Quite often novice musicians and sound engineers are faced with the need to process sound files or live instrumental and vocal parts recorded as PCM recordings. Many ignorant users have a lot of misconceptions about what it is, because they consider this type of audio to be only a file extension. In fact, this concept is common to several types of audio. For the most part, sound files in their current computer representation, with rare exceptions, just belong to the PCM format. But in order to avoid confusion in the future, let's consider its purpose, understanding and editing.
What is the PCM format?
To understand the term itself, you just need to decipher the abbreviation. It is derived from the English Pulse Code Modulation, which translates as "pulse code modulation". This technology was previously used exclusively for digitizinganalog audio, but is now used everywhere for audio coding, recording in studios, and in film production, etc. The PCM audio format is a kind of generalized group of audio objects that are recorded or stored using similar processing technologies. These include WAV, MP3, BWF, AMB, RF64, AIFF and many others. As one of the bloggers on the Internet correctly noted, today it is easier to say what does not apply to the PCM format than to endlessly list all the digital PCM standards. The alternative can be called mainly audio of new formats related to the DSD standard.
How to open files for listening?
By and large, if we are talking exclusively about computer technology, you can open digital audio in PCM format with any convenient player (either built into the operating system itself or created by third-party developers).
Another thing is that in this extensive category there may be files with different extensions that the system's own tools may not support. In this situation, either players or audio editors come to the rescue. If we are talking about household appliances, some formats can be played without problems on the most ordinary DVD players.
However, the majority of known audio types, including all PCM formats, are supported by Blue-ray players. But sometimes there is a need to edit audio files. What to do in thiscase?
How to edit PCM digital audio format?
It is quite natural that with the increase in the capabilities of modern computers in terms of sound processing, special software products have appeared that allow editing sound files of almost any known type.
All currently known programs of this direction easily work with any objects that support PCM technology, opening them in the form of the most ordinary wave. In some applications, such as Audition, when opening or saving, the PCM category is selected in the format field, after which you can only work with files of certain formats.
How to change file format to PCM standard in audio editors?
As it is already clear, if you open an audio file in an unsupported format by the operating system or by some playback device in the audio editor, you can use the simplest method to convert (convert) the format.
It consists in simply saving the original audio in another desired format, choosing from the list the one with which you can work in the future.
Format conversion
But you yourself understand, when you have a huge collection of files, including thousands and tens of thousands of tracks, and even in different formats, it is better to use specialized programs (audio converters) that support batch processing to convert to a single type files.
But even in this case it is necessary to pay attention to one essential aspect. But what if the files are recorded at different volumes, and you need to bring them to a common denominator, so to speak? Changing the level parameters for each file will also be quite problematic! This is where converters come to the rescue, allowing you to “adjust” the volume of all files to one selected template. There are plenty of such converters on the Internet. And most of them are free. But if you want to achieve maximum sound quality, you will have to work on your own, as you may need to change, say, the bit rate, sample rate or audio depth. The work is painstaking, but the result, as they say, is worth the candle.
Non-standard audio types
Finally, let's see what can be done with non-PCM formats or with files that just have a.pcm extension. In principle, to work with such objects, it is best to use the same audio editors or converters with advanced features. In addition to Adobe Audition, you can offer good studios like Audacity, Sound Forge, or even some sequencers or entire virtual sound studios that support working with such objects (for example, Cubase, Sonar, Avid Pro Tools, Cockos Reaper, etc.).
In general, among musicians and sound engineers it is tacitly considered that the most common WAV standard is the optimal extension for processing digital sound on computers, although it seems to many to be somewhat obsolete. By default, almost all studios and editors save material in this format, however, the depth indicator is set at 24 or 32 bits (depending on the type of software product itself), the sampling rate is at 48 or 96 kHz, and the bitrate ranges from 192 up to 320 kbps. These overestimations are only used to achieve the best possible audio quality after processing.
