Project file wont open, Need audio to play

[Fredhelp]

I saved a audio file and apparently i recorded or saved it wrong. I am trying to open the file in audacity and i get the following message. "The file you selected is a audacity project file . only audio files not project files can be imported into an existing project. to open a project file select open from the file menu." I am lost. this is supposed to be a audio file but somehow it is a project file. Is there audio on the saved (project) file and if so how do i retrieve it???

[waxcylinder]

When you save an Audacity project as <project_name> it creates a number of things

1. a top level master project file called <project_name>.aup
2. a folder at the same filing level called <project_name>_data
3. and within the folder a sub-folder structure with lots of little .au files - segments of the recording (mainly audio clips - but a couple of them are graphics files)

When you re-open a project with Audacity you should always open the <project_name>.aup top level file. This tells Audacity how to thread together all the little .au files. It is deliberately designed this way so that Audacity doesn't have to open and work with a single humungously large file, which would hamper performance. You should not be attempting to open or manipulate any individual .au files.

When you have finished editing your Audacity project you can Export it from Audacity as a WAV file or MP3 file depending what sound quality you wish to achieve. WAV files are around ten times larger than the equivalent MP3 files but are uncompressed and thus the audio quality is higher.

WC

[Ranger_Mattos]

The same thing happens to me. It says "Only audio files, not project files, can be imported into an existing project. To open a project file, select Open from the File menu". I'm not trying to import anything, I'm trying to open the .aup file I saved on a different computer. I'm trying to open the file, not import it, and apparently Audicity doesn't recognize that Why does this happen? Please help.

EDIT: If we're not allowed to post in threads that haven't been posted in for a certain time, I'm sorry. But I really need help.

[kozikowski]

I'm trying to open the .aup file I saved on a different computer.

-- Close everything. Right-click on the AUP file and Open With > Audacity.

-- "aup file" It's always bad when somebody uses those exact two words. If you were trying to open your show or "Project," you also need to have the _DATA folder with the same name as the AUP file. If you used a lot of sound files in your show on the other computer, you need to move them over, too. Audacity Projects can contain thousands of files and it's one good reason you can't move projects from the machine that made them.

Koz

[kozikowski]

If you still have access to the original computer, Export a WAV sound file of the show. That really is a single sound file and you can move that to wherever you want.

Koz

[tel2325]

I got the audacity software as part of a purchase with a turntable. I installed the CD and seem to be recording the album tracks. The problem is when I click playback I don't hear anything. The wave lines are there so it's playing what I recorded, I just can't hear anything. Per another posting on this site I tried going to control panel and audio but can't figure out what to click on there. I tried making changes then closing audacity and restarting it. Still no change.

[kozikowski]

Yes, that's a different problem. When you plug a USB 'thing' into a Windows machine, many times it will try to send playback sound back the way it came -- back up to the turntable. That's where you need to mess with the Windows Control Panels and send the Playback to the speakers or line-out or wherever your speakers are plugged in.

Windows Control Panel
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... trol_Panel

Koz