copy and paste track troubles

[sagetyrtle]

running: Windows XP, Audacity 1.3.11

Please see the attached screenshot:

I have 4 tracks in one Audacity window. I copy SOME of the tracks, then paste them. The pasted tracks are not the same length, and they aren't lined up properly. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong, or how to fix this?

Thanks so much.

[sagetyrtle]

I should mention that I copy the tracks, then:

file | new

paste

[steve]

I think it's a bug.
If you update to Audacity 1.3.12 it should work correctly.

[Gale Andrews]

I think it's a bug.
If you update to Audacity 1.3.12 it should work correctly.

If that problem is what I think (silent regions in tracks are truncated when pasting the track to a new project) it was only noticed after release of 1.3.12. To fix it you will need the Nightly Build (1.3.13 alpha).



Gale

[steve]

That's interesting - on looking again more closely I don't think it's the bug that I thought it was.
@Gale - it's difficult to see without being able to see the time scale, but it looks like some of the tracks are being stretched rather than truncated?
@sagetyrtle - were the original tracks containing audio of different sample rates? and does the nightly build fix it?

[Gale Andrews]

That's interesting - on looking again more closely I don't think it's the bug that I thought it was.
@Gale - it's difficult to see without being able to see the time scale, but it looks like some of the tracks are being stretched rather than truncated?

Sorry, I didn't click or scroll the image, so only saw the top track of the "paste" which doesn't have any silence. so thought silence was being truncated. Looking at the full "paste" image, it seems to show Audacity more zoomed in than the "copy" image, but yes at least the parts between the audio seem to have been stretched. It's still possible the fix in 1.3.13 could fix this issue too, if we know the exact steps to reproduce.

To test, I created some time-shifted DTMFs in 1.3.13 at 48000 Hz and 11025 Hz in a 48000 Hz project:

Copied tracks one of which has a second clip

copy.png (63.22 KiB) Viewed 1736 times

Then I copied and pasted all of the tracks to one new 96000 Hz project, and some of them to another 96000 Hz project. I don't see any problem there with truncation/expansion. @sagetyrtle, if 1.3.13 has the same problem, can you give us all the steps that you do from starting a new project? And when you open that new project, what does the project rate box at bottom left say?

But I noticed a problem that the one track that had a second clip in it didn't have the second clip in it when I pasted:

Pasted tracks with clip missing

paste.png (59.1 KiB) Viewed 1736 times

I got the clip (whitespace rendered as silence) when I duplicated the upper two tracks in copy.png to create the lower two. I then shifted the resultant third track and generated a DTMF in its second clip. If I double-click the second clip in the third track, and paste it in the same project, no audio is pasted in that case either. If I merge the clips then copy and paste the track, the whole third track will be pasted.




Gale

[sagetyrtle]

Whoops! I didn't see the replies until today. Sorry about that.

So I installed Audacity 1.3.12 and copied the tracks, and pasted them.

They are all WAV files. They are all mono. They are all 44100Hz. Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck.

See: screenshot below.



re: the time scale - the original tracks are all 1 minutes, 51 seconds.

The *longest* of the pasted tracks is 1 minute, 35 seconds.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much,
-Sage

[Gale Andrews]

So I installed Audacity 1.3.12 and copied the tracks, and pasted them.
They are all WAV files. They are all mono. They are all 44100Hz. Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck.

And is your project rate 44100 Hz bottom left of the Audacity window when you copy and when you paste?

Now the copy and paste images are at the same zoom level, it would seem that the silence is being truncated in the pastes rather than there being any pitch change. I have tried this in 1.3.12 with hand-crafted tracks made from DTMF tones, but I cannot reproduce it.

Can you please try the 1.3.13 Alpha which is the latest code. To use that, extract the contents of the zip to a new folder and double-click audacity.exe from that new folder to launch it. It will not affect your current 1.3.12 installation. I would suggest to be sure, making a copy of the WAV files first, and making a copy of any projects you save or open in 1.3.13.

If you are not comfortable with that, or if you get the same problem in 1.3.13, can you upload these four WAVs somewhere and post the address here where we can download them. There are plenty of free file transfer services such as:

http://www.yousendit.com
http://www.megaupload.com
http://www.sendspace.com


Thanks



Gale

[sagetyrtle]

Okay! So: I tried this using the 1.3.13 Alpha.

And is your project rate 44100 Hz bottom left of the Audacity window when you copy and when you paste?

Yes.

I think I may have discovered the problem. When I copy and paste using UNedited files, everything works just beautifully.

When I open a file I've been editing (and by "editing" I mean: cutting pasting, splitting, joining the splits) and try to copy and paste from *that*, that's where the problems come in. I'll go ahead and give you the WAV files from my current project, but I'm not sure you'll be able to replicate the problem because it hasn't been edited on *your* computer, if that makes sense. I'm guessing the problem is inherent in the fact that the WAV files have been edited, and it will probably vanish once I've saved new WAV files.

The files can be found here (uploading now, they'll be there in about 20 minutes):

http://www.quirkynomads.com/guest/audacity_01.wav
http://www.quirkynomads.com/guest/audacity_02.wav