Topic: Why are my .wav files now .cda files?

[Josephine]

Okay . . . a probably really silly question, but I don't know the answer.

I went to transfer some of my old recordings that I burned as .wav files onto CDs to a new hard drive that I just got.  Instead of .wav files, however, I find .cda files which report as 1 kb in size.  What gives?   I don't understand.  Why did this happen?

Is there a way for me to change them back to .wav?

[jeromejello]

i THINK .cda are just the way the files are on an audio disc.  you need to extract them in order to get the data which would be the wav file you are looking for.

eac is the preferred way, but there are other extractors.

[jeromejello]

oh and here is a link to the extension archive

http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=cda&Search=Search

they are called CD Audio Track shortcuts

[Josephine]

Thank you.  I'm extracting them back into .wav format right now, as you suggested, with EAC.  I really appreciate your help.

Can you tell me why they were changed in the first place?  I just assumed that they were copying onto the discs the same  . . .
in other words, they were keeping their name and format.

[Roving Sign]

You will have to burn the wavs as a data disc if you want to keep the wav extention...but then its not really a "CD"

[flipp]

I've had this happen too. Have never been able to figure out why sometimes the extensions are .cda and other times .wav when the procedure to create the discs is the same. No problems extracting or playing either way, only thing that bothers me is I can't tell the size of the file when Windows Explorer shows the .cda extension.

[Josephine]

You will have to burn the wavs as a data disc if you want to keep the wav extention...but then its not really a "CD"

And if I were to burn them as a data disc, then they would most likely not play in my car stereo; right?

What bums me out about converting the .cda file back into .wav format is that now, instead of the original track name of
Los Lobos 2006-10-13 d1t2, I now have plain old Track 2.  I will have to make separate folders for each disc or rename each track.

[Nick Graham]

I went to transfer some of my old recordings that I burned as .wav files onto CDs to a new hard drive that I just got.

What bums me out about converting the .cda file back into .wav format is that now, instead of the original track name of
Los Lobos 2006-10-13 d1t2, I now have plain old Track 2. 

Don't you have the FLACs? It'd be way faster and easier to just decode those files to wav, than extracting from an audio disc...plus you'd keep the file names intact.

[Josephine]

I went to transfer some of my old recordings that I burned as .wav files onto CDs to a new hard drive that I just got.

What bums me out about converting the .cda file back into .wav format is that now, instead of the original track name of
Los Lobos 2006-10-13 d1t2, I now have plain old Track 2. 

Don't you have the FLACs? It'd be way faster and easier to just decode those files to wav, than extracting from an audio disc...plus you'd keep the file names intact.

No, Nick.  Wish I did.  My old computer died sometime back and lost a bunch of files.  Probably a couple dozen shows.  Luckily, I had at least burned them to CD.  I thought I was covered until today, when I went to load them onto a hard drive and discovered they were no longer in .wav form.   
 

[Gordon]

I went to transfer some of my old recordings that I burned as .wav files onto CDs to a new hard drive that I just got.

What bums me out about converting the .cda file back into .wav format is that now, instead of the original track name of
Los Lobos 2006-10-13 d1t2, I now have plain old Track 2. 

Don't you have the FLACs? It'd be way faster and easier to just decode those files to wav, than extracting from an audio disc...plus you'd keep the file names intact.

No, Nick.  Wish I did.  My old computer died sometime back and lost a bunch of files.  Probably a couple dozen shows.  Luckily, I had at least burned them to CD.  I thought I was covered until today, when I went to load them onto a hard drive and discovered they were no longer in .wav form.   
 

my 2 cents.  you torrent ALL your shows as far as I can tell.  this is when you ask your leechers for a favor.  you need the flacs for your own archive etc.  someone will be more than happy to reseed or torrent or freebie etc.  I've had to do it a few times when I didn't back up a show of my own.  if the torrents are long dead check db.etree for folks with your shows and hit them up for the flacs.

[Josephine]

I went to transfer some of my old recordings that I burned as .wav files onto CDs to a new hard drive that I just got.

What bums me out about converting the .cda file back into .wav format is that now, instead of the original track name of
Los Lobos 2006-10-13 d1t2, I now have plain old Track 2. 

Don't you have the FLACs? It'd be way faster and easier to just decode those files to wav, than extracting from an audio disc...plus you'd keep the file names intact.

