Voice Recording Help

Hi

I’m not an expert at voice recordings but I have been using a couple of simple apps and I need to learn alot more because I want to good quality voice recordings of my work. I am an Open Uni student and I am always on the go. The only way I can get my studying done is to record all the study material … so then I can multitask. I have masses to read and if I read and record I can make best use of each reading session.

I would like to master Audacity … but at the moment I can’t even launch it without probs. The moment I click record … it stops responding!! The toolbar disappears!! Task Manager has no effect !! The ‘not responding’ state seems to last infinitely until I restart. I have left Audacity in the ‘not responding’ state for a whole weekend and still it was stuck in the state!!

I believe in Audacity … I think it will be a fab app one day … hope it will always remain freeware!! : )

I have lost hours of recording on the occasions when I managed to launch it successfully. I recorded and when it came to saving the file … all I did was click on Stop to stop the recording … that’s what you’re supposed to do to stop recording … ? right ? but it went into ‘not responding’ and when I restarted (Windows XP Home edition) there was no trace of my recording.

I cannot save in the Audacity format as I have read somewhere … I need the freedom to play my files on MP3 player, on pc, on my Laptop (which is Vista), on a ‘desktop stickies 6.5a’ application which is fab and versatile and needs .wav files for its alerts.

PLEASE someone … ? any advice ?

SilvaTixi

Hi

I’m sorry that nobody has replied to my post for help … but I found the Quick Help option from the Help menu on the toolbar very helpful. Although it didn’t say so but I tried going to Edit/Preferences/Directories/there I changed the folder that the temp files are stored in. Something went wrong, only a 1 minute portion of the recording was saved as MP3 on the folder on USB but doing things this way gave me choices of storing in various different folders.

I found all of my recording in a whole piece by right clicking Start/Explore/Program Files/Audacity 1.3 Beta/Modules

There I found my complete file … all in one piece but it was stored as an Audacity Project File. I have tried to save it in mp3 format on USB … I don’t know if I succeeded … can anyone tell me how they manage to store files in a required format to USB ? … I’m sure I’ve done it the loooong way … also, I found lots of pieces of my recording … I have no idea how I got to them but it was really upsetting … how can I stop Audacity breaking up my files like that ?

Thanx so much to anyone who posts help as I have a TMA deadlines and all this is taking too much time

Thanks

SilvaTixi

If you want an audio file - WAV or MP3 - use “Export”, not “Save”.

“Save” will only save an Audacity project, which is a collection of data files (.au) under the control of a project file (.aup).
All those pieces you found are the data files. Dont move or delete any of them or your project will disappear!

Have a look at this http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Quick_Help
and this http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Tutorials

PO’L

I’m now at this and I can’t figure out how to post my question. Can you help?

Hi

Use the Post Reply button at the bottom of the page … then type message into the box and click Post Message … sometimes you need to find a post and reply to a reply … watch out for ‘jump to post’ links on the right side

Thanks, Irish,

The first link has been very helpful … haven’t tried the second one yet

SilvaTixi

Hi Everyone

As I said in my first post, I’m no recording expert but I just wanted to put up this little detail incase it helps because I keep forgetting and so much time is lost before I remember … with Audacity you have to remember which format the files were saved in.

To open files saved as project
file/open/go to where file was saved/files don’t show until you click ‘Files of type’ arrow for drop down menu and select Audacity projects/now all files saved as project files will show up/these can be opened and further recordings can be added to each file using cut and paste.

To open files saved as mp3
file/import/audio/go to file location/click file/ok

Audacity crashes alot if you don’t do things the Audacity way.

I hope this will help many people save much time

Good Luck

: )

Shazia