How can I shorten a 1500 Mb (!) wav file enough to burn onto a CD

[hanybanoub]

Hi guys,

I ended up saving my lecture using Adaptec EZ cd creater's Spin Doctor as a 1500 MB wav file! I had to step out, and when I came back, my digital voice recorder had of course finished, but adaptec didn't.

The file only has about 55 min. or so of the lecture in it, but what program can I use to cut out the DEAD sound that's filling up this file?

Please help anyone. Thanks

 

[hanybanoub]

ttt

 

[Torvus]

You should just be able to use windows sound recorder. Open it up, then open the file from within. When you reach the point where you want to cut it off at, go up to the edit menu and select "delete after this point." That should be it.

 

[Mday]

if it's a 55 minutes, you should be able to burn it as an audio CD. i wonder how much it'll be converted to mp3...

what soundcard do you have? generally, some of them do include audio editting software (basic as they are).

windows' included program works, but i wonder how well it can handle such a large file.

 

[Workin']

Go to the Website for Cool Edit 2000 and download the demo. Open the big .wav file you have and delete the parts you don't need/want. Save and burn to CD.

 

[cucumber]

Dito on the Cool Edit demo. Also, what bit debth and sampling rate did you record as? I'm assuming 16 bit, 44.1kHz. This is standard CD quality. If you want, you can try lowering the sampling rate to 22kHz. This should make it about 25% smaller, without serious sound degredation. Being that it's a lecture, you probably won't notice any difference at all.

 

[cucumber]

Oh! And if you recorded it in stero, convert it to mono. This will cut the file size in half.

 

[hanybanoub]

Thanks guys for all your advice.

I tried the easiest way, to open with sound recorder, but it kept saying that I should quit applications to open up memory, even though I had nothing running. A 1500 mb wave file is too big for it.

Even though there is 55 minutes of the lecture in that file, whenever I try to burn onto a cd, it looks like a 1500 mb file-way too large. I'll need to edit it first.

So I did try the trial version of Cool Edit for a bit, but it's taking forever to decompress the huge file in order to play/edit. Perhaps I should be more patient and let it finish. It may take 30 min. I imagine. But I should try it regardless.

If anyone else has any other suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

And thanks guys for all your help.

BTW, ironically, this is for my Assembly/computer Arch. course at my university, so it's very much computer related. (Does anyone want to listen to it??? Assmebly language, yum, yum!)

 

[hanybanoub]

I forgot to mention that it's recorded at PCM,44,100 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo.
(exactly what windows is reporting)

So I'm not sure if it's 44 or 100 Hz.

How can I convert it to mono, or lower the sampling rate?

Thanks again guys.

 

[cryptan]

i think cooledit has a function whereby you can lower the quality of the recording.

another solution could be using cooledit to break it up into parts and then recording them into 2-3 CDs.

 

[Workin']

In Cool Edit you can resample the file to another bitrate and change it to mono if you want. Look in the help under resample.


<< I forgot to mention that it's recorded at PCM,44,100 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo. >>


Here's what all that stuff means:

PCM = Pulse Code Modulation, which is the data format that wave files use for audio (PCM data + .wav header information = .wav file)

44,100 Hz = 44.1 kHz sampling rate, which roughly speaking means that 44,100 times each second the analog waveform is converted (sampled) to a binary value. The highest frequency that can be recorded is 1/2 the sampling rate, so for example at 44.1 kHz frequencies up to 20,050 Hz can be recorded.

16 bit = each sample has a 16-bit word length

Stereo = two channels are recorded (left and right)

 

[hanybanoub]

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions, and especially to you Workin' for explaining it better to me.

I was able to use cooledit, and play/go to a certain point, and then save from there-thereby deleting the rest. It worked like a charm.

THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH. This is what the Internet, forums, communities are all about.

 

[GreenLantern]

You'll need to be very patient when working with a 1.5GB wave file - no matter what software you use. Good luck.

 

[slipperyslope]

There is a program called &quot;Shorten&quot; that is a lossless compression. It usually gets around 2x compression. I would give it a try.

Jim