Audacity Forum

Obviously in order to find where I want to delete or add to audio track, I have to play the import at normal speeds. However, my audio track plays its one hour or so in one to two seconds. What is going on or what am I doing wrong?
pauls

You are almost certainly trying to import a file type that Audacity does not support. Audacity Supports WAV, MP3, OGG and FLAC & MP2 in 1.3.

The screech is Audacity 1.2's inelegant way of telling you that it can't handle the file type you've given it - in 1.3.x a more appropriate and informative error message appears.

If this is the case you have two basic options:

1. find and use some converter software to convert your file to a type that Audacity supports

2. play the file in any music software that supports that particular file format and record it in Audacity.

stevethefiddle wrote:There's a free program called SUPER by erightsoft that can convert most media file types. If you can convert the files to WAV files that should fix the problem.

WC

I've just installed Audacity for Windows and I have the same problem. I want to convert a wma file to mp3 but the playback on the imported wma (and therefore the exported mp3) is a quick squeek that lasts less than half a second. Anyone out there who can help?

<<<I want to convert a wma file to mp3>>>

You are almost certainly trying to import a file type that Audacity does not support. Audacity Supports WAV, MP3, OGG and FLAC & MP2 in 1.3.

If this is the case you have two basic options:

1. find and use some converter software like Super or Switch to convert your file to a type that Audacity supports

2. play the file in any music software that supports that particular file format and record it in Audacity.

[Based on a previous answer by waxcylinder ]

Koz

I appear to have the same problem. I'm importing iPod files, that's all I've ever used Audacity for. When importing it does no "importing mp3" conversion. This only started today, if I go back and load "recently loaded" files it imports, converts and exports normally. Note these are all iPod mp4a files in the iPod library. I reloaded Audacity, looked for a restore defaults setting but nothing will get it to work since this morning when it was working fine. Any ideas?

Your problem shouldn't be happening because Audacity 1.2 should have never imported any of your iPod files. You know they're M4A files because you have Windows set to show file extensions? Or did you find out in the Properties dialog box? Or are you guessing?

Apple iPods will cheerfully load and play everything from straight WAV files through different versions of MP3 and then on to M4A and MPEG4 AAC. A particularly aggressive form of AAC is the one you hear people talk about when they say they have three weeks of music on their iPod.

Where did the music come from? People always start the movie in the middle when we really need to talk about the first act.

The only way to start Audacity from First Birthday is to trash its preference files and restart. In Windows Audacity 1.2 there are no preference files. Preferences are burned into the Dreaded Windows Registry. The only way to clear everything is to trash the whole program and hope to goodness the Registry follows you. You know you cleared everything when the new Audacity asks you "English?" at first birthday.

Koz

That it shouldn't have ever worked is pretty much my feeling too after trying to troubleshoot, however, it did appear to. I do have windows set to show file extensions and the problem children are MP4a, however your reply was a big clue. I'm importing audio from an ion USB turntable, the ion EZ Vinyl s/w exports directly to iTunes, I wasn't given another option I know of. I then opened Audacity, imported the ion exports from the iTunes library, edited then exported as MP3 directly back to iTunes original location, all was fine until yesterday. Now looking through the library I see that most ion exported files are MP3 but a few aren't, somehow those were converted to MP4a. This may be operator error, its possible that I over-wrote MP3 files (same music from vinyl) with a later import from CD. Files imported to iTunes from CD went directly to MP4a so I know iTunes is defaulted to MP4a, don't see an option to keep them in MP3. Thanks for the help, I have something here to work with.

Did get Audacity to ask me for "British English" so maybe I was successful in a complete reload but as you have pointed that wasn't likely the problem. I HATE the registry, its like sleeping with the grim reaper.

p

Another hint. You can change iTunes Import preferences to WAV Auto instead of the more exotic compression schemes. The default iTunes format is AAC (M4A) 128 (as I recall). I wouldn't be surprised if your captures appeared at 44100, 16-bit, Stereo WAV files...

Koz

Thanks, that gives me plenty of info to go with and my original question appears to be answered too!
p