Topic: is it possible to fix the rest of this wave file?

[_tunic_]

Hello,

a few years ago I found this set of wav files on Soulseek, which had one file corrupted. It couldn't get opened with Audacity for instance. Just now I saw someone mentioning on another board the fixwav application that can be found on this site. So I tried it out, and it worked, but only partially. See the screenshot at the bottom. As you can see, the file can now be opened in Audacity and the first two minutes or so are OK, and play fine, the rest is still corrupt. So my question is: is there any way that the rest of this file can be restored somehow?

I've copied the output of the fixwav program, see the attached text file.

I also tried the AudioHack.exe application that was mentioned somewhere on this board, it gave the same results, more or less: it created two files, the first is similar to the output of the fixwav application, the second file was 1KB large, and I don't really know what to do with that one.

Something else that I read on this board was to import the file in Audacity via Project > Import Raw Data ... . That also fixed the file in the same way.

As I found the files on Soulseek, I don't really know their origin, I did ask the person that I downloaded it from back then, he didn't recall it anymore (or I don't recall anymore what he said, either way). The lineage of the recording according to the included txt file was:
Source: CSB>Battery Box (Flat)>Sony TCD-D7
DAT>SHN: Tascam DA-P1>DATport>mkw0.97b1


thanks a lot in advance to anyone that can help restoring it!

[it-goes-to-eleven]

It is possible that some data or samples were lost at the point where the wave becomes invalid.  The missing data can result in data misalignment.

I suggest you cut the file at the trouble spot and save the two portions.  At that point you need to try different alignments on the problem audio - basically droping a byte at a time from the start of the file.   There are many ways to do that.  Some audio programs will allow you to read the file in as raw (ignoring the header) with an offset.  You will want to experiment with different offsets to see if the wave "appears".

[anr]

It is possible that some data or samples were lost at the point where the wave becomes invalid.  The missing data can result in data misalignment.

I suggest you cut the file at the trouble spot and save the two portions.  At that point you need to try different alignments on the problem audio - basically droping a byte at a time from the start of the file.   There are many ways to do that.  Some audio programs will allow you to read the file in as raw (ignoring the header) with an offset.  You will want to experiment with different offsets to see if the wave "appears".

Freelunch

I wonder if you could expand a little; for example, what programmes allow you to do this.

I have a similar problem and simply thought the recorder or SD Card had developed a fault.

many thanks

[_tunic_]

hey, I was just about to ask the same thing ;-)

I was going to play around with Audacity, but would rather wait until someone explains exactly what to do, rather than playing around for a couple of hours with no real result in the end.

thanks for the help Freelunch, and congratulations with post #6666 

[page]

hey, I was just about to ask the same thing ;-)

I was going to play around with Audacity, but would rather wait until someone explains exactly what to do, rather than playing around for a couple of hours with no real result in the end.

First off, are you going from SHN>Wav or is this a Flac>wav conversion? I've never seen a shn file recover from errors in the bitstream downstream of the error, but flacs seem to be a little more robust with their error correction to where you could truncate data until you hit the boundry for the next segment and then load just that (as freelunch mentioned). I've got a flac file I'm holding onto as I know there is about 2k bad in the middle and I havn't messed with it other then to decode to that section for review.

thanks for the help Freelunch, and congratulations with post #6666 

you're only encourging him. 

[it-goes-to-eleven]

With Audacity:

File > Import > Raw Data

That will cause audacity to ignore the descriptive information in the header.

Then fill out the Import Raw Data dialog with the correct parameters for your target audio. The big changes will be the bit depth, the sample rate and channels.  Then you need to try different offsets.  Try values of 0, 1, 2, 3.  Hopefully one of those will result in valid waveforms.

Because you'll be treating the header as audio, expect a tiny amount of garbage at the start.

[_tunic_]

First off, are you going from SHN>Wav or is this a Flac>wav conversion? I've never seen a shn file recover from errors in the bitstream downstream of the error, but flacs seem to be a little more robust with their error correction to where you could truncate data until you hit the boundry for the next segment and then load just that (as freelunch mentioned). I've got a flac file I'm holding onto as I know there is about 2k bad in the middle and I havn't messed with it other then to decode to that section for review.

I downloaded the corrupt file as a .wav, I don't think it was ever converted to another format. The other files were in .mkw format if I recall correctly.

With Audacity:

File > Import > Raw Data

That will cause audacity to ignore the descriptive information in the header.

Then fill out the Import Raw Data dialog with the correct parameters for your target audio. The big changes will be the bit depth, the sample rate and channels.  Then you need to try different offsets.  Try values of 0, 1, 2, 3.  Hopefully one of those will result in valid waveforms.

Because you'll be treating the header as audio, expect a tiny amount of garbage at the start.

You must be using the Beta version, in the official version (1.2.6) the Import Raw Data option is under Project, and there's no such popup. I did try it with that version, and the result was the same as in the screenshot posted in my first post. I'll try it with the Beta release tomorrow.

thanks, but please don't delete your first post yet 

[page]

First off, are you going from SHN>Wav or is this a Flac>wav conversion? I've never seen a shn file recover from errors in the bitstream downstream of the error, but flacs seem to be a little more robust with their error correction to where you could truncate data until you hit the boundry for the next segment and then load just that (as freelunch mentioned). I've got a flac file I'm holding onto as I know there is about 2k bad in the middle and I havn't messed with it other then to decode to that section for review.

I downloaded the corrupt file as a .wav, I don't think it was ever converted to another format. The other files were in .mkw format if I recall correctly.

Ah, gotcha, then yes, his directions are what I'd recommend as well to try and recover stuff.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

You must be using the Beta version, in the official version (1.2.6) the Import Raw Data option is under Project, and there's no such popup. I did try it with that version, and the result was the same as in the screenshot posted in my first post. I'll try it with the Beta release tomorrow.

Yes, I'm using 1.3.7..    That is unfortunate.  It is possible that you don't have valid data.  You could use some kind of data viewer to see if it is just nulls, etc.  On Linux I'd use od, emacs, etc.