Can audacity direct-write to a file?

[Xirix]

It's been a little while since I've used Audacity, my cousin and I used it briefly for a project back when I had Windows XP and after a 3-4 hour session we near had panic attacks when it looked like the program might crash before actually saving the .wav file.

I'm on Windows 7 now with a better computer, but considering my cousin and I want a recording program for fairly long talking sessions, is there a way to make audacity automatically write to a file, like for instance recordpad does. Or if not, is there a way to tell it to save the project every x minutes or something along those lines?

I'm tempted to try the program again, but I want to absolutely make sure it's 'safe' to record long stretches without losing them.

[kozikowski]

I'm fuzzy, but I think if you start a Project, save it once and add to it, it does pretty much that. When you're done, File > Save and all Audacity has to do is tie a ribbon on the files already there. I don't think it actually saves anything more if you do that. Hotkey Control-S.

If the show is End Of The World important, double record it.

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

is there a way to make audacity automatically write to a file, like for instance recordpad does.

No. Audacity writes the recording's audio data every six seconds or so in small blocks called AU files. At the same interval, it updates its temporary AUP project file for the new AU files. The temporary project file is called an AUTOSAVE file.

If the recording crashes, Audacity users the AUTOSAVE file to recover the recording in correct timeline order when you restart Audacity.

The only difference if you save a project before recording is that the AU files are written to the project folder rather than Audacity's temporary folder. If you have a clean up application that likes to delete temp files, saving a project before recording might be safer.


Gale