export as wav

[DrJosh]

I have used Audacity for years. I am a language teacher and I have often created lists of words and then exported each individual word as a wav file (Export selection as wav) for use in other applications. Suddenly when I tried doing this today, it imposes a certain minimum file size/length about about 3 seconds or 109 kb (in 4 bit wav). That's the length of about 4 words. So I wind up with files that start with the word I selected, but continue with 3 more words. All the files are exactly 109 kb, or about 3 or 4 times the length I selected. I tried restarting Audacity, restarting my computer, uninstalling Audacity, making sure I had the most current stable version, and I get the same freaky problem. In the past, I have used Audacity mainly in Windows XP, and I have recently switched to a new machine using Vista 64 bit. (I'm ready to kill Vista sometimes. ) I hope it hasn't made Audacity unworkable for me. Any ideas?

Josh

[kozikowski]

At the bottom of the Audacity work windows there's a clicky called Snap To. Turn that off.

Audacity 1.2 and Windows is an interesting combination. You don't reinstall Audacity by resintalling Audacity, you do it by trashing the Audacity Configuration file and Audacity starts over. Except in 1.2/Windows. In that case, the preferences/configurations are burned into the Dreaded Windows Registry and if they get scrambled, it can be very amusing to straighten out.

You should probably be using Audacity 1.3 anyway. 1.2 is seriously old and has problems with newer computers.

Koz

[DrJosh]

Thanks for the quick reply. The snap to option was turned off, but 1.2.x it was still giving me that problem. I downloaded 1.3.9. It doesn't give me that problem described any more, but apparently the 4 bit wav option is gone. I'm using the audio files in a program that only takes wav, but I want to decrease the size as much as possible. The 4 bit wav option was working well for me (they are just voice files--no music). Is there any way to be able to get this effect in 1.3.9?

[DrJosh]

Oh, I think I figured it out. It was sort of round about. In the export dialog window, you have to choose Other uncompressed file formats. From there you have to select either IMA... or Microsoft... (which I recognized as the 4 bit option, even though it doesn't say so).

Josh

[kozikowski]

It could be said that 1.3 works the way that 1.2 probably should have all along.

Koz