I ran a large live show which i recorded with a A&H QU16 Desk. The majority of the recordings worked fine as i was halting the recording and starting again between sets, however for the last 3 sets (over an hour and a half) I had no time to stop the recordings and reset due to changeovers. The desk got turned off before the recordings was stopped by someone who wont reveal themselves as i was helping the last band get off stage, and the last hour and a half of audio is saved as raw data, but was not saved with headers.
I found the thread on how to fix this with audacity on the A&H site, and its working partially, however the only time I can get the audio to convert is when I select “10%” of the audio to be converted, that gives me 17min of solid audio, however anything larger than that, and it seems like audacity just times out and gives up, possibly because the file size is too big.
Is there any way of fixing this? Even a way to select different chunks of the audio so i can compile them later (10 to 20%, 20 to 30% and so on) I’m being paid to mix these recordings and the best acts of the night are in this time frame. I would hate to have to leave those ones out.
That’s probably not the reason that it fails beyond 17 minutes. Import RAW can handle many hours of audio. I’m not sure what the limit is, but so long as there is sufficient disk space, it is many hours (more than I’ve ever thrown at it).
How big is the file that you are trying to import? How many channels, what is the bit format, and what is the sample rate?
If you haven’t already done so, you might also try simply copying the file. (I’d recommend copying it to a different drive so you don’t alter the original drive.) If it copies OK and you get a file of the same size, it’s a good bet that your file is intact. If you can’t copy it, it’s probably corrupted and that could be a bigger problem.
Even a way to select different chunks of the audio so i can compile them later (10 to 20%, 20 to 30% and so on)
When saving (exporting) the recovered file, make sure any regular WAV files are under 4GB (or use FLAC or some other format).
…I would only attempt this stuff with a copy of the file.
If file size is the only problem (unlikely) you could try a file-splitting utility. But, after splitting you’d have to experiment with different offset values to get all of the data “lined-up” and assuming these are multi-track files that could take lots of trial-and error. (And, try to find a file-splitting utility that doesn’t compress.)
And/or if the only problem is a missing header, it might also be possible to use a [u]Hex Editor[/u] to copy a header from a good file and paste it in. (You’d have to correct the file-size field, but everything else should be the same.)
A regular [u]WAV file header[/u] is only 44 bytes, and it’s not too hard to figure-out but if they are multitrack files, they would probably exceed the 4GB WAV limit, so I assume they are something else.
I’m being paid to mix these recordings and the best acts of the night are in this time frame.
Is paying a file recovery service a possibility? There are also free & commercial file recovery applications, but you never had a good file so you may need the help of an expert.
