual assertion is correct... the bytes you get on your output are not exactly the same bytes that are in your input... they are very close, so close that it will sound to most, if not all, humans that it cancels out with phase cancellation, but not exactly the same - not a 100% cancellation in mathematical terms. Probably not audible to most humans, but it is not a perfect trimming of your master. If you load your WAVs into a hex editor, you will see that the numbers are different in a before and after Live export. (For my testing, I used a downloaded 500Hz test tone.)

Sound Forge, however, when it trims, is trimming the bytes from the data itself, and your exported bytes will be exactly the same as those you input, minus whatever was trimmed. I tested this by trimming exactly one sample off of the front of my test tone, and the bytes moved forward in the file by exactly 2 positions in my hex editor (i.e. one 16 bit value), but otherwise remained exactly the same.

It is an academic discussion if most people can't hear it, but what I said was still true... your export from Ableton will not be identical to your input. Just very, very close, probably close enough to be fine.

Worth noting - I tested Live 9.2.3, Audacity 2.1.1 and Sound Forge Pro 11... Audacity also modified the output. Of what I tested, only Sound Forge gave a perfect export, though I am sure there are other audio editors out there that will do it - as I said earlier in the thread, Audacity tries to straddle the line between sample editor and multitrack audio... (hrm, would it still be a DAW? These days, DAW means so much more, so not sure what to call it). Whatever we call it... Audacity is not a significantly better option for this operation than Live.

[deathy]

(This is a brilliantly interesting conversation, BTW, thank you Tarekith!)

[Patch]

What a pair of geeks...

[deathy]

Thank you, Patch! Proud of it!

[wearemindflux]

I ran into a peculiar problem. I created a track for mastering with a bit of silence before the track. The track sounded great after mastering. I wanted to trim the silent bit out in Ableton, however, when I drop the WAV in, the sound quality significantly decreases.

Any ideas what's going on?

What's a safe way to trim the WAV without messing up the quality?

The mastering engineer should of really done that for you.

But use something like pro tools to trim it. Zoom into the zero point at the beginning and end where the audio starts and ends and trim.