Importing/editing voice memo WAV files

[EdP]

Using Audacity 1.3.6 under Win XP Pro SP2

My camera (Fuji S602Z) has a Voice Memo feature which creates a WAV file along with the associated image file. I believe this is pretty much common among digital cameras.

I wanted to use Audacity to edit and save the WAV file as an MP3 file, but received a message that Audacity recognized the file, but was inable to import it.

What do I need to do to get Audacity to read this file?

Thanks
EdP

[Gale Andrews]

Using Audacity 1.3.6 under Win XP Pro SP2

My camera (Fuji S602Z) has a Voice Memo feature which creates a WAV file along with the associated image file. I believe this is pretty much common among digital cameras.

I wanted to use Audacity to edit and save the WAV file as an MP3 file, but received a message that Audacity recognized the file, but was inable to import it.

1.3.6 is long obsolete. Please upgrade to the current Beta (1.3.10):
http://audacityteam.org/download

and subscribe to our announcements list:
http://audacityteam.org/#announce

In some cases Audacity cannot import WAV files created by portable recorders. We use the inbuilt LIBSNDFILE library to import WAV files, but WAV files from portable recorders are often not uncompressed PCM WAV, but some kind of size-compressed format inside a WAV container.

You can add the optional FFmpeg library to your computer, then your should be able to use that library to import your camera's WAV file into Audacity:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... tallffmpeg

FFmpeg will allow you to import and export most audio formats (as long as the files are not protected to work only in particular software), and also to import audio from most video files.

After installing FFmpeg using the above instructions, you can import a file using the FFmpeg library by clicking File > Import > Audio, then choose "FFmpeg-compatible files" in the file type dropdown. After importing one file that way via FFmpeg, you can then drag files into Audacity if you prefer that method, and the files will import using FFmpeg.



Gale

[EdP]

Gale ...

Thank you for the extremely quick response.

One of the informational messages I received when 1.3.6 refused to import the WAV file was to install the FFmpeg library which I did, but it had no effect. After I upgraded to 1.3.10, I reinstalled the FFmpeg library just to be safe.

Choosing File > Import > Audio in 1.3.10 did not open an option to choose "FFmpeg-compatible files", but dragging the WAV file into Audacity opened it and allowed me to edit and export it as an MP3 file.

Thank you very much for the help.

BTW
When I recently had family 8mm and 16mm movies from the 40's and 50's digitized, I spent a considerable amount of time, effort, and frustration editing and splicing them using a number of video editing programs, both free and costly. I also spent a considerable amount of time and effort searching for appropriate sound effects and music to add to the otherwise silent movies. By far the easiest and most painless part of the project was editing the sound files using Audacity. It was easy to learn and extremely effective. Although I rarely need to use it, I thank you for making such a great product as Audacity available.

EdP

[Gale Andrews]

...Choosing File > Import > Audio in 1.3.10 did not open an option to choose "FFmpeg-compatible files", but dragging the WAV file into Audacity opened it and allowed me to edit and export it as an MP3 file.

There isn't a separate window or Options button. Click File > Import > Audio then click in the "Files of type" dropdown. "FFmeg-compatible files" is at the bottom of that list.


Gale