Wav file corruption using We Transfer?

[Jorge]

Hav you figured out how one channel got flipped and why didn't you hear it on playback through your monitoring?

[The Elf]

This is proof, if proof were needed, that checking the mono compatibility of a mix is still absolutely critical. Had this file reached one of the millions of woefully mono 'smart' speakers (sigh...) it might have been red faces all around!

[Jenniferk2021]

I don't know how the file got flipped — you can probably tell, I'm pretty new at this! The weird thing is, a bunch of others have tested the file for me, and they can hear everything just fine, too. Would this have anything to do with whether your audio system is set up for stereo sound? Or if LinkedIn can only upload mono sound?

[The Elf]

Would this have anything to do with whether your audio system is set up for stereo sound?

Yes it would. Two stereo speakers would not show up the cancellation (though it will sound slightly odd - the 'brain suck' I mentioned on headphones) - only summing to mono will result in true cancellation. Try comparing your mono and stereo files on your stereo speakers and listen for the slightly odd 'wide' sound of the incorrect file.

I'm very susceptible to out-of-phase speaker wiring, and there are a few people I know who have their TV and hi-fi speakers wired wrong - but I bite my tongue!

Some audio interfaces and DAWs provide a 'mono-ise' option, but I invariably feel safer having a single mono speaker as one of my monitoring options, which I switch in or out from my monitoring controller as I finalise a mix.

If you are going to be doing a lot of this then you may do well to invest in something like the TC Clarity, which would have shown you this problem immediately. At the very least there are plug-ins available that would do much the same - and there might already be one available in the software you are using.

[James Perrett]

I'm not sure whether LinkedIn only provides mono sound but that is certainly true of Instagram and probably quite a few other video sharing sites. In addition, phone speakers are often only mono as are smart speakers so anyone listening on those devices wouldn't have heard much.

[Jenniferk2021]

I don't know if I'm the first to tell you, but I think you guys are geniuses. I think the mono sound fix worked. I will confirm tomorrow with my client tomorrow, but it seems to have fixed the problem on LinkedIn. Thanks again for all your input!

[Kwackman]

Well, I for one am annoyed I didn't spot the fault- usually that would suck my ears out.
My ears are getting as old as I am!

[wireman]

It's not going to be WeTransfer, and the geological distance doesn't make any difference. When uploading or downloading files your computer uses TCP (Transfer Control Protocol) and there is built-in error correction and corruption detection at that level such that the data is all but guaranteed (to the point that the chances of corruption are astronomically small) to be identical bit-for-bit at both ends.

Data corruption over TCP has happened to me and a large number of other people at the same time (broken BT network hardware).

[Martin Walker]

Welcome to the SOS Forums Jenniferk2021!

In the past 5 years I have sent hundreds of .wav files using WeTransfer, usually re-downloading the files myself to check them, and have not been aware of any problems so far.

I only moved from Dropbox to WeTransfer last year (largely because Dropbox seemed to be getting more and more complicated for what was originally a easy task). Other musicians I was sending audio files to asked me to use WeTransfer instead, so I tried it, and have since abandoned Dropbox altogether.

WeTransfer is easy to use, and has yet to fail me once, so I'm also intrigued to find out more about the cause of jennifer's problem, as it seems most unusual.

Martin

[James Perrett]

Well, I for one am annoyed I didn't spot the fault- usually that would suck my ears out.
My ears are getting as old as I am!

If you listened to the Youtube version it wasn't completely obvious - it just felt like there was something odd going on. I guess the data compression was messing around with the phase relationships of the channels.

[The Elf]

If you listened to the Youtube version it wasn't completely obvious - it just felt like there was something odd going on. I guess the data compression was messing around with the phase relationships of the channels.

Yes, it's not the first time I've experienced something of the like. I dread to think what their algorithms are doing!

It still doesn't stop people espousing how 'Gear A' sounds 'night and day' nothing like 'Gear B' based purely on YouTube, though!

[The Elf]

I don't know if I'm the first to tell you, but I think you guys are geniuses.

No, it's just that most of us have made similar mistakes over and over again in our past!

