Freesound Forums

I searched the forums and audacity.sourceforge.net and couldn't find my answer, so forgive me if it's there and I missed it:

I'm having trouble opening AIFF in Audacity (running Windows XP). The file in particular I'm trying to open is 20519_djgriffin_120hard2. I tried opening a different AIFF and had the same problem again, which is that the file plays back as this nasty high-pitched scratching/shrieking noise.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks much,
Franji Mayes
PKIDs

It might be a non-standard AIFF like the kind that is produced by many apple programs. Try transcoding it to wav with dBpowerAMP Music Converter.

You might also try the audacity forums if the problem persists.

Thanks for replying -- i did download the dBpowerAMP but it wouldn't read the AIFF. Did i somehow mess that up?

ah, i figured it out!! I had to download the codec from http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central.htm

Thanks!

Gross! What files are you having trouble with?

It's possible you downloaded a link to the file instead of the file itself. Or the aiff could be corrupted.

I just downloaded the file you mentioned and was able to open it in quicktime and audacity (for Mac OS X) without any problem, so it's probably one of the above issues on your end.

Try downloading the file again. If you still have trouble, search the forum for download tips.

hmm, i should have tried downloading it again -- but I was able to download that codec for the dbPoweramp, convert the AIFF to WAVE, and open the WAVE w/ no problem in Audacity. but next time i might just download agian. Thanks!

pkids
ah, i figured it out!! I had to download the codec from http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central.htm

Thanks!

Audacity should be able to read the aiff file though, mine can.

Try this:
1. Make a new project
2. Go to Project->Import Audio in the menu

It should begin to import the aiff file.
Your problem might have been that you used File->Open which I'm not sure works in all cases.

Please try this out, if it doesn't work I'll be puzzled.

That didn't work either. I agree, it is strange, since I'm pretty sure I've opened AIF before (but I can't be positive -- i'm assuming, since I've opened a fair amount of sound files). Maybe some file just got corrupted. At any rate, I'm OK w/ the workaround, since it's easy and fast enough. If the problem persists in the future, I might try re-downloading the sound files or Audacity.

can anyone give me tips on how to use audacity properly, is there any way to single out certain noises (i.e vocals,drums...)

Ah crap... there was just a thread on this and now I can't find it.

Basically, you can try to make kareoke tracks (no vocals) at a loss by subtracting the left and right channel. If the song is mixed the standard way with the singer panned to the center, this will work.

But anything you hear is a lossy stereo mixdown of the studio masters, which have seperate tracks for the different instruments. You need those to truly take apart a mix... check out ccMixter, as some of the songs here provide these.