Re: [SoX-users] Reading a broken WAV file?

[Jan S. <ha...@st...>]

On May 23 19:08:05, Michael Chapman wrote:
> On Sunday 16 May 2010 8:27 pm, you wrote:
> > You could try to fix the header with
> > sox --ignore-length one.wav fixed.wav
> 
> Just to report back.
> 
> sox --ignore-length 5GB.wav fixed.wav
> 
> perpetuates the error.
> Not SoX's fault (I suspect the flavour of WAV it writes is limited to 4GB).

That seems to be the case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wav#Limitations

> IT WOULD BE NICE if SoX did 'WARN' when doing this though,
> i.e. "I cannot write a proper header to the output file because
> it is >4GB".
> Hardly a 'bug report', but almost.
> 
> 
> The solution, based on your kind help, is either:
> sox --ignore-length 5GB.wav fixed.caf

(or any other format not limited to 4G by design)

> sox --ignore-length 5GB.wav -r LO - b LO fixed.wav
> where 'LO' are rates (e.g. 44100) and precisions (e.g. 16 or 24) that
> forces the output file to a sensible size.
> For my purposes:
> sox --ignore-length one.wav -r 44100 -b 24 new.wav
> did the trick of getting me a workable file.

Yes, but that possibly degrades the audio quality:
you downsampled and reduced the sample size. Whether
the difference is audible or matters is your call of course.