We have been using audacity for years. The past couple months, though, we will record a podcast, and when I go to relisten to it, all I get is static. I’m not sure of terminologies, but what I’m looking at the wave on the computer screen it is a mixture of red and blue, and each line is tall & close together. What is happening? How can I fix it so it stops happening? And can I fix the recordings we have already made?
Somehow your file is corrupt, or it has the wrong filename extension . 
What is the format (WAV, MP3, etc.)? Did you export as an audio file, or did you just save an AUP3 project?
Does it play in other software (Windows Media Player or whatever you normally use)?
It is usually formatted as a WAV. I usually export as an audio file, but it wouldn’t let me and suggested a data. So I did that. It doesn’t play on anything. Just static.
And the graph has red all over it. Like solid red.
It did suggest saving as RAW data and I did that.
I also noticed that it was saved with ‘.WAV_data’ I’m assuming they didn’t drop the window and click on WAV.
Anyway, is there any way to fix this mess???
I’ve never seen that,. There is a 4GB file size limit for WAV but I’m not sure if you see an error message and I doubt your podcast was that long-big.
If it’s uncompressed PCM (the same underlying format as WAV) you can use File → Import > Raw Data, but you’ll have to guess any of the parameters that you don’t know.
If the number of bits, endinness, or offset is wrong the samples won’t be re-assembled correctly and you get “garbage” and you can get “red”.
If the sample rate is wrong it will be at the wrong speed. (Getting the number of channels wrong will also give you the wrong speed.)
The default endinness is probably correct.
There are 8-bits in a byte so with 16-bits an offset of 0 or 1 will work and with 24-bits you’ll need to try 0, 1, or 2. If there is no header and offset of zero will work.
If there is a file header the header will be converted to audio and you’ll get a short glitch at the beginning (which you can edit out).
I’ll give it a try. Thanks.
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