I’m using Audacity 2.0.6. I’m on Windows 7 x64 SP1.
I really don’t know anything about audio files, codecs, etc and I’ve never used Audacity before today.
I work as a journalist, and yesterday I conducted an interview on my android phone. I used a third party app - Steady Call Recorder https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.steadycallrecorder&hl=en_GB to do so.
I sent the file to my computer. I noticed the audio was very choppy - the person I was interviewing is very quiet, and combined with some background noise and their thick accent, it’s almost impossible to understand them in the recording. A friend recommended I try using Audacity to clean the interviewee’s audio up.
However, when I open the file in Audacity (or import it) it plays as a 1 second ‘record scratch’ noise.
I think the file may be corrupted somehow. If I try playing it in MediaMonkey, it comes up as a 0:00 track and therefore doesn’t play anything. In VLC, it plays ok, but if I try skipping forward it goes silent (continuing to play. but with no sound).
The only program I’ve managed to get it working fine in is Media Player Classic. This suggested to me that it might be a problem with the file requiring an unusual codec, for some reason, that MPC has in its library and most other media players don’t. I don’t know why this would be the case however - the file is definitely an MP3.
I installed LAME for Audacity to increase its codec library but it’s made no difference.
I tried running MP3 Validator. It said it’s an ‘unknown file format’ - despite, as I say, it definitely being an MP3. I tried running Codec Installer to see what codec it requires - it said “this file seems corrupted”.
If the file is corrupted, is there any way of diagnosing the corruption and fixing it? If it’s just an unusual type of mp3 (if such a thing exists!) is there a way for me to find out what codec it requires that both Audacity and LAME don’t have, so I can search for it directly?
It’s really important for my job that I can salvage this file for transcription so I’d really appreciate any help. I’m really out of my depth when it comes to audio and codec issues so apologies if anything I’ve said here doesn’t make any sense!
I’d prefer not to upload the actual file for others to look at, as the interview itself contains somewhat sensitive information. If it’s impossible to diagnose the problem without looking at the actual file then let me know and I’ll see if I’m able to work something out.
Thanks all