Audacity Forum

I have a different problem. I download recordings into my computer with a voice recorder. Unless the recorder is plugged in and on, I can't hear anything. The recording is there and recorded fine.

I can't keep the recorder plugged in and on because it eats a lot of battery life. I usually have only about 30 mins before it cuts off. As soon as it cuts off, I hear nothing. There must be an easier way... I need to be able to listen and edit recordings without having it on. Any suggestions?

Thanks

As this is a different problem, I've moved your post to a new topic so that it doesn't get lost at the end of an old discussion.

jaymibh wrote: I download recordings into my computer with a voice recorder.

What sort of recorder is it? How did you "download recordings" into your computer?

makes no sense to me
just move the file to the pc
turn off the recorder
do the work on the pc
what is the real problem you have?

sounds like you have to set the options in the pc so you can hear
what pc , what opsys, what connections, yada yada.

easiest way is always to remove the flash memory card and put it in a card reader to move the file

it is always a PITA to move pix from a camera or voice from a recorder using that device attached to the pc with its gelfunkenblatz method of doing it

drag and drop - forget the recorder - buy a $10 card reader and stop wasting time futzing around with the recorder

now if your recorder does not have a memory card then i have no idea how to get it to work at all with a pc.

If your recorder mounts like a disk drive, you may be opening your sound file "hot" from the device. Audacity does not copy music into itself for editing unless you change it in preferences. So when you turn off your recorder, there goes the show.

Try actually copying the file to your desktop and then open it, or tell Audacity to make a copy of the show.
You should be in Audacity 1.3.12, not 1.2. Audacity 1.2 is no longer updated, patched, or corrected and can be unstable.

http://audacityteam.org/download/

Koz

jaymibh wrote:I have a different problem. I download recordings into my computer with a voice recorder. Unless the recorder is plugged in and on, I can't hear anything. The recording is there and recorded fine.

In Audacity 1.2, Edit > Preferences: Audio I/O tab, check "Software Playthrough" and click OK in order to listen while you are recording. In 1.3, Transport > Software Playthrough.

But yes, assuming there is a digital file on the recorder like a WAV or MP3, it's better to drag /drop the file from the recording device to the hard drive and then import that file into Audacity. A fair number of portable recorders have a USB cable to transfer files to the computer. You may have to go into Computer Management or similar and map the recorder to a drive letter before you can see it in Windows Explorer.

Drag/drop is near immediate, rather than taking as long as it takes to record. It's lossless, whereas recording a pre-existing digital file is not, because of the translation to analogue to play it and back to digital when it gets into Audacity.