Audacity Forum

Importing WAV files into the beta version produced just a loud burst of noise when I tried to play them.

I then found that if I turn off the preference 'Make a copy of the file before editing' and just use 'REad directly from the original file' it works correctly.

Anyone else experienced this? It is repeatable here.

Using Windows version.

Cheers,

Ray D

No. What sample rate and bit depth does the source audio file have? What project settings are you using?

hey
i'm having the same problem, but in preferences the option "read diretcly from source file" is checked

the settings of the project are 44100 Hz and 32-bit float.

the audio comes from a mp3-player recording. it's large, about 32 mb. it's a wav file, 32 bit.

when i try to import it, an error message appears that tells me audacity can't recognize that file format. i try then to import it as a brut file, and it's all noise.

if i try to listen to it in my winamp, the program crashes. the funny thing is that i can listen to it correctly directly from the mp3 player.

help !!!!

thanx in advanced

juliana

ladygigi wrote:the audio comes from a mp3-player recording. it's large, about 32 mb. it's a wav file, 32 bit.when i try to import it, an error message appears that tells me audacity can't recognize that file format. i try then to import it as a brut file, and it's all noise.if i try to listen to it in my winamp, the program crashes. the funny thing is that i can listen to it correctly directly from the mp3 player

The file is probably using AAC or mp4 (is it from iTunes?).
Try converting it to "wav" format first - that should solve the problem (there's a free program called SUPER that can convert these formats).

If it's a 32 megabyte file at 32 bits per sample, it's about 30 seconds long. If it isn't, then one of your statements isn't correct. I suspect that in fact it's an MP3 file with a bitrate of 32kbits per second, making it about 16 minutes long. This makes it nothing to do with WAV import, but possibly something to do with MP3 importing. I'm not convinced however that it is a WAV file. If you right-click the file in Explorer, select Properties, and look at the Summary tab what does it say? (If there is an Advanced button, click it).

richardash1981 wrote:If it's a 32 megabyte file at 32 bits per sample, it's about 30 seconds long.

A 30 megabyte wav at 96kHz 32 bit (float) stereo, would be a little over 40 seconds.
At 44.1 kHz 32 bit stereo it would be close to 1min 30 s, and if in mono it would be about 3 minutes.

If it's encoded either as mp3, or AAC it will be much longer.

If you load it into "SUPER" http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html it will probably show you exactly what format it actually is (and allow you to convert it into a format that is supported by Audacity).

It could also be an ADPCM. For some bizarre reason it's possible to have .wav files that are encoded with the ADPCM format. This is common with handheld recorders. If that's the case, RichardAsh's suggestion to use Windows Explorer should tell you what format it's encoded in. If the format is ADPCM (or anything other than PCM), you'll have to find another program that can convert ADPCM to PCM files.

alatham wrote: ...you'll have to find another program that can convert ADPCM to PCM files.

SUPER can do that too.

rayd wrote:Importing WAV files into the beta version produced just a loud burst of noise when I tried to play them.

I then found that if I turn off the preference 'Make a copy of the file before editing' and just use 'REad directly from the original file' it works correctly.

Anyone else experienced this?

I just tried audacity 1.3.4 beta unicode under Linux Unbuntu Gutsy and had exactly the same problem... which was solved by the same solution. The setting of audacity were the original ones, as far as I know.
Related to the "loud burst of noise" obtained, curiously, with one file composed of pure synthesiser music, it sometime partly sounds a little bit like the original (ie: some successive notes (music) were partly recognisable behind a strong noise background), therefore I wonder if the "burst of noise" may be partly derived from the original file... I may have an idea (but please consider it just as a crazy hypothesis from a non-geek): could it be that audacity mix (by mistake) the original one and the copy when importing this way? Another interesting aspect is that the original file and the "burst of noise" file have exactly the same time length.
By the way, I have tried this with various wav files from various origin (including some from pure Windows origin, dating back from Win95) and the trouble is exactly the same, so I suppose the way the wav file are encoded may not be the main reason.

I am experiencing this issue as well on Audacity 1.3.9 on Mac OSX 10.6.1.

Just as the first poster said choosing the "Read uncompressed audio files directly from the original (faster)" method works just fine while "Make a copy of uncompressed audio files before editing (safer)" shows a noisy wave form in the audio track and plays back nothing but noise.