Topic: OMG....Help me please.

[Charlie Miller]

So I bought my fiance a R-09 for Christmas and we finally used it tonight. We made a great recording of Tom Petty at the Hollywood Bowl. I accidentally had the track split set to 2GB. The first 15 minutes sounds great, but after that, it's all noise. I read the FAQ and saw the edit thing to add 4 bites to the header, but i don't have the program. Can anyone help me?

[rustoleum]

I've been plugging this program around here a lot lately.  Sounds like you want Gordon Gidluck's wonderful little audiohack to repair the header.

http://live2496.com/audiohck.zip

[gewwang]

I never had this problem with the R-09 but I did have it with the R1. IIRC, the header issue affected the whole file. I don't remember hearing about the problem occuring somewhere in the middle of the file.

[Gutbucket]

You could also probably import the file as raw data into an audio editor program and re-save with a new header.  New firmware came out recently with 16 & 32 GB SDHC support - it doesn't address your issue speciffically but is probably a good idea to upgrade it anyway.  It's painless.

[Charlie Miller]

I was using v 1.31 which I believe is the latest firmware. I tried the fix but it doesn't seem to work

[KenH]

Charlie, this is fixable. I had it happen before, and it freaked me out temporarily. This was using Tascam HDP2 files also w/ a 2Gb split.

To find out the issue, you can use "shntool info" and "shntool len" and review the output.

If you have multiple 2Gb .wav files, I just use Adobe Audition to append them. No issues after saving the files.
- open the first file
- append the 2nd file, etc, until you have all the files appended
- save as

I also had succeess opening up one of these wav files w/ Audacity freeware, and then just saving the file thereby fixing the header automatically.   For Audacity,
- Edit>Preferences>Quality [24 bit, 96000Hz] and File Formats.Uncompressed File Format> other...>signed 24bit PCM. Click OK
File->Export as WAV...>filename

Hope this helps.



/Ken

[drewloo]

Charlie, have you tried opening it in CDWave?  I thought some people had luck trying that first.  If it does play OK in cdwave then just save it using the alternate 24-bit option.

[flipp]

One other option you might try is pigiron's wave header repair utilty, availale @ http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,72936.0.html Windows and Linux version in post 1, MAC version in post 35.

Not sure your problem is just the header though. If the previous suggestions don't work, you'll only be out a little time to see if this does.

[T.J.]

sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does this have to do with track splits set @ 2 gigs?

[Craig T]

sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does this have to do with track splits set @ 2 gigs?

probably nothing.  if I understand this correctly, the recording went from fine to static or white noise about 15 minutes into the first file and continued as such for the balance of the recording.  this brings back nightmares from my early attempts at PDA recording with the PDAudio-CF card.  I've experienced this exact problem.  The good news is that it should be recoverable, but you'll probably lose a bit at the transition between good/ugly.  Gordon Gidluck (live2496) is the man when it comes to trouble-shooting these errors - maybe he'd be kind enough to lend a hand.  I wish I could help, but it's been too long since I've had to deal with this type of thing.

good luck.   

[KenH]

sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does this have to do with track splits set @ 2 gigs?

I guess that the recorder doesn't complete the suddenly closed file when it's split, so it looks truncated to some software.

I've had the problem where, when I opened up a 24/96 wave file, it appeared to be severely truncated and only had like the first 15 mins or so, then nothing, flat line or so afterwards. Sounds exactly like the original problem.  But I don't remember the exact issue or solution other than what i already posted. 

Hmmm, I think the problem maybe was with concatenated wavs where wav file size > 4gb or so. Open up a large file like that in Audacity or CDWAVE, and it can't handle it, showing only part of the wave. Yeah, this might be it.

Haven't had a problem since using Audition though, which can handle large files and even warns that other apps might not be able to read it when saving a large appended wave file.

/Ken

[Charlie Miller]

So I guess I'm getting stupid with this, cuz I can't seem to fix it. Is there anyone who wants to try? I'll send you the files on a DVD.

+t to all

[SmokinJoe]

2gb split doesn't occur at 15 minutes at any kind of normal bitrate. Split should occur at something like 1hour 52minutes at 24/48 if I remember correctly.

[live2496]

I took a look at this file. Unfortunately the pcm audio data cannot be recovered.

I imported the data with 5 different offsets (in Samplitude) to see if I could make any sense of it. I saw a repeating pattern for most of it. It's just random data.

I speculate that it had something to do with the SD card, maybe formatting. Maybe it wasn't actually writing data, just advancing the file pointer.

[ozarkbilly]

I accidentally had the track split set to 2GB.

Is this a bad idea?  This is where mine has always been set!

