tapes to computer

This section is now closed.
Forum rules
Audacity 1.3.x is now obsolete. Please use the current Audacity 2.1.x version.

The final version of Audacity for Windows 98/ME is the legacy 2.0.0 version.
Locked
Walt
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2009 5:51 pm
Operating System: Please select

tapes to computer

Post by Walt » Fri Oct 02, 2009 6:21 pm

I am not a techie, just a semi-literate pc owner with a collection of cassette tapes (music) I want to put on CD's, so kindly bear with me. Specific problem is: got music recorded on Audacity but song is in 2,3 or 4 second files. After recording a large portion of one tape I wound up with 104 teeny files. Funny, huh? Not really but how do I get them into one large file? Would appreciate a hand. Thanks.

Walt

kozikowski
Forum Staff
Posts: 69384
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:57 pm
Operating System: macOS 10.13 High Sierra

Re: tapes to computer

Post by kozikowski » Fri Oct 02, 2009 8:01 pm

<<<Funny, huh?>>>

No, that's how Audacity saves projects. Audacity will not Save a sound file. To get one of those you have to Export. Export As WAV or Export As MP3.

If you need MP3 files, you'll also need the 'lame' software package. You need to install that separately.

Koz

waxcylinder
Forum Staff
Posts: 14687
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:03 am
Operating System: Windows 10

Re: tapes to computer

Post by waxcylinder » Sat Oct 03, 2009 2:30 pm

As Koz says - and witha a little more detail:

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
________________________________________FOR INSTANT HELP: (Click on Link below)
* * * * * FAQ * * * * * Tutorials * * * * * Audacity Manual * * * * *

Locked