record to W.M.P and not AUP

[roy windmill]

Hi. Before starting to record an L.P. I clicked "File" then Save Project As..." and got a warning: You are saving an Audacity Project File(.AUP) I clicked o'k, and got a dialogue box for Windows Media Player, where I clicked o'k. On completing my recording I clicked "save". But, returning to the project I can't open my recording to edit it. Can you please help? I am using Audacity 1.3.11, on Windows X.P. Roy

[kozikowski]

The warning should say "You are not saving a sound file." But it doesn't.

To get a sound file in Audacity requires that you Export one.

File > Export > WAV (Microsoft) 16-bit PCM.

That should drop into any music program including Windows Media and iTunes.

Koz

[kozikowski]

On the event that you did want a Project instead of a sound file, you need to be careful not to put punctuation marks in your file name or move or change the names of anything after you finish. Audacity Projects are in two parts, the aup manager file and the _data folder. Did you get both of those?

Koz

[kozikowski]

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Audacity_Projects

Koz

[roy windmill]

Hi Koz. I did get 2 files in the W.M Player dialogue box, one was for _data folder, and one was just the W.M,P logo with no mention of Aup. I'm going to have to re-record my L.P. What I need to know is, do I record and not save anything until I have clicked the Stop button and then click File> Save Project as. or should I begin by clicking File>Save Project as, and then do the recording? Roy

[steve]

It will make life much more simple if you set Windows to show all file extensions. See here for how to do that: http://www.fileinfo.com/help/windows_show_extensions

Read the link that Koz posted and it will explain that you can "Save" an "Audacity Project", but that Audacity Projects are not supported by other programs and are not audio files. To create an audio file that will work in other programs you must "Export" the audio.

[roy windmill]

Hi Steve. Thanks for your reply. I have read the link that you listed, but frankly it doesn't seem to help me with my present problem. If you look at my reply to Koz. I asked how should I begin my recording: to start by clicking File>Save Project as, and then hit the record button, or to record first and then click File>Save Project as. I have read the F.A.Q and taken a copy of How to record Vinyls. Many thanks. Roy

[steve]

Thanks for your reply. I have read the link that you listed, but frankly it doesn't seem to help me with my present problem.

You previously wrote:
"I did get 2 files in the W.M Player dialogue box, one was for _data folder, and one was just the W.M,P logo with no mention of Aup."

Unfortunately, the logo that Windows applies to files is almost meaningless and cannot be trusted. Windows associates an icon according to which program it thinks goes with the file extension, but Windows can often be wrong about this and by default Windows will hide the file extension if it thinks that it knows what sort of file it is.

The link that I posted shows how to tell Windows to show the file extensions for all files.
When you can see the file extensions of all files, you will see that an Audacity Project is made up of a file called filename.aup and a data folder called filename_data.

If the file extensions are hidden, then it will be unclear if a file called "filename" is actually a WAV file (filename.wav), part of an Audacity Project (filename.aup), a Windows Media Audio file (filename.wma), or some other file type.

To open an Audacity Project in Audacity you need both the .aup file and the _data folder.
To open an Exported file in Windows Media Player you need a normal audio file such as an MP3, WAV or AIFF file.
Windows Media Player cannot open .aup files.

If you cannot see the file extension, then you will probably have difficulty in knowing what file type you are trying to open and which program can open it and will just get confused. That's why I recommended un-hiding the file extensions.