No, Nick.  Wish I did.  My old computer died sometime back and lost a bunch of files.  Probably a couple dozen shows.  Luckily, I had at least burned them to CD.  I thought I was covered until today, when I went to load them onto a hard drive and discovered they were no longer in .wav form.   
 

my 2 cents.  you torrent ALL your shows as far as I can tell.  this is when you ask your leechers for a favor.  you need the flacs for your own archive etc.  someone will be more than happy to reseed or torrent or freebie etc.  I've had to do it a few times when I didn't back up a show of my own.  if the torrents are long dead check db.etree for folks with your shows and hit them up for the flacs.

Not a bad idea, Gordon.  Thanks.   There were a few shows that were never torrented (Nickel Creek and another artist), but the rest were torrented at some point.  Many of them were a very long time ago and are no longer on any tracker.  I'll check out db.etree and see if I can't get some help.  It will sure beat having to rename all these tracks. 

[Gordon]

I went to transfer some of my old recordings that I burned as .wav files onto CDs to a new hard drive that I just got.

What bums me out about converting the .cda file back into .wav format is that now, instead of the original track name of
Los Lobos 2006-10-13 d1t2, I now have plain old Track 2. 

Don't you have the FLACs? It'd be way faster and easier to just decode those files to wav, than extracting from an audio disc...plus you'd keep the file names intact.

No, Nick.  Wish I did.  My old computer died sometime back and lost a bunch of files.  Probably a couple dozen shows.  Luckily, I had at least burned them to CD.  I thought I was covered until today, when I went to load them onto a hard drive and discovered they were no longer in .wav form.   
 

my 2 cents.  you torrent ALL your shows as far as I can tell.  this is when you ask your leechers for a favor.  you need the flacs for your own archive etc.  someone will be more than happy to reseed or torrent or freebie etc.  I've had to do it a few times when I didn't back up a show of my own.  if the torrents are long dead check db.etree for folks with your shows and hit them up for the flacs.

 It will sure beat having to rename all these tracks. 

plus you will have the original lossless files

[Josephine]

Are the .cda files lossy? 

[Gordon]

Are the .cda files lossy? 

no but anytime you extract you could bring in errors.  EAC is great if you have it configured correctly.  that can take some time and can be a pain in the ass.

edit:  that is why a DAT > soundcard  > wav > flac transfer is prefferd to a DAT > standalone > EAC > CD > flac

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

.cda is just the file extension used for audio CDs.  .wav is the same thing, but with a PC extension.  Basically, when you burn .wav files to an audio CDR, it does whatever it does and burns the PC files as audio files (.cda).

If you were to burn a data CDR containing your .wav files, the extensions would show .wav, but you couldn't play this in a CD Player - its not an Audio CDR.

EAC will losslessly extract the audio data from an Audio CDR to your PC and save them as .wav.  You can set up EAC to rename the files as they extract so you don't have to name them.  Although EAC can produce lossless .wav file from CDRs, it is not 'perfect'.  Extracting like this assumes the Audio CDR was burned without errors, etc.  Audio CDRs don't have the same data verification that data CDRs have.

With that in mind, many folks convert to FLAC and then burn those FLAC files as data files onto data CDRs.  Later, you can use WinAmp to listen from the FLAC files directly, or convert the FLAC files back to .wav for burning to Audio CDR.  This way, every Audio CDR is a perfect copy of the original (assuming there are no burning errors).

ETREE has a crap ton of info about this...

Terry

[Josephine]

Thanks, Terry . . . I appreciate the info and help. 
I've been using EAC to convert them back into .wav files.  I didn't know I could rename the files.
I'm going to see if I can figure that out.   
In the future, I will be burning all my shows in .flac format to disc.
Live and learn.

[Kyle]

Def. archive your flacs, but it is always a good idea to backup the .wav files to an ISO - DVD-R or CD-R
You then have multiple levels of backup, and the .wav's in case the flac discs flake or something...

I usually burn a DVD-R of the raw .wav, the tracked .wav, and the cue-sheets and .txt files. I burn another with the .txt's and the flacs. And I burn a few of each. It may be redundant, but with cheap media prices these days, I say run with it!


edit: don't forget your md5's!

edit 2: this new edit feature rocks

[SparkE!]

