davidestevens

I was recording live performances on my laptop using sfrecord~ today.

During one performance the power went out. (Agh!!) The laptop was 

still running, but obviously the external hard drive I was recording 

The resulting aiff file shows as 1.9Gb in the Finder (it was a long 

performance!), but the programme I'm using to split these files 

if I just "open" it, it shows it as a zero length/zero mbs 6 channel 

If I use "open any..." it says it's a headerless file, but then it 

says the same with one of the ok files that i tried.

There used to be a little app in OS9 that one could use to fix aiff 

files that were wonky due to an attack of recordus interuptus, but 

During one performance the power went out. (Agh!!) The laptop was  
still running, but obviously the external hard drive I was recording  
to went off.

The resulting aiff file shows as 1.9Gb in the Finder (it was a long  
performance!), but the programme I'm using to split these files  
(Sample Manger) won't load it.
I had a look with SoundHack,
if I just "open" it, it shows it as a zero length/zero mbs 6 channel  
file.
If I use "open any..." it says it's a headerless file, but then it  
says the same with one of the ok files that i tried.

There used to be a little app in OS9 that one could use to fix aiff  
files that were wonky due to an attack of recordus interuptus, but  
how does one do it in OSX?

how-to-repair-a-damaged-aiff-file

I think you could use 'Header change' in Soundhack.

That's the first thing I tried. The info in the Header Change 

dialogue is exactly the same (except for the length of course) as the 

info in the files that are ok. I also tried Apply in header change, 

That's the first thing I tried. The info in the Header Change  
dialogue is exactly the same (except for the length of course) as the  
info in the files that are ok. I also tried Apply in header change,  
but it hasn't affected the file.

 which has a 'repair aiff' function; not sure if it will deal with 6 channel files, but worth a try...

The OS 9 app you were looking for was probably 'Fix 16bit AIFF', that came with Thonk, which is at 

http://www.audioease.com/Pages/Free/FreeMain.html

The Header Change function in SoundHack should work for this sort of thing,though; it's certainly got me out of a jam in the past,

I found this, http://www.bitcartel.com/irecordmusic/, which has a 'repair aiff' function; not sure if it will deal with 6 channel files, but worth a try...
 The OS 9 app you were looking for was probably 'Fix 16bit AIFF', that came with Thonk, which is at http://www.audioease.com/Pages/Free/FreeMain.html
 The Header Change function in SoundHack should work for this sort of thing,though; it's certainly got me out of a jam in the past,
cheers
Roger


Tried irecordmusic out, but it doesn't recognise any of the files 

(even the good ones), and Soundhack doesn't seem to do anything 

useful with the damaged file. I think something more than a damaged 

header must have happened to it; the power went off to the drive and 

the laptop switched to battery; what would that do to a file!

Anyways, I think I'm going to have to let this one go - I've still 

got about 2 hours of other recordings to work with.

Tried irecordmusic out, but it doesn't recognise any of the files  
(even the good ones), and Soundhack doesn't seem to do anything  
useful with the damaged file. I think something more than a damaged  
header must have happened to it; the power went off to the drive and  
the laptop switched to battery; what would that do to a file!
Anyways, I think I'm going to have to let this one go - I've still  
got about 2 hours of other recordings to work with.

http://www.i3net.it/Products/dspQuattro/Asp/Index_EN.asp

I think there is some powerfull "import raw" capability (sorry, I don't 

remember exactly how powerfull it is, especially with mutli tracks 

As an ultimate solution, there is HexEdit... Not that difficult but 

you'll need to know the aiff specs quite well.

Did you try DSP Quattro?
http://www.i3net.it/Products/dspQuattro/Asp/Index_EN.asp

I think there is some powerfull "import raw" capability (sorry, I don't 
remember exactly how powerfull it is, especially with mutli tracks 
files)

As an ultimate solution, there is HexEdit... Not that difficult but 
you'll need to know the aiff specs quite well.

Interesting. It actually managed to open and play the file. It plays 

back as if it was recorded at a much higher sampling rate - ie pitch 

too low, speed too slow, and aliasing noise. How strange. 

Unfortunately, though, the programme only handles mono/stereo files.

Interesting. It actually managed to open and play the file. It plays  
back as if it was recorded at a much higher sampling rate - ie pitch  
too low, speed too slow, and aliasing noise. How strange.  
Unfortunately, though,  the programme only handles mono/stereo files.
Thanks for the pointer though.

