File has wav extension but Audacity says otherwise

[Nisko]

Some of the sound bites I have contain the wav extension - but Audacity suggests importing them in the raw format. When I do that and play the sound, it's not the sound I expect (usually sounds more like static). Is there a way to import the sound so it sounds correctly? Thank you.........

[kozikowski]

Do you have Windows set to show you "real" file extensions?

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

Windows will aggressively hide file extensions "to help you" leading to some interesting damage.
MyGreatMusic.wav.ac3 will appear in Windows as MyGreatMusic.wav. It is, in fact, no such thing. It's also possible to hide an insanely dangerous executable file as a harmless mp3 or jpg.

CuteBunny.jpg is really CuteBunny.jpg.exe which contains a computer virus as well as an actual cute bunny.

Koz

[kozikowski]

The instant somebody has trouble with Audacity 1.2, we shuttle you off immediately to Audacity 1.3. No question.

Audacity 1.2 is very old and no longer supported,
patched, corrected, or updated. Audacity 1.2 can
be unstable on newer computers.

Download and install the latest Audacity 1.3 from here...

http://audacityteam.org/download/

You can install both audacity 1.2 and Audacity 1.3 on
the same computer, but only use one at a time.

Audacity 1.2 will not open projects made on Audacity 1.3.

If you use MP3 or some of the more modern audio
compression formats, get Lame and FFMpeg software
from the same web site. Do not use older software
or software from other web sites, even though they
may have the same names.

[Nisko]

Hide Extensions has always been deselected - and I am using the latest version (1.3 beta) of Audacity. Would you accept an upload of the suspect file?

[kozikowski]

It was that posting in the Audacity 1.2 forum that confused me.

Can you post it somewhere that we can download it? The file limit on the forum is 1MB.

What happens if you right-click the file > Properties > Advanced? What does that say?

Koz

[steve]

Topic moved to the Audacity 1.3.x forum.

Some of the sound bites I have contain the wav extension - but Audacity suggests importing them in the raw format.

Audacity does that when the files are not really in WAV format.
If the files play "super fast" then they are in a compressed format (such as WMA).
The (free) program "MediaInfo" can probably tell you what format the files really are: http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en
When you know the actual file format you can correct the file name extension, and if you have FFMpeg installed you will probably be able to import the file into Audacity.

See here about FFMpeg: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... tallffmpeg

[Nisko]

Thanks for all the help, folks! I really want to learn how to "manipulate" audio files and I, obviously, just began. Attached is one of the files I'm having a problem with. It plays with Window's Player but I can't import it into Audacity. Sorry about posting in the wrong forum. Thank you again...........

gong.wav

(8.51 KiB) Downloaded 72 times

BTW, this file is not exactly what I'm trying to work with - but it comes from a free, online source of wav files and behaves just like the others that I'm having a problem with. I might as well start out with a small file and hopefully graduate from there.

[steve]

MediaInfo says that the format is a (low quality) MP3 file.

Code: Select all

Audio
ID                               : 0
Format                           : MPEG Audio
Format version                   : Version 2.5
Format profile                   : Layer 3
Format settings, Endianness      : Little
Codec ID                         : 55
Codec ID/Hint                    : MP3
Duration                         : 4s 320ms
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 16.0 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 1 channel
Sampling rate                    : 8 000 Hz
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Stream size                      : 8.44 KiB (99%)

If you have FFMpeg installed, I think that it should have been imported correctly even with the wrong file extension.
See here for installing FFMpeg: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... tallffmpeg

Change the file extension to .MP3 and it should import correctly (with or without FFMpeg).

[Nisko]

Thank you! Question: If the file has a wav extension - and it plays in Windows 7 player - and I don't have checked "Hide extensions for known file types, how then can it be an MP3 file and play with Windows Player? I can't find what file types Windows Player will play. I'm also getting the feeling that you folks don't believe Audacity 1.3 beta is the right program for me.

[steve]

I'm currently using Audacity 1.3.14 alpha (a new pre-release version of Audacity) and I have FFMpeg installed. It was able to import the file "gong.wav" correctly. I would have expected Audacity 1.3.13 to have done the same, but perhaps not - I've not checked. Are you using Audacity 1.3.13 Unicode? (you can check by looking in the "Help menu > About Audacity". Do you have FFMpeg installed?

gong.wav is definitely not a proper WAV file. The sample rate of gong.wav is 8 kHz, and it is 4.248 second long, mono. Normal 16 bit WAV files use 2 bytes per sample, so if it were a real WAV file the file size would be 4.248 x 2 x 8000 = 67968 bytes = 66.375 kB. However, as you can see, the file that you uploaded is only about 8.5 kB.

Looking at the file in a hex editor, I can see that the file has been given a WAV header. This is an old "trick" that was used to allow MP3 files to be played in web pages in Internet Explorer when IE, and allow MP3s to be used in Powerpoint. http://www.pptalchemy.co.uk/embed_mp3.html The "trick" apparently also works on Windows Media Player.

I'm also getting the feeling that you folks don't believe Audacity 1.3 beta is the right program for me.

I don't recall writing anything to suggest such a thing.
Audacity is an open source program for recording and working with audio. It's freely available to you, me and everyone else.
Audacity 1.2 is probably not the right program as it is really old and has not been updated for years, but hopefully you will get a lot of good use (and enjoyment) out of Audacity 1.3.