Re: Audacity recording times

Mike Dobony wrote:
On Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:46:33 +0200, Chris Whealy wrote:

Gareth Magennis wrote:
Hi,

a guy saturday tried to record the entire nights music onto his PC laptop, using Audacity. This is 8 to 9 hours total. The screen showed the appropriate stereo waves right up to the end I believe, I was keeping an eye on levels most of the night. Apparently when he first tried to save the single file, it showed a size of zero.

I got a text from him to say that he eventually managed to save the first hour and a half, and that he had to manually piece together 16000 temp files to get the total recorded up to 6 hours or so, losing the last hour and a half.


What is the maximum recording time, and/or is there a way to do a better job of recording in the first place? I don't know any details of his system at all, just wondered if I could help him out. He's somewhat embarrased and frustrated, as he tried to do the same last month but didn't realise that when he shut the laptop lid down, Audacity stopped recording, so only got the first hour and a half.

Audacity's maximum recording time is calculated using the amount of free disk space.

I've had lots of problems during long Audacity recordings - usually it just crashed leaving a temp directory full of fragments. This has been on PC, Mac and Linux. In the end, I gave up trying to use Audacity as a recorder (I use SoundStudio instead) because it would crash after a random period of time (usually around the 50 - 70 minute mark).

The temp files created by Audacity are .au format and are each 6 seconds long. If you are recording in stereo, then you get a pair of .au files for each 6 second block where (usually) the even numbered file corresponds to the left channel fragment, and the odd numbered file to the right channel.

Learn from my (bad) experience - don't use Audacity for recording anything that you consider "mission critical". Its fine for a bit of basic editing afterwards, but not for long recordings.

Chris W

I have had great success using Audacity for roughly 1 hr recordings on a
regular basis. The only annoying feature was having to save to MP3 before
copying to audio CD.
Audacity can export directly as WAV, so you don't need to compress the recording to MP3 and then convert it back to PCM when burning a CD.
Just choose "Export as WAV" from the File menu and you're good to go.

Chris W

--
The voice of ignorance speaks loud and long,
But the words of the wise are quiet and few.
---
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Audacity recording times
    ... a guy saturday tried to record the entire nights music onto his PC laptop, ... job of recording in the first place? ... Most software (I'm not an Audacity user) will ... sort of screen-savers, power-saving settings, etcetera, etcetera. ...
    (rec.audio.pro)
  • Re: Recording multi-takes on one track in Audacity?
    ... As an aside, if it didn't start a new track for each new recording, I probably never would have figured out that you can do overdubs and punch-ins with it. ... Some programs allow you to set a preference for what happens when you cut out a section, and other programs, like Audacity, have separate names for the two behaviors when you cut. ... It can be a serious production tool if your production work is limited to working with stereo or mono files, and if you take the time to learn how to do everything that you need to do. ... If I wanted to do studio-like multitrack recording, mixing, incorporate plug-ins, and perhaps MIDII virtual tracks, I'd probably choose Cakewalk over Audacity. ...
    (rec.audio.pro)
  • Recording with onboard sound card
    ... I know Audacity prety well. ... I tried all the settings, all the combinations ... With Recording level: I get the window: "Error " and the message: "Cannot connect to sound daemon. ... KDE control of the sound card is suspended after 5 seconds; execution with highest priority. ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Audacity Editing (specifically "insert") Questions
    ... I'm hoping that some of you experienced in Audacity can help me out with the ... the saved selection disappears from the clipboard (seems to ... With Audacity I seem to have no way to slow sound ... recording process (I'm happy to say that my friend is VERY happy with the ...
    (rec.audio.pro)
  • Re: PC Recording (was "Your Magic Upon Me" )
    ... Audacity is adequate for doing the recording itself and applying some ... The reason softare like Cakewalk's Sonar is so much better is that ... sound card mic inputs for dynamic mics. ...
    (alt.guitar.beginner)