Headerless wavs from IOS app fail in OS X

[vdubreeze]

There's a particular IOS app I've used for interviews that has worked great when creating mp4 or mp3 files. Dropbox 'em over to the Mac and right into Reaper and edit. Now I want to do something where I desire the quality be slightly upped, where the intros and etc. beg to sound a little better than these end up. So I flipped the settings to wav and for a VO was pleased with the result and difference. But the files won't import into Reaper (or a few other audio apps I tried). They're headerless. Oddly, Quicktime plays them fine, no problem lacking header. Maybe it's just smart enough to fill in the blanks, because what would be header info is there in the media info.

The only way I can get Reaper to see a file is to load it into SoundHack and put header in. Sadly, this end result now can be imported into an audio app but the quality takes a hit, which is puzzling to me, as it would seem to be not converting, just putting it where it actually is to be recognized. Any audio app that would import the original version as a raw audio file just makes a file of hash noise, nothing I can do anything with by changing settings.

WTH is the deal with this? I've tried this same routine with another IOS recorder app and didn't run into this, but everything else I prefer about the app I had used (Awesome Voice Recorder X). But am mostly curious what the deal is for the knowledge of how to finagle it should it happen when something is already recorded.

Thanks

[Diki Ross]

Are you using 320kbps MP3’s? Do you need better quality than that?

And have you tried drag and drop to the Reaper workspace or only importing through the file menu? How does SoundHack describe the file in a ‘get info’? Does it report any bit depth or sample rate info?

Lastly, have you contacted Awesome Voice X’s devs? They may either have a solution or should at least be aware there’s a problem.

[vdubreeze]

Thanks, Diki. Reaper won't import them no matter from where, and that's the same for any DAW or audio editor. However, Quicktime and VLC will open and play them, without headers. SoundHack says there are no headers, so entering them in makes it right. I've since found that a VLC import and export does a better job of this. I want set this up on the wav setting because I won't be doing the recording and I find that if it's not recorded far enough away from the noise floor the danger of artifacts from compression is there in these phone recording apps, and there is an audible difference between high quality encoding and wavs here, though you wouldn't think there would be enough to make a difference in usage. They are short clips with not much talking, so the file size difference isn't a factor.

I could use them here, it's more of a quest for knowledge for a time when I may have to pull out a phone for an emergency recoding and know what happens if I go for highest possible quality there. I will contact the devs.

Thanks