Audacity Forum

Hello,
I am a newbie with audacity. I have saved an audio file on my desktop from a Olympus WS100 digital voice recorder. It is 58 minutes 39 seconds long. When I play it on windows media player, it plays perfectly fine. But when I go onto Audacity, it plays the whole thing in less than 5 seconds. It seems to be playing it super fast. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong. I have tried it several times and cannot get it to work properly. I even deleted Audacity off my computer and then downloaded again hoping that I might have inadvertently changed something, but still doing it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,

That's not a regular PCM wav file. It's an ADPCM wav file.

Does Audacity give you a warning when you try to import it saying you need to use Import Raw?

In many cases you can use Import Raw to import that, but you'll need to find out what the sample rate and bit depth the file is at, and you need to know the number of channels (stereo or mono). In Windows, you can right click on the file and click Properties -> Summary -> advanced to find all this out.

Then input all that info into the Import Raw box in Audacity, leave the Endianness and other values at default and see if it works (turn the volume down first, Audacity will blast your ears off if it's the wrong format). If the file isn't right, try changing the Endianness to something else.

Apparently Audacity can't import 4-bit files, so if that's what you've got then you might be out of luck.

The only other option is to use Audacity to record the file while it's playing through your speakers. It'll take an hour to load the file, but it's foolproof as long as it's set up right. Search this board for "streaming" (search box is at the top right) and you should find something.

Thanks for the reply
First, when you say import, I am not given an option to import it under the file menu. So what I am doing is when I plug my voice recorder into the USB port, I open up the folder containing the file and click on it. It then appears in Audacity. I also saved it on my desktop and tried it from there with the same result.

No, it is not telling me to use Import Raw?

Here is the info I obtained from the Advanced Summary:
Bit Rate: 32 bit
Audio Sample Size: 16 bit
Channels: 1(Mono)
Audio Sample Rate: 44kHz

Where is the "Import Raw" box??? Never have seen this. I am using the 1.2 version of Audacity.
And it is funny, because I also have another olympus voice recorder, different model, that I have no problems with it at all. But I use both recorders when I am out. I use these for Paranormal stuff. I might have caught something on the recorder that is giving me the problems and I want to get it on Audacity so I can isolate the sound and get a better listen to it.
I am stepping out for a little while, but will look for a response from you when I get back.
Thanks a million.

I just looked at the data for that recorder. It only records to WMA format, so Audacity can't open it. You'll have to use a different piece of software to convert from WMA -> WAV.

On a side note, I'm very surprised that you use a handheld recorder to try to pick up paranormal audio. I would assume that if such a sound existed it would be very quiet. I also wouldn't be limiting myself to the kind of frequency response those mics can pick up. Who's to say that paranormal sounds can't exist outside of our hearing range?

The upper limit for that recorder is 12,000 Hz, hardly adequate.

You should also be aware that the electret microphones those handheld recorders use have very high self-noise. You also run the risk of picking up errant sounds due to the lack of a proper ground and/or shielding on your handheld recorder.

Furthermore, you're likely to get lots of handling noise unless you soft-mount the recorder to something stationary.

Don't forget a wind filter on the mic, either.

And as a final problem, you're going to get lots of digital compression artifacts due to the fact that it's in a WMA format.

You really need much nicer equipment if you ever expect to convince anyone you've recorded something paranormal.

Personally I would use a nice Large Diaphragm Condenser mic (soft-mounted, of course) plugged into something that doesn't have a fan to cool the electronics. I'd also be recording to 192KHz, 24-bit audio. This would be the best setup for picking up low-volume, high-bandwidth signals. I wouldn't really trust any results from a different setup unless the audio was really compelling.

Thanks for the info. I will change the file over to wav

I am sure you are correct about the frequency. But, these are typically used in this field with good results using the external microphones. I would like to get something like you are talking about, but it is out of most peoples budget. I have searched for recorders with sampling frequencies in this range, but they are alot of money and therefore out of our, and most peoples range. For some skeptics, there will never be enough evidence. I am a skeptic myself, but I try and find what evidence I can to try and prove there might be something out there that we dont yet understand.
Thanks for you help!