Deleting a portion of audio results in corrupt export

Hello! I am working through a large collection of 78rpm discs. I record them with an Edirol R-09HR digital recorder at 24/96 resolution, and import the resulting WAV file into Audacity 2.2.2. I am on OS X 10.13.3. The audio is recorded as stereo, which I then split to mono with the “Split Stereo to Mono” function.

If a particular disc has a groove issue that results in a repeat, I cut out the repeated audio by selecting the audio in the track with my mouse (or the keyboard). I have snap-to set to “nearest” (although I have tried “off” and “prior” as well). Once the offending audio is selected, I hit the Delete key, and it disappears. So far, so good.

However, I have found that in most cases, when I try to export the track (File… Export… Export Audio as 24 bit WAV) the resulting WAV file is corrupt. The file metadata is not viewable in WAV file metadata viewers (I use DBPoweramp), and if I try to compress the file to FLAC I get an error “WARNING: RIFF chink has uneven data bytes, is non-compliant RIFF” and “WARNING: Chunk is out of RIFF area (but still inside file).”

The only solution I have found is to check every single time I delete any snippet of audio, and if it results in the corrupt export to undo the deletion and try selecting an subtly different selection of audio. Eventually, through trial and error of selecting different chunks of audio, I am able to get a file that exports without becoming corrupt.

Any idea how what I am doing wrong, or have I hit a bug?

Are you sure you are using Audacity 2.2.2?

I tried repeating your actions and there’s no “export” under the “file” menu. There is, however, “save other” that allows me to save as a 16 bit or 32 bit float wav. No 24 bit. You can only save as a 24 bit wav by going to “other uncompressed files” and selecing 24 bit wav there.

And that export works flawlessly, on Mavericks. Well, except for the known bug that the .aiff extensions gets added. But that’s easy enough to correct.

Cyrano, are you sure you are using 2.2.2? “Save other” was in 2.2.0, but it was changed back to “Export” for 2.2.1 and 2.2.2.
– Bill

After you split stereo to mono, do you delete one of the resulting tracks?
– Bill

Oops.

Yes Bill, you’re quite right, of course. Audacity 2.2.2 is still sitting in my downloads folder. Silly me. Another thing I still have on the “to-do” list. :confused:

EDIT:

Installed 2.2.2.

repeated the steps:

  • open file (FLAC in this case)
  • delete portion
  • split
  • delete one track
  • export to 24 bit 96 kHz WAV.
  • played the file, no apparent corruption.

But I’m on Mavericks, not High Sierra.

EDIT: repeated with wav file. Same result.

I’m on 2.2.2.

File… Export > Export Audio > choose “other uncompressed files” and select 24 bit audio.

Yep! You can use one of my files to re-create my workflow:

Download one of the “zzRAW__” files, and follow my steps.

UPDATE: I have found a workaround, so this is very likely a bug.
WORKAROUND: File > Export > Export as WAV > choose FLAC (24 bit). This exports a FLAC that doesn’t show the corruption; and you can un-FLAC it to a WAV ,and it won’t be corrupt, either.