Audacity Forum

I am new to Audacity.
I am using Windows 7 home prem; 64bit dual 3ghz w/2gb ram and lots of disk space.
I am recording cassettes to the pc using a Grace Tape2USB machine and I am using the 1.3.13-beta version.
I copied a tape and noticed that the tone was very bass heavy.
I tried the standard equalization curves and felt a combination of bass cut and treble boost would work best, so I saved a profile like that.
I have copied several tapes, saved the project and then run my modified equalization profile and everything was fine. I exported to MP3, all good.
Then I did a cassette slightly longer than the previous ones (just short of 42 minutes) and saved it.
When I ran the equalization profile there is a program error and it stops with variously 1 or, 5 or 3 seconds left to finish.
I tried this several times on two different projects, recovering from the failed process by deleteing the orphans.
I just tried it now to get the error message as I am typing this and it worked. It says something about an unhandled error and gives me abort, retry, ignore options.
Now I am trying to export and it seems like Audacity is frozen.
I am using the recommended LAME driver for MP3.

Sorry, I know this is two questions but they are happening together. Is there some way Audacity needs to be refreshed (or LAME).
I have done three tapes (saving and outputting each) without reboot or starting Audacity again.
Task manager tells me I am using 93% memory and 1% cpu.

Thanks in advance
Lief

The shortage of memory could be a problem. Try rebooting your computer then run it again.
(as a comparison, this computer has 2 GB of RAM, I've just EQ'd a 40 minute track and memory usage is currently 16.2%, but I'm using Linux which is probably a lot more memory efficient than Windows 7).

I think you are on to something Steve.
I did reboot several times previously having this problem but was not paying attention to the memory usage when it did work.
When I just started the computer and Audigiy a few moments ago I recovered my project and tried equalization again.
It worked and the working set was about 900mb when it was done. I exported to MP3 and that worked as well.
Now my working set was nearly 1.6gb.
I closed and opened a different project that had failed and equalization would not complete.
I am going to reboot and pay more attention to how memory is used between projects.
I think now either Win7 is not managing memory properly or the Audigy beta is not releasing memory when a project is closed.
I will post what I notice in case it works and may help someone else.

OK, sometimes the answer is simpler than expected.
The memory problem is solved by going to edit/preferences/directories and unchecking the 'use RAM ...' option.

Equalization proceeds a little slower but just fine.

Lief wrote:The memory problem is solved by going to edit/preferences/directories and unchecking the 'use RAM ...' option.

Ah yes, that will account for it.
Now you know why that option is off by default