Import mp3 from Olympus voice recorder -- playback too fast

[rin]

Hi all,

I have a really important interview on my voice recorder that I need to send to my editor, and I need to chop it up into smaller pieces to send (when I try to zip it, it still won't compress small enough to email).

When I import the file into Audacity, I get something that plays a thousand times too fast, just a high-speed "blip" and that's all I get of my 45 minute interview, so I can't listen to it to edit it or export it.

The file plays just fine in VLC player.

Ideas?

[kozikowski]

The difference between the show length you were expecting and the one you got is the amount of compression or processing in the file. It also means that Audacity didn't understand the file.

Step one is stop using Audacity 1.2.

Audacity 1.2 is very old and no longer supported,
patched, corrected, or updated. Audacity 1.2 can
be unstable on newer computers.

Download and install the latest Audacity 1.3 from here...

http://audacityteam.org/download/

You can install both audacity 1.2 and Audacity 1.3 on
the same computer, but only use one at a time.

Audacity 1.2 will not open projects made on Audacity 1.3.

If you use MP3 or some of the more modern audio
compression formats, get Lame and FFMpeg software
from the same web site. Do not use older software
or software from other web sites, even though they
may have the same names.


Then you can go up to that same web site and get FFMpeg add-on for Audacity. I know I'm going to dig myself a hole here, but I think that combination might read Olympus sound files.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... us#p139267

Audacity isn't a very good converter. Super or Switch can both be used to create well behaved files.

Koz

[rin]

Thanks for the super detailed explanation. I have a question, tho: my voice recorder makes mp3 files, not some weird format. Doesn't any version of Audacity import mp3 files?

[kozikowski]

Audacity supports MP3 format very well. I'm betting that's not what you actually have.

Audacity 1.2 has severe problems with OS-X. Do the version update and install FFMpeg.

Koz

[steve]

my voice recorder makes mp3 files, not some weird format. Doesn't any version of Audacity import mp3 files?

Audacity supports importing MP3 files, but Olympus voice recorders usually use either ADPCM, DSS, WAV, WMA or their own "Triple Rate" format. As Koz said, if Audacity does not import the files correctly then they are almost certainly not standard MP3 (or WAV) files.

As you say VLC plays the files correctly, you could use VLC to convert the files to WAV format, then import the WAV files into Audacity.
If you use Audacity 1.3.13 and have FFmpeg installed, then Audacity may be able to import the Olympus files, but if not, use the VLC conversion method.