exporting as wav corrupts original and wav

[jacko]

I just recorded a kids recital, and saved the files in audacity.
when I exported them to wave files, they and the original files
were silent. Though the wav's are flatline,
the originals look ok, ie there still seems to be info there, but they will not play.

did the exporting to wav cause this? is there any way to fix the audacity files,
as it looks like there is info still there?
i am so bummed, as it was a performance.

thanks
jackie in portland

[waxcylinder]

Audacity projects consist of a big cloud of files that are very susceptible to damage and loss if you move or delete any of the files (unless you know exactly what you are doing). There is a top level .aup file created when you SAVE the project and a folder with lots of little .au files which are mostly soundclips, but a couple are use to manage the graphical display - also some projects can depend on external WAV files if these are imported into Audacity without having the "Safer" mode set in your preferences. The .aup file is s sort of recipe book to tell Audacity how th thread together all the files

It is quite possible for the files that manage the graphics to be intact so the display looks ok - but if soundclip or dependent files are no longer where they should be this leads to silent passages. Many people report this behaviour - ironically, it catches out the "tidy organized" folk who clean up after them more the untidy folk.

Exporting to WAV should not corrupt your project. In fact when I record a project I SAVE the project to Audacity format and make a safety copy by EXPORTing as a WAV file. I would also recommend that before you start recording a project, SAVE the empty project to the targer project filename you will use - this will tell Audacity properly where to store all the files - so it won't neeed to use its temp directory.

Summary: if you have moved or deleted any of your project files, try putting them back where they were originally and then try playing your project.

WC