Boom recorder bad sound file

[jacefivesound]

Hey all,

I got an email from post and one of my BR poly files is bad. I checked my copies and it is very strange. The file has one frame of audio, is 0:00 long (one frame) - but the file is three hundred something megs, which is correct for it's length (Or the length it is supposed to be). I've had similar problems before (never with Boom Recorder) and I've used soundhack to fix the header, but it won't work this time. Any thoughts? I'm guessing it's just simply a bad file, but if anyone has encountered this issue and found a fix (or that there isn't one) please help. I'm looking around but not seeing anything that matches my situation :-/

Thanks!

[Michael P Clark]

Jason,

I have never seen that happen to me, and I've recorded thousands of files on Boom Recorder. Very strange. Have you tried opening it up in Wave Agent?

http://www.sounddevices.com/products/waveagent.htm

Interesting that this has happened to you before. I have never seen this happen(perhaps others have), and am wondering if there is another issue in your setup causing this phenomenon? What other platforms have created this issue before?

Also, I would suggest contacting Take to see if he has any ideas. He is very helpful with any issues.

Take.Vos@vosgames.nl

Let us know what you've figured out, and sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

[headpooch]

I had a crash (kernel panic) right in the middle of a recording. The wave file was nearly 300Mb, but had no header and wouldn't open in any audio program.

I used the free VLC media player to open the corrupt file and export to a RAW file ... success!

http://www.videolan.org/

You might give it a shot.

[jacefivesound]

I used to work with pro tools a lot, which is where I've seen the file corruption before. Never with boom recorder or metacorder.

I can open the file in wave agent, but it won't play, or split the file. It splits it into the 10 tracks but they're all 12k and blank.

AWESOME call headpooch, I can open and play the poly in VLC. What did you do after you made it a raw file? VLC always amazes me. Thanks so much guys.

[headpooch]

I opened the uncompressed wave file in Amadeus Pro.

http://www.hairersoft.com/AmadeusPro/AmadeusPro.html

My file was not a poly file, but it opened like a charm. I thought it was hosed beyond repair.

From their user manual:

3.2 The Wave format

This format is very popular mainly on the Windows platform but also on other operating systems. It usually

contains uncompressed data, but also supports a variety of compressed formats. AmadeusPro only supports

Wave files that are either uncompressed or compressed with the (lossy) µ-Law or a-Law algorithms.

The Wave format supports markers and multichannel data. AmadeusPro will try to do its best to map the

multitrack structure of the document to the ones supported by the Wave format, but this may fail if your

document contains too many different tracks.

Metadata (artwork, artist name, etc) are saved to Wave files by appending an ID3 tag at the end of the

file. This is the method employed by iTunes and should not affect the readability of the resulting file by

third-party software.

Due to the nature of the format, WAVE files are limited to 2GB in size. It is possible to encounter WAVE

files that are between 2GB and 4GB in size. Such files do not comply to the official WAVE specifications

and cannot be opened by every program supporting the WAVE format, this is why AmadeusPro will refuse

to create them. It is however able to open such files and to save them in other file formats.

[jacefivesound]

Ahhh this may be the end of me recording poly files unless specifically asked.

I can't use wave agent or bwf manager to break the file out because of it's strange status. The fact that it's a poly file is what seems to be causing me trouble now. when I convert it out of the .wav format everything that will open it sees it as a single track of noise :-/

Oh well, I'm closer now than I was before, Im going to keep toying with it. I also found out they only need one line from it and it's on the backup recording, so this is no longer an emergency (thankfully) - just a good experience to have under my belt (especially as it is not destructive)

[Marc Wielage]

This sounds like a bad header or a corrupt end of file marker problem, which is (to me, anyway) a problem with the operating system, not necessarily the software.

I would check the file with Courtney Goodin's BWF-Widget or use a program like WAV Saver (both for Windows only, unfortunately) and see if you can reconstruct the files that way.

That is a problem with either Boom Recorder or Metacorder in that there's no safety net if you aren't recording to two places simultaneously, and one file goes bad. That's good news that you had a backup!

--Marc W.

[jacefivesound]

Hi Marc,

Yes, i am sure that it was a problem with my OS. My firewire interface (002) was not very happy the entire shoot. I typically use a 788, but this pilot needed 10 tracks, so I went to boom recorder with a backup on cameras. I played with it at home and it was very stable. Put it on a cart and started moving it a bit and it was restart city. I'll be getting a fireface 800 if we go to series.

Thanks so much!

[takev]

Hello,

You may be able to rescue the audio in the file by reading it as raw data in some audio utilities. In those utilities you give it the length of the header it should skip, the amount of audio channels, the sample rate and the bit depth. Boom Recorder's header is always 32768 bytes long.

An other way to fix it is using a hex editor and fill in the missing fields in the wav header, such as the file sizes. This is quite a bit more complicated.

[Philip Perkins]

This sounds like a bad header or a corrupt end of file marker problem, which is (to me, anyway) a problem with the operating system, not necessarily the software.

I would check the file with Courtney Goodin's BWF-Widget or use a program like WAV Saver (both for Windows only, unfortunately) and see if you can reconstruct the files that way.

That is a problem with either Boom Recorder or Metacorder in that there's no safety net if you aren't recording to two places simultaneously, and one file goes bad. That's good news that you had a backup!

--Marc W.

This is a problem with any digital multitrack, incl SD etc.  re a bad file.  If there is a problem recording one track, it is extremely likely there will be a problem with them all in a given take.

I agree that starting out with a poly file has made the OP's misery worse, with fewer good options.  10 tracks is not very tough for any modern computer system to record, so you aren't really gaining anything by recording in poly mode, and there are several other downsides re: organizing tracks in post. 

phil p