Best .WAV

panama23445

I am having an issue with some .WAV files that I create, some work and some dont and I do not know why. If anyone could share their tips and tricks of the trade that would be awesome.

JonnyMac

Most small WAV players (like the AP-16+ which I co-designed and coded for EFX-TEK) require CANONICAL WAV files. What's a canonical file, you ask? It's a WAV file that contains just a header and the audio data. You see, over time, people figured out how to add non-audio information (metadata) to WAV files. With a small player it is very hard to skip over this non-audio data so I don't bother in my audio driver. When I hit a metadata chunk I just stop the playback as if it was the end of the file.

It's very easy to fix a WAV file. Download Audacity for your OS. Open the file and in the File menu you will find an item called Edit Metadata. Click on this to open the dialog. Click the Clear button in the dialog and then save your file.

Additional tips I give to our customers.
-- if you're not using stereo features (panning) then save the file as mono -- this cuts the file size in half lessens the load on the processor
-- maximize the sample rate to 32kHz -- you won't hear the difference and it will reduce the file size and load on the processor

If you're not using it, Audacity is a great tool, and it's completely free. I often us it for converting/editing MP3s to WAV for the AP-16+, and for creating and editing sound effects for my film making projects.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

panama23445

Thank you, this really helps a lot.

Peter Jakacki

panama23445 wrote: »

Thank you, this really helps a lot.

I second the use of Audacity but I didn't know in which way to answer you (as many wouldn't) since you said " some work and some dont and I do not know why" and neither do we know why and we are none the wiser as to what you mean by "don't work". Also we have no idea of your setup, the software you are using, and the actual wave files in question. So please provide some details and context etc (The thread title "Best WAV" doesn't say much either).

Rayman

Here's another wav player (not saying it's the best!).
This latest version tries to skip over the non-canonical part of the header...

WavPlayer2j - Archive [Date 2014.01.31 Time 18.07].zip

Heater.

Clearly the best .wav files for you are the ones that work in your system

We have no way to tell with out more information.

Perhaps you could post an example of a working and non-working .wav file here so we can see what the difference is?