Even if you use EAC to extract the files and the extraction is lossless, you may still not end up with exactly the same files as you first had as wav files.  Unless you have the read and write offsets set correctly for your CD drive, some samples that were originally at the end of Track 2 may be now added to the the beginning of Track 3 or vice versa.  At every track split some samples may be shifted to the next adjacent file.

The best way to get back to the original files probably is to get with someone who has copies of your original FLACs and obtain copies from them.  Best of luck!

[Josephine]

I've sent a few requests to folks on db.etree who I saw had a number of my shows.
I'm still waiting for responses.  Hopefully, I will get some.
I explained the situation and offered to do a B&P or trade.

[sleepypedro]

val, is it indeed 10-13-06 that you need to recover?  or were you just using that as an example of how it renames your tracks?

if you really need 10-13-06, look no further!  PM me.

LOS LOBOS
Walt Disney Concert Hall
Los Angeles, CA
Friday, October 13, 2006


SOURCE: Schoeps MK41 > actives > NBox > (Oade mod) SBM-1 > PCM-M1
TRANSFER: PCM-M1 > Teac RW-CD22 > hard drive > Sound Forge 8.0 > CD Wave > FLAC Frontend
TAPED BY: "Josephine"
LOCATION: Seventh Row, Dead Center


This was an incredible show before an ubelievably reserved, quiet, stay-in-your-seat audience.  The only significant audience noise, to speak of, is between songs. 

A couple of Friday the 13th mishaps occurred during the show:  The most audible was during "Sabor a Mi;" the most visual when David's guitar strap accidentally  unhooked
and his guitar dropped to the floor at the beginning, of all songs, "Hold On."  Fortunately, the guitar appeared undamaged.

During the introduction and a couple other spots in between songs, you will hear what sounds like static.  The gentleman next to me waited for the show to begin and then broke out the snacks.  What you hear are food wrappers.  It is bad enough during the intro that I considered not including it as part of the recording.  I tried to minimize a couple of pops that occurred during the show and also did some minor limiting on the audience applause.

Enjoy.



DISC 1 (68:48)

01. introduction
02. La Pistola y el Corazon
03. Canto a Veracruz
04. El Canelo
05. Colas
06. One Time, One Night
07. Arizona Skies
08. When the Circus Comes
09. Short Side of Nothing
10. Estoy Sentado Aqui
11. Saint Behind the Glass *
12. Ojos De Pancha
13. Be Still
14. Guantanamera
15. Teresa


DISC 2 (71:43)

01. lead in
02. La Feria de los Flores
03. El Cuchipe
04. Sabor a Mi
05. Maricela
06. Hold On
07. Chuco's Cumbia
08. The Valley
09. Our Last Night #
10. Rita  #
11. The Town
12. The Road to Gila Bend
13. Don't Worry Baby

ENCORE

14. Yo Soy Mexicoamericano 
15. Cumbia Raza


* w/ Fermin Herrera on harp
# w/ Greg Leisz on pedal steel




~ Dedicated to my son Jack and the good folks in The Neighborhood ~

[Josephine]

val, is it indeed 10-13-06 that you need to recover?  or were you just using that as an example of how it renames your tracks?

if you really need 10-13-06, look no further!  PM me.

LOS LOBOS
Walt Disney Concert Hall
Los Angeles, CA
Friday, October 13, 2006


SOURCE: Schoeps MK41 > actives > NBox > (Oade mod) SBM-1 > PCM-M1
TRANSFER: PCM-M1 > Teac RW-CD22 > hard drive > Sound Forge 8.0 > CD Wave > FLAC Frontend
TAPED BY: "Josephine"
LOCATION: Seventh Row, Dead Center


This was an incredible show before an ubelievably reserved, quiet, stay-in-your-seat audience.  The only significant audience noise, to speak of, is between songs. 

A couple of Friday the 13th mishaps occurred during the show:  The most audible was during "Sabor a Mi;" the most visual when David's guitar strap accidentally  unhooked
and his guitar dropped to the floor at the beginning, of all songs, "Hold On."  Fortunately, the guitar appeared undamaged.

During the introduction and a couple other spots in between songs, you will hear what sounds like static.  The gentleman next to me waited for the show to begin and then broke out the snacks.  What you hear are food wrappers.  It is bad enough during the intro that I considered not including it as part of the recording.  I tried to minimize a couple of pops that occurred during the show and also did some minor limiting on the audience applause.

