Audacity Forum

Plesae can you help me solve the following problem.
I am trying to transfer some of my old music/songwriting creations onto CD via Windows Media Player on my pc running Windows Vista Home Premium.
I have done so successfully in the past on a pc running Windows XP via specialist hardware/software Instant Music RDX-150. Unfortunately it is not supported in Windows Vista.
I have successfully downloaded and installed AUDACITY 1.3.13-beta(Unicode), and recorded a casstte track, which plays fine through the pc speakers. I have also saved it in audacity as an .aup (project). I have followed the instructions to export it to my music folder as type WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM, but it does not appear to have the .WAV ending.
I have then tried to drag it into the Windows Media PlayerLibrary/playlist but it lists loads of sub files that will not play.
I get an error message, as follows:
Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.
My objective is to use AUDACITY to record, mix and master new songs/music, in additon to transfering older audio cassette recordings, and then export it to Windows Media Player to burn to CD's.I have searched through the forum without success, and on the internet seen references to WinAmp being able to solve difficulties with using AUDACITY in Vista, but WinAmp (and various other players suggested do not have CD burning facilities.
I think AUDACITY is a wonderful digital pc music workstation/studio, but how I wish it had a CD burning facility !
Please can you help me to resolve this difficulty?
Sailorpilot

First you should force Windows to show you file name extensions (.wav). It doesn't want to.

-- Hidden File Extensions
-- Start > My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View > [ ] Hide Extensions for Known File Types (deselect)
-- Apply (to this folder) or Apply to All Folders
-- OK

Then it sounds like you're trying to put an Audacity Project into Windows Media. That doesn't work. You need to Export your show (or shows) as WAV Microsoft PCM files and drag them into Windows Media or the sound program of your choice.

Then burn the CD.

Koz

sailorpilot wrote:I have successfully downloaded and installed AUDACITY 1.3.13-beta(Unicode), and recorded a casstte track, which plays fine through the pc speakers. I have also saved it in audacity as an .aup (project). I have followed the instructions to export it to my music folder as type WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM, but it does not appear to have the .WAV ending.

As Koz just pointed out while I was typing, Windows hides WAV and other common extensions by default. But if you hover your mouse over the file in Explorer, it should show that it is a WAV even if you hide extensions.

sailorpilot wrote:I have then tried to drag it into the Windows Media PlayerLibrary/playlist but it lists loads of sub files that will not play.
I get an error message, as follows:
Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.

If you haven't actually opened the project _data folder in WMP by mistake, did you add metadata like genre and artist to the file when exported it from Audacity? That might upset Windows Media Player, depending what version it is.

You don't have to use Windows Media Player to burn CDs:
http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home .

sailorpilot wrote: I wish it had a CD burning facility !

We can add your vote for that.


Gale

To Koz

Thank you so much (God Bless America!)

Managed to de-select hide file extensions, then exported again to my documents, but then had to add " .WAV " to the file name before dragging it into Windows media player succesfully, and WOW, it played fine through the pc speakers. Well made up ! (Scouse vernacular - Liverpool, UK).

Thanks again to all who replied. Am looking forward to working with this system now after a lot of headaches.
Sailorpilot.

but then had to add " .WAV " to the file name before dragging it into Windows media player

Those are the wrong words. Audacity creates a filename with the .wav already on the end. The object of the Windows filename unhiding exercise is to allow you to see it.

If you added .wav to an existing music file, you may have created music.wav.wav by accident. Did you tell Windows to unhide extensions in all your folders?

Koz

To Koz

My vista home premium seems to have a different path than the one you indicated. Last night I had difficulty for a while in arriving at hidden file and folders. The path on my computer (with the settings as I adjusted them) was as follows:-
Start/Computer/Organise/Folder ansd Search Options/(Folder Options)View-Advanced Settings-Show hidden files and folders-ON,Hide extensions for known file types-OFF,APPLY,OK (There is no "My Computer/Tools..., nor "Apply to this folder" or "all folders").
Checking properties of the file I loaded into Windows Media Player shows only the single .WAV extension, which ,as I said, I had to add manually to enable it to be recognised by WMPlayer. In spite of following the audacity instructions, it did not automatically add the .WAV extension, and , of course, I was unable to put it into WMP until I added it. I have no idea at this stage why that should be.

sailorpilot wrote:In spite of following the audacity instructions, it did not automatically add the .WAV extension

If you enter a file name that has a dot in the name, Audacity will assume that the letters after the dot are intended to be the file extension. If you need to use dots in the file name then you must also include the file extension. Best practice is to use normal alpha-numeric characters, space, hyphen (-) and underscore (_) in file names and avoid any other "special" characters.

To steve and Koz

I did have a dot in the file name which I have since removed - thank you for that. Also, Koz, I think I must have done something wrong last night, as I have today recorded another track from cassette ,and export from audacity worked perfectly - thanks to all for your help.

Sailorpilot