[live2496]

I don't think this issue had anything to do with the split point. His actual file was about 2mb short of 2gb and that should be alright.

The problem started at 14:28 in the file. Clearly these things were not related.

[Charlie Miller]

I re-formatted the card on the R-09 last night. I made 4 recordings (at different bit/sample rates). All have the same problem when it gets to a certain point on the card. It's either a bad card or a bad recorder. I'm hoping it's the card. Ordered a new card last night.

[ozarkbilly]

I don't think this issue had anything to do with the split point. His actual file was about 2mb short of 2gb and that should be alright.

The problem started at 14:28 in the file. Clearly these things were not related.

Right.  I was just confused by this line:  "I accidentally had the track split set to 2GB."  What should it be set at, if not 2GB?  And is setting it at 2GB a generally bad idea?

[Charlie Miller]

I don't think this issue had anything to do with the split point. His actual file was about 2mb short of 2gb and that should be alright.

The problem started at 14:28 in the file. Clearly these things were not related.

Right.  I was just confused by this line:  "I accidentally had the track split set to 2GB."  What should it be set at, if not 2GB?  And is setting it at 2GB a generally bad idea?

If it splits at exactly 2GB, I wouldn't do it, but if it is a little under, then it's OK.

[Gutbucket]

2gb split setting is your friend.

[KenH]

Well, I took at look at the waves too, and concur, they can't be recovered.  At about 14:30, white noise prevails.  A few images followed by shntool output is below...

Here's the original wave:


Apply Audition 2.0 Noise Filter:


Interesting Audacity image of the original wave:


* Following implies that the wave file is fine structurally.   
F:\Music\Other\Tom Petty Files 2008-06-25>shntool len r09_0001.wav
    length     expanded size    cdr  WAVE problems  fmt   ratio  filename
   124:12.896    2146434092 B   cxx   --   -----    wav  1.0000  r09_0001.wav
   124:12.896    2146434092 B                            1.0000  (1 file)

F:\Music\Other\Tom Petty Files 2008-06-25>
F:\Music\Other\Tom Petty Files 2008-06-25>
F:\Music\Other\Tom Petty Files 2008-06-25>shntool info r09_0001.wav
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File name:                    r09_0001.wav
Handled by:                   wav format module
Length:                       124:12.896
WAVE format:                  0x0001 (Microsoft PCM)
Channels:                     2
Bits/sample:                  24
Samples/sec:                  48000
Average bytes/sec:            288000
Rate (calculated):            288000
Block align:                  6
Header size:                  44 bytes
Data size:                    2146434048 bytes
Chunk size:                   2146434084 bytes
Total size (chunk size + :  2146434092 bytes
Actual file size:             2146434092
File is compressed:           no
Compression ratio:            1.0000
CD-quality properties:
  CD quality:                 no
  Cut on sector boundary:     n/a
  Sector misalignment:        n/a
  Long enough to be burned:   n/a
WAVE properties:
  Non-canonical header:       no
  Extra RIFF chunks:          no
Possible problems:
  File contains ID3v2 tag:    no
  Data chunk block-aligned:   yes
  Inconsistent header:        no
  File probably truncated:    no
  Junk appended to file:      no
  Odd data size has pad byte: n/a

F:\Music\Other\Tom Petty Files 2008-06-25>

* The same can’t be said for the 2nd wave though:

F:\Music\Other\Tom Petty Files 2008-06-25>shntool info r09_0002.wav
shntool [info]: warning: none of the builtin format modules handle input file: [r09_0002.wav]

[Charlie Miller]

I'm hoping it was the card.

thanks to all for their attempts to help fix this.

[Charlie Miller]

Good news.....

got a new card and it works fine. At least it wasn't the new recorder....

[Josephine]

Good news.....

got a new card and it works fine. At least it wasn't the new recorder....

Good to hear, Charlie.
Damn that other SD card.  Sorry you had the trouble.
Now that everything's a "go," you'll have to take it to Anaheim. 

[Charlie Miller]

Good news.....

got a new card and it works fine. At least it wasn't the new recorder....

Good to hear, Charlie.
Damn that other SD card.  Sorry you had the trouble.
Now that everything's a "go," you'll have to take it to Anaheim. 

Yeah, we're trying to score some killer seats. So I put the old 'bad' card in my duo-core 3.2ghz computer (this computer is fast). I tried to transfer 3GB of flac's to the card to test it. I figured I would see if they verified. It took 90 minutes to transfer 3GB to this card. That is nuts. I doubt that cards should be that slow. I haven't tried the new card in my pc, but it works great in the R-09.

so, what kinds of music do you like? I would like to send you something.

[Charlie Miller]

OK...so I took the card and put some flac files onto it. none of them verified. bad card...lesson learned.