Enjoy.



DISC 1 (68:48)

01. introduction
02. La Pistola y el Corazon
03. Canto a Veracruz
04. El Canelo
05. Colas
06. One Time, One Night
07. Arizona Skies
08. When the Circus Comes
09. Short Side of Nothing
10. Estoy Sentado Aqui
11. Saint Behind the Glass *
12. Ojos De Pancha
13. Be Still
14. Guantanamera
15. Teresa


DISC 2 (71:43)

01. lead in
02. La Feria de los Flores
03. El Cuchipe
04. Sabor a Mi
05. Maricela
06. Hold On
07. Chuco's Cumbia
08. The Valley
09. Our Last Night #
10. Rita  #
11. The Town
12. The Road to Gila Bend
13. Don't Worry Baby

ENCORE

14. Yo Soy Mexicoamericano 
15. Cumbia Raza


* w/ Fermin Herrera on harp
# w/ Greg Leisz on pedal steel




~ Dedicated to my son Jack and the good folks in The Neighborhood ~

Thanks, Peter . . . but I was just using it as an example.  I've got that stored in .flac, .wav and audio. 
The ones I am missing are primarily recordings I made last year.

[sleepypedro]

Thanks, Peter . . . but I was just using it as an example.  I've got that stored in .flac, .wav and audio. 
The ones I am missing are primarily recordings I made last year.

d'oh! 

if you post a list of what's missing, i'll be glad to check my archive.  i grab a lot of stuff posted in the kickdown just to keep tabs on what my ts.com brothers and sisters are up to, you never know!

my broadband connection never sleeps...

[Gordon]

I have flacs of your lucinda from march.  pretty sure I have a few others that aren't on my list.

[Josephine]

You guys are great.
I will make up a list this evening and post it here.
 

p.s.  Gordon, I've got the original .wavs for my March Lucinda recording, but thank you. 

[LEDZEPZOSO]

Thanks, Terry . . . I appreciate the info and help. 
I've been using EAC to convert them back into .wav files.  I didn't know I could rename the files.
I'm going to see if I can figure that out.   
In the future, I will be burning all my shows in .flac format to disc.
Live and learn.

What I do after I have a show converted to SHn/FLAC is to burn them to disc and also burn a backup on a external harddrive. With the price of externals getting cheaper, it is good to have a couple of back ups. I am seeing 500 gig under $200. With the Christmas season coming up I see alot of on retailers having some great bargins on hard drives. The one thing I wish I would of done was get a hard drive with firewire. When dealing with a 500G drive it is a little slow with USB2.

[Josephine]

Thanks, Terry . . . I appreciate the info and help. 
I've been using EAC to convert them back into .wav files.  I didn't know I could rename the files.
I'm going to see if I can figure that out.   
In the future, I will be burning all my shows in .flac format to disc.
Live and learn.

What I do after I have a show converted to SHn/FLAC is to burn them to disc and also burn a backup on a external harddrive. With the price of externals getting cheaper, it is good to have a couple of back ups. I am seeing 500 gig under $200. With the Christmas season coming up I see alot of on retailers having some great bargins on hard drives. The one thing I wish I would of done was get a hard drive with firewire. When dealing with a 500G drive it is a little slow with USB2.

This is what really instigated this whole thing.    I bought an external hard drive.
It was when I went to transfer some of my recordings from CD to the HD that I discovered they weren't in .wav format.
I never bothered looking before and had no idea they weren't.  Honestly, I thought I had my original .wav's on CD.  <duh>
I really am the farthest thing from being a techie (you know me, Larry).
I have so much to learn and really appreciate all your help.

[Josephine]

Here's a list of recordings for which I no longer have my original .flac's or .wav's.   

