I have a student who has been working with a project and her file is progressively getting slower (loads slow, plays slow). After about a week of working, the file will play, but only a 15 sec. pause. Then it will play about a 1.5 secs before it stops, waits, plays 1.5 sec, stops, waits, etc.
Is the file corrupt? Is there hope of saving it?
Her audacity file consists of importing mp3s that she has downloaded from soundsnap.com.
thanks for any help!!!
Rob
Slow, Unplayable file
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Audacity 1.2.x is now obsolete. Please use the current Audacity 2.1.x version.
The final version of Audacity for Windows 98/ME is the legacy 2.0.0 version.
Audacity 1.2.x is now obsolete. Please use the current Audacity 2.1.x version.
The final version of Audacity for Windows 98/ME is the legacy 2.0.0 version.
Re: Slow, Unplayable file
How many files is she playing at once? Are all the files stored in one place on the hard drive? Is it a local drive or a network drive?
The problem is that Audacity has to load each of those files while it's playing, so it's got a ton of hard drive reading that needs to be done every 1.5 seconds or so.
You can alleviate this by opening the project, highlighting everything ([ctrl]+a]) and then clicking Effects -> Amplify and set the amplification factor to 0.0.
When you run that, the audio won't change at all, but Audacity will be forced to store all the data together in one folder. After this, save the project. Make sure it's saved to a local hard drive (not a network drive).
If that doesn't help, then she's simply taxing the computer too much. For each new track you add to a project, Audacity has to read more data from the hard drive every few seconds.
The problem is that Audacity has to load each of those files while it's playing, so it's got a ton of hard drive reading that needs to be done every 1.5 seconds or so.
You can alleviate this by opening the project, highlighting everything ([ctrl]+a]) and then clicking Effects -> Amplify and set the amplification factor to 0.0.
When you run that, the audio won't change at all, but Audacity will be forced to store all the data together in one folder. After this, save the project. Make sure it's saved to a local hard drive (not a network drive).
If that doesn't help, then she's simply taxing the computer too much. For each new track you add to a project, Audacity has to read more data from the hard drive every few seconds.
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kozikowski
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Re: Slow, Unplayable file
Export the project as one single WAV file. File, Export as WAV...
Does that file play OK?
Projects are magic. Projects are complicated XML files, picture, and effects clips all pointing at the original MP3 files, which had to be decoded from the original clip in order to be edited at all. If you did extensive editing and effects, then the file package could be getting enormously large--and slow. Check the capacity of the hard drives. Are they filling up? No production hard drive should ever be much over 90% full.
You can avoid a lot of those problems by converting everything to wave format right at the top and edit with those clips.
If that one WAV export doesn't fit on your machine, then you have just identified the problem.
Koz
Does that file play OK?
Projects are magic. Projects are complicated XML files, picture, and effects clips all pointing at the original MP3 files, which had to be decoded from the original clip in order to be edited at all. If you did extensive editing and effects, then the file package could be getting enormously large--and slow. Check the capacity of the hard drives. Are they filling up? No production hard drive should ever be much over 90% full.
You can avoid a lot of those problems by converting everything to wave format right at the top and edit with those clips.
If that one WAV export doesn't fit on your machine, then you have just identified the problem.
Koz