And as a postscript - much to my surprise, cubase opened the file as 

a 5.1 just fine! So I thought I'd try sfplay~, and that too opens it. 

What I don't know is whether something I've done with the various 

programmes I've been trying to fix it with has fixed it, or if cubase 

& max would've opened it all along. Still, at least I can use sfplay 

Thanks to everyone for help & suggestions.

And as a postscript - much to my surprise, cubase opened the file as  
a 5.1 just fine! So I thought I'd try sfplay~, and that too opens it.  
What I don't know is whether something I've done with the various  
programmes I've been trying to fix it with has fixed it, or if cubase  
& max would've opened it all along. Still, at least I can use sfplay  
to get the separate tracks out now.
Hurrah!

> Interesting. It actually managed to open and play the file. It plays 

> back as if it was recorded at a much higher sampling rate - ie pitch 

> too low, speed too slow, and aliasing noise. How strange.

Not so strange if you think about it, the header is wrong or missing, 

the program does make an assumption on the number of tracks, lets say it 

assumes its stereo (not too bad as an assumption nowadays) if the file 

is actually 6 channels, it has three times more values per second as the 

As Soundhack does only 1, 2 or 4 channels, you could open it with 

"openraw" into sfplay and then rerecord it... The help file of sfplay~ 

explains it all (New Features and subpatcher raw_data_and_force_header).

David Stevens wrote:
> Interesting. It actually managed to open and play the file. It plays  
> back as if it was recorded at a much higher sampling rate - ie pitch  
> too low, speed too slow, and aliasing noise. How strange.  

Not so strange if you think about it, the header is wrong or missing, 
the program does make an assumption on the number of tracks, lets say it 
assumes its stereo (not too bad as an assumption nowadays) if the file 
is actually 6 channels, it has three times more values per second as the 
stereo file...

As Soundhack does only 1, 2 or 4 channels, you could open it with 
"openraw" into sfplay and then rerecord it... The help file of sfplay~ 
explains it all (New Features and subpatcher raw_data_and_force_header).

-- 
Stefan Tiedje------------x-------
--_____-----------|--------------
--(_|_ ----|-----|-----()-------
-- _|_)----|-----()--------------
----------()--------www.ccmix.com


> Not so strange if you think about it, the header is wrong or 

> missing, the program does make an assumption on the number of 

> tracks, lets say it assumes its stereo (not too bad as an 

> assumption nowadays) if the file is actually 6 channels, it has 

> three times more values per second as the stereo file...

Something I did worked, because Cubase happily opened it as a 5.1 

file. (Or maybe doing that is what fixed it). Which made me think of 

opening it in sfplay (which I hadn't thought to do before, assuming 

the file was messed up), which also worked (I didn't even have to 

open it as a raw file - unless that happened automatically), thus 

allowing me to use sfplay n sfrecord to separate everything out.

Mind you - it took around 14 hours to bounce the 5 tracks in non- 

> Not so strange if you think about it, the header is wrong or  
> missing, the program does make an assumption on the number of  
> tracks, lets say it assumes its stereo (not too bad as an  
> assumption nowadays) if the file is actually 6 channels, it has  
> three times more values per second as the stereo file...

Something I did worked, because Cubase happily opened it as a 5.1  
file. (Or maybe doing that is what fixed it). Which made me think of  
opening it in sfplay (which I hadn't thought to do before, assuming  
the file was messed up), which also worked (I didn't even have to  
open it as a raw file - unless that happened automatically), thus  
allowing me to use sfplay n sfrecord to separate everything out.

Mind you - it took around 14 hours to bounce the 5 tracks in non- 
realtime!

> Mind you - it took around 14 hours to bounce the 5 tracks in non- realtime!

Any disc access is very, very slow in non-realtime! (There is some 

explanation in the archives) It would have been much faster in real time...

David Stevens wrote:
> Mind you - it took around 14 hours to bounce the 5 tracks in non- realtime!

Any disc access is very, very slow in non-realtime! (There is some 
explanation in the archives) It would have been much faster in real time...

The lollowing patch using openraw in sfplay~ does a good job on repairing corrupted audiofiles, but I don't know what to do when duration equals zero. 

Thanks Stefan,

The lollowing patch using openraw in sfplay~  does a good job on repairing corrupted audiofiles, but I don't know what to do when  duration equals zero.  
Any idea ?

how to repair a damaged aiff file