Albert Cummings - 03-02-05
Amos Lee - 03-22-05
B.B. King - 09-15-04 & 03-02-05
Black Crowes - 09-04-05
Bobby "Blue Bland - 09-04-05
Bobby Rush - 09-03-05
Bonnie Raitt - 11-19-05
Bryan Adams - 06-05-05
Chicago & Earth, Wind & Fire - 09-06-05
David Wilcox - 04-29-06
Dr. John - 09-15-04 & 04-08-05
Drive-By Truckers - 06-14-06
Eric Johnson - 05-06-06
Etta James - 01-30-05 & 09-03-05
Gipsy Kings - 08-13-05
Guitar Shorty - 09-04-05
Howard Tate - 09-03-05
Indigenous - 05-22-05
INXS - 01-27-06
Jackie Green - 01-08-05
Joe Bonamassa - 08-06-05
John Fogerty - 08-29-05
John Mellencamp - 08-29-05
k.d. Lang - 01-07-05
Little Richard - 05-19-05
Los Lobos - 01-08-05 & 05-05-05 & 09-03-05
Otis Clay - 09-04-05
Pete Escovedo Orchestra - 07-21-06
Robert Cray - 08-06-05
Robert Plant - 10-02-05
Rolling Stones - 11/04/05 & 11/06/05 & 11/11/05
Roomful of Blues - 05-20-05
Ruth Brown - 03-04-06
Santana - 06/23/06
Shemekia Copeland - 09-15-04
Sheryl Crow - 10-23-05
Sista Monica Parker - 03-04-06
Tim Easton - 03-31-06
Tom Jones - 06-25-05
Tower of Power - 06-25-05
U2 - 04-06-05

I will happily send B&P to anyone who can help me out with .flac's from any of the above recordings.

[F.O.Bean]

Def. archive your flacs, but it is always a good idea to backup the .wav files to an ISO - DVD-R or CD-R
You then have multiple levels of backup, and the .wav's in case the flac discs flake or something...

I usually burn a DVD-R of the raw .wav, the tracked .wav, and the cue-sheets and .txt files. I burn another with the .txt's and the flacs. And I burn a few of each. It may be redundant, but with cheap media prices these days, I say run with it!


edit: don't forget your md5's!

edit 2: this new edit feature rocks

heres my burning methos for EVERY set/show

1. burn raw WAV from 722 and WAV with gain added(Wavelab) to DVD-R (Data)
2. burn flac16 folders to a DVD-R
3. burn flac24 folders to a DVD-R

[LEDZEPZOSO]

INXS - 01-27-06
Robert Plant - 10-02-05

I have these two in FLAC, just PM me your mailing address,

[Josephine]

INXS - 01-27-06
Robert Plant - 10-02-05

I have these two in FLAC, just PM me your mailing address,

Thank you.   

[Nick Graham]

heres my burning methos for EVERY set/show

1. burn raw WAV from 722 and WAV with gain added(Wavelab) to DVD-R (Data)
2. burn flac16 folders to a DVD-R
3. burn flac24 folders to a DVD-R

Same here:

1 DVD-R with single untracked 24/48 wav + tracked 24 bit wav files
1 DVD-R with tracked FLAC files of both 16 & 24 bit + FLAC of single untracked wav

[dorrcoq]

I have the Black Crowes for sure, and I think the Joe Bonamassa and Robert Cray.  I probably changed the text file (I have my own format I like to follow), but the FLAC's should be the originals.  Let me know.  I'll check tonight when I get home on the Joe B. and Crays sets.

Dennis

[Josephine]

I have the Black Crowes for sure, and I think the Joe Bonamassa and Robert Cray.  I probably changed the text file (I have my own format I like to follow), but the FLAC's should be the originals.  Let me know.  I'll check tonight when I get home on the Joe B. and Crays sets.

Dennis

That'd be great, Dennis.  Much appreciated.
I'll touch bases in a PM.

[beefstew]

heres my method

burn original untracked .wavs to data cd
burn eq'd tracked .wavs to audio cd

[Brian_CT]

If dorrcoq doesn't have the Robert Cray set, I can help you out (it's in SHN). PM me & I'd be happy to send a copy your way.

-Brian

=================================
Robert Cray Band
August 6th 2005
Gibson Amphitheatre
Universal City, CA


SOURCE: MK41> actives> NBox> (mod) SBM-1> D100
TRANSFER: D100> Teac RW-CD22> hard drive> Sound Forge 7.0> mkACT(SHN)
Taper: "Josephine"


01. I Guess I Showed Her
02. Poor Johnny
03. Our Last Time
04. Right Next Door (Because Of Me)>
05. The 12 Year Old Boy
06. My Last Regret
07. Bad Influence
08. Twenty
09. I'm Walkin'
10. Smokin' Gun

[admkrk]

hey val,

  i have your gypsy kings show, but it's not in flac. if it'll still help lmk