ONLY 34 MINUTES OF A 7 HOUR RECORDING IS EXPORTING. HELP!

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

I have a 7.5 hour recording but i can only export 34 minutes and 57 seconds. This happens every time i try and export. i am running the latest version but have also tried exporting on an earlier version with the same result.
my operating system is mac 10.9.5. any help or insight would be appreciated! I have been using this program for years but never had this issue

2

You left out some stuff.

i am running the latest version

Which is?

have also tried exporting on an earlier version

Which was?

can only export 34 minutes and 57 seconds.

Export as what? WAV (Microsoft)?

Will Audacity let you save the show as a Project? Will it let you export the show as anything else?

WAV (Microsoft) only supports fle sizes of 4GB and in some cases 2GB. So if your show size goes over that, the system might “fold over” and start repeating segments. That can give you the effect of only saving the last several minutes of a long recording.

Koz

3

I don’t remember what the magic show length is, but if you never went over it before, you would never have encountered this problem.

Koz

4

Thanks Koz,

Sorry, i am running Audacity 2.1.2. The previous version i also tried was Audacity 1.3.11
Export - WAV (microsoft) signed 16 bit (have always used this)

I understand your second point, the 34 minute exported file is showing 4.6 gb which is massive and does not seem accurate. All recordings in the past have been 1-2 hours with a total file size of 700-900 MB

How can a 34 minute recording be 4.6 gbs?

Maybe export in a different format perhaps?

5

The size of a normal WAV file depends on the number of channels (usually mono or stereo), the sample format (how many bits per sample), and the sample rate (how many samples per second).

Size in bytes = x x / 8
(8 bits = 1 byte)

The maximum size for a normal WAV file is 4GB. (the file will be corrupted if it goes over this limit).

6

4.3GB. The file tried to go over 4, which it can’t do. The file is now unstable, irrational or crazy. That’s what you have in English.

Can you split the show in two? They would fit.

Koz

7

I think you can Emergency Rescue this file with Audacity Import Raw. Instead of depending on the file’s own header to tell the world what happened (see: irrational, crazy) you tell it explicitly where everything is.

Obviously, this is not recommended for general distribution.

Oddly, this is a sister to how Audio CDs work. They have no rational file format, either. That’s all in the player to save disk space.

Koz

8

If you can’t split the recording and you want a lossless format you can export as FLAC or RF64 (choose “Other uncompressed files” then look in the “Header” box). RF64 can go over 4 GB. FLAC will only be about 2 GB and does not have a size limit.

But iTunes or QuickTime won’t play FLAC and I don’t think they play RF64.

So you might have to use MP3 and accept a little quality loss if you can’t split the recording into two or more WAV files.


Gale

9

Just to clarify, that calculation will give you file size in bytes per second, so multiply by the length in seconds to give you the file size.


Gale