Strange file sizes of AUP

Hey guys,

I can’t seem to discover why this may be…

I’m creating pure voice recordings of seminars. Nothing fancy, just voice recordings into a simple headset microphone.

One of these (call it file A) is 37 minutes long and the resulting AUP file’s associated _data folder is 700 MB full of .au files.

Now here’s the funny thing…

I did another recording - SAME input source, same settings, same everything.

This file B is 28 minutes long and the resulting AUP file’s associated _data folder is a whooping 1.33 GB full of .au files!

I’m curious how this could be?

Does anyone have any advice for this?

If you did any effects at all or anything that changes the whole lecture, then Audacity has to save an UNDO of the whole show. If you close Audacity, that should go away because Audacity will not save UNDO. You should go into Audacity Preferences and make sure that it didn’t slide into stereo instead of mono under Devices or one of the other settings under Quality didn’t change.

This can be hidden. If you routinely record in mono (single microphone, right?) but you so much as touch the panning slider to the left of the track, you now have a stereo show whether you wanted one or not, and it’s double the size.

We do note that if you’re worried about 1.3 GB, maybe your next posting is going to be that the computer is stuttering and failing to keep up with the live recording – having run out of resources.

Koz

Yes - read this article and all should become clear: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audacity_projects.html