Playback troubles

[lpcmusicman]

I am using Windows XP to access Audacity. I have transferred an AUP sound file from an M-Audio Microtrack II to my computer. When I open the file to listen to my recording on the computer, I can't hear anything no matter what I/O settings or other preferences I try to use. What is wrong?

[waxcylinder]

Because you need a lot more than the aup file ....

When you save an Audacity project as <project_name> it creates a number of things

1. a top level master project file called <project_name>.aup
2. a folder at the same filing level called <project_name>_data
3. and within the folder a sub-folder structure with lots of little .au files - segments of the recording (mainly audio clips - but a couple of them are graphics files)

When you re-open a project with Audacity you should always open the <project_name>.aup top level file. This tells Audacity how to thread together all the little .au files. It is deliberately designed this way so that Audacity doesn't have to open and work with a single humungously large file, which would hamper performance. You should not be attempting to open or manipulate any individual .au files.

When you have finished editing your Audacity project you can Export it from Audacity as a WAV file or MP3 file depending what sound quality you wish to achieve. WAV files are around ten times larger than the equivalent MP3 files but are uncompressed and thus the audio quality is higher.

WC

[lpcmusicman]

Thank you for your info. I do have a master file (.aup) and a folder with little files of data, but I still can't hear the recording on my computer when I open the project from the master file. I checked to see what sound card I have on my computer and I selected that card in the preference settings in Audacity and I still don't hear anything when I use the play button. The cursor moves across the graphic representation of the recording, but I can't hear anything no matter how high I set the volume on my speakers. If I plug the M-Audio unit in and play the recording on the computer I can hear it, but as soon as I turn off or unplug the hardware, the computer goes silent. Do you have to have the M-Audio unit plugged in to be able to hear the recorded file?

[kozikowski]

I guess we should probably correct one item right away. The M-Audio device doesn't produce AUP files.

From the web site...

"Simply record WAV (BWF) and MP3 files to CompactFlash or Microdrives."

So which did you do?

Koz