I think I blew it!

[seventh gear]

My computer lost the mouse and keyboard last night right after recording my bands first set. Not being able to save the set, I did a hard shutdown and the mouse and keyboard came back. I was very relieved to see that audacity had some temp files and I choose not to delete. Heres where it gets stupid. The second set was about to start so I quickly got another project going. Between sets 2 and 3 I had other sound issues so set 3 goes on and I never did get around to saving the temp files. Now today it looks like they are gone! I realize they are probably overwritten but Is there a utility i can use to try and recover these files if they are not. It seems that they were available until I shut down the pc for the night and then gone the next time I booted. I don't think they were written over by the other recordings.

So I learned a few things from this which I will share.
Always name your project before recording it.
Know where your temp folder is and recover the data immediately instead of sleeping on it.
Bring along an extra usb mouse.(my mp3 player came right up when I tried the usb port)
Time also flies when you have technical difficulties.

[kozikowski]

http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... shRecovery

You did miss a couple in there. We try to record live performances with an unconditionally stable machine. Audacity will, on rare occasion, crash all by itself. Trying to run it on a machine that routinely loses parts of itself probably isn't the best idea.

Did you defrag your drives? Audacity will not run into highly fragmented or full drives. You start looking for additional storage when your drives approach 90% full. Do the error check while you're in there. If all that succeeds, there are several memory checkers you can run that actually stress the whole machine. Any machine that loses parts of itself will never make it through all that.

But even that would be OK, if you ignored Audacity Projects and Exported As WAV instead. Yes it takes a minute or two, but that produces a single, stable sound file unlikely to be overwritten or damaged. Those are the files you back up on a separate storage device against the time you blow one away during editing or other crash.

Koz

[seventh gear]

If I export to .wav files can I still go back and edit all 16 channels separately? Does it still work like a project?

[steve]

If I export to .wav files can I still go back and edit all 16 channels separately? Does it still work like a project?

No, you would need to export each track individually (use "Export Selection").

[kozikowski]

You hit the magic combination. You can't rapidly export stereo eight tracks between sets, so you're stuck with Audacity Projects. Save...and Save As... and hope to goodness nothing crashes.

Do think about making the machine vastly more stable. Defrag, etc.

With the exception of the various MPEG2 versions, I don't know any way to export high quality 16 tracks.... That's worth a look. I know WAV has a lot of options that are not usually implemented. You can make a compressed WAV file, but everybody would look at you like you were crazy.

Koz

[waxcylinder]

IIRC the developers were at one time considering revamping th export so that each track could be exported to a separate WAV file. I don't think it has made it to any of the Beta releases yet though.

WC

[steve]

IIRC the developers were at one time considering revamping th export so that each track could be exported to a separate WAV file.

I've had a look in the Feature Request page, but I can't see that idea listed.

There is a suggestion for exporting partial projects, and a request for importing multiple files, but there does not appear to be one for Exporting tracks.

Personally I think this would be a very useful feature as it would greatly simplify transporting projects safely, backing up securely, and for compatibility with other software.

The way I would like to see it implemented would be:
Import multiple files with option of (a) importing end-to-end on the same track, or (b) each onto its own track.
Exporting each track with the option of (a) end-to-end joining into one file (with cue sheet), or (b) each to its own file.

[waxcylinder]

Steve,

do you then want to transfer this idea to the Adding Features to Audacity secion and see how many votes it garners - and I can then trnsfer it on to the Wiki in due course. I will vote for it - and I guess that Koz and the original poster seventh gear are likely to vote for it too.

WC

[steve]

do you then want to transfer this idea to the Adding Features to Audacity secion and see how many votes it garners

I've posted the idea here: http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=7624
Feel free to comment.