[C.Aldersop]

I would just like to add to this thread, in hopes that I can have this issue figured out as well. I am having a similar issue, and it's a good bit of information to take in (god I hope there isnt a character count)

So, a friend and I are working on an album together (a split, more specifically.) So each of us have seperate songs from both of us. Friend is mastering all of our songs together (in Cubase) so all the tracks will sound similar. Only recently has there been this same issue with "Popping" or "clicking" (some might say "crackling" but it Is more like popping.) When I export my tracks to send to him they sound find to me, but when he sends them back (along with his tracks via Wetransfer) they have this "popping" sound in some of the quieter parts, there are louder parts in rhe song where you cannot hear it because theres no headroom to hear said popping. (OP mentioned that her client said the pops were quiet, same here). I was beginning to think Wetransfer might be the culprit, but this thread has said otherwise. The weird thing is the "pops" and "clicks" can only be heard on my end, once theyre sent over to me. But friend cannot hear them and has said that other people he's shown cannot hear them. So this is leaving me in a very odd spot, i have clues but not really any direction to go with them. I can attach a link of the spots that have the clicking and popping in it if someone could please help us figure it out it would be an absolute lifesaver!!!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LIsz_g ... p=drivesdk

[Bob Bickerton]

Might pay to read through all the replies. WeTransfer is a very common professional file sharing solution. I've sent long video files, audio files for broadcast - lots of stuff - without a single problem.

In a nutshell you could always ZIP the files and if you want, checksum as you go, not that I've felt the need.

Likelihood is the problem is not being generated by WeTransfer.

Bob

[forumuser840717]

I just had a listen and I can't hear any clicks or pops.

However, when I download the sample file and view it in a spectrogram, after a bit of messing about with the display settings I can see loads of big clicks throughout the file. Curiously, though, even though there are dozens of them clearly visible, virtually none is audible. I only hear anything on one of them and then it's just a tiny click almost buried in the programme at the kind of level where it could almost be a case of hearing what I'm seeing or there just being a small acoustic or electronic click coincident with the line on the spectrogram, rather than anything actually being there. I spend a disproportionate amount of time messing about fixing clicks on things and none of these sound as they appear on screen, assuming they sound at all.

There are some random things going on but the obvious issue in the first two bits is an even click happening with regular timing. I'd guess that someone along the chain is mis-clocking. Is everyone running at the same sample rate? (It appeared as a 44.1kHz, 16bit WAV file for me.) In the last clip the clicks appear all over the place. As if it's been through multiple passes of whatever is causing the regular click in the other ones.

[C.Aldersop]

Thats very interesting. I have asked a few people now if they can hear and they have said they can. But the people on the guy mastering it's end said they couldnt. My first guess was our sample rates and bit depths were different but I am pretty certain we are running all of our tracks at a sample rate of 44.1khz and a bit depth of 16 now. I asked another friend about an hour ago, who mixes and masters his own stuff, and he said he hears them - and that it could be related to one of the plugins having a issue with aliasing? I think I mentioned in my last post, I have only ever heard this clicking or popping in the DAW itself and never in exported tracks, but this is usually when the buffer size is too big or too small. Thats the only reference I have to the clicks, so I dont know if that helps narrow it down to aliasing or not.

But, if you're saying you can see them in a spectogram but cant hear them, that means they are embedded into the track right?

[Hugh Robjohns]

There are definitely clicks all over those test file tracks, and they are embedded in the source. They are very visible in a spectral display, such as on RX, as thin vertical lines, mostly evident in the high frequency areas.

As was said above, their regular nature and the fact they tend to occur on one channel or the other suggests something digital wasn't being clocked correctly, but it's impossible to say from this viewpoint whether that was at the source recording, mixing, or mastering stages.

It would obviously be prudent to carefully check your source and mix files to see if the clicks were present there, but if not a discussion is required with whoever did the mastering.

[Mr E Ryan]

I’ve just had a reply from WeTransfer saying they do not support WAV files so cannot offer support. I’ve just responded and attached a screenshot from their help section showing they do. I’m having an issue with downloaded files just not playing back. They look greyed out.

[Bob Bickerton]

I'd have thought WeTransfer was file agnostic.

I constantly use it to transfer wav files and have never had a problem.

Are you trying to play .wavs in WeTransfer? I doubt if it supports that as it's a file transfer system.

Bob

[Zukan]

Never had a problem with wetransfer and I use it every day with students and clients. Make sure to zip shit up.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Yes, I was going to suggest using zip, as that has checksums built in to spot any corruption.

[Forum Admin]

Never had a problem with wetransfer and I use it every day with students and clients. Make sure to zip shit up.

We transfer WAVs, MP3s etc every month - but I ZIP them first.

WT is not designed to play these files, like SoundCloud does, only to transfer them from person A to person B.