I recorded last month on an older version of the software, but upgraded since to v2.1.0 and am using Win7 professional
My files were saved into a folder named 4-18-15 Data, with subfolder e00, with subfolders d00 - d09, and each dXX folder containing hundreds of AU Format Sound Files.
How can I get these into one cohesive and continuous wav file as fast and as painless as possible? It is very critical information on this recording, so if you’re sure of your solution I don’t want to corrupt the file with any mistakes.
do you mean: “4-18-15_data”?
If so, then that is the audio data belonging to a project that you saved as “4-18-15” and there should also be an Audacity project file called “4-18-15.aup”
The .aup file and the _data folder need to be together in the same location (in the same folder), as they are when you save the project.
If you can find the .aup file, then you need to open that with Audacity.
By default, if you installed Audacity with the recommended installer and used the default options, AUP files will be associated with Audacity, so you can open a project by double clicking on it.
If you chose not to associate Audacity projects with Audacity, then you will need to use “File menu > Open” in Audacity and select the AUP file.
See here for more information about Audacity projects: Audacity Manual
There was no copy in AUP format, but I had someone else in the office figure out how to get it converted somehow, and I was instructed to save as MP3 from now on to avoid any issues.
As is explained in this part of the page that I linked to previously Audacity Manual
to create a normal audio file from an Audacity project, you “Export” in whichever format you prefer,
In order to Export as MP3, you must also have LAME installed (see: Audacity Manual)
Note that the downside of MP3 is that it is a “lossy” format - that is, it loses a bit of sound quality when encoded as MP3.
If you wish to maintain the full sound quality of your recording, Export as a WAV file (this is the default Export format).
WAV files are quite big, but a lot smaller than an Audacity project. The maximum size for a single WAV file is 4 GB (about 6 hours of CD quality stereo).
MP3 has the advantage of producing smaller files than WAV, but as above, it reduces the file size at the expense of some sound quality.