Re: concat problem

[Jan Stary <hans@stare.cz>]

On Sep 26 17:24:41, ghe2001@gmail.com wrote:
> > If you are new to SoX, learn it by running SoX,
> > not by writing Python scripts.
> 
> In Python, you just create a list of the command and the options and
> stuff, and it's passed to the kernel.

Passed to your shell more likely; but the point is
nobody can be sure the problem is not in the scripting.
It brings something completely irrelevant to the original SoX problem.

> There was only one point where
> that didn't work -- the concatenation to aiff.

Yes, and that's what I'm trying to get to.

> And besides, I did try
> running things by hand when there were problems.

But you never showed us the actual sox command,
and the complete sox output. Hint again: script(1).

> > What happens if you play the file with SoX's own play(1)?
> > What does 'play --ignore-length output.aiff' do?
> > What does soxi(1) say about the file?
> 
> Dunno.

You mean, you haven't tried?
Just go run those commands.

> > It would also be easier to do audio work
> > on a comupter wich has sound. Duh.\
> 
> I like to check a generating/processing program on several computers
> to look for bugs. The failure was pretty obvious -- when I 'ran' the
> sound file on the silent computer, it came back in a few seconds.

By 'came back' you mean 'stopped playing in VLC'?
What other players have your tried then?
In particular, have you tried SoX's own 'play -V5'?
If not, do it now.

> The noisy computer is an Apple MacBook Air running VLC. I consider it
> a reliable reproducer of audio.

I'm sure it is. So run SoX's play(1) on the AIFF file you are having
a problem with (namely, it stops playing prematurely), and show us
the full and complete output of that command (play -V5 output.aiff).

> > $ soxi file.aiff
> 
> I don't know soxi. I'll try to become familiar with it...

It's mentioned in the second paragraph of the manpage.
Go read the SoX manpage.

> > In that case, the aiff outout you are creating is probably too big.
> 
> No, It wasn't.

You are contradicting yourself:

On Sep 22 19:51:20, ghe2001@gmail.com wrote:
> Yesterday, SoX kept saying it couldn't create a complete AIFF header
> because the file was too big.

On Sep 22 16:36:39, ghe2001@gmail.com wrote:
> The translation goes fine, and SoX creates a huge AIFF.

How huge? (What is the length limit of an AIFF file?)

> I thought of that, and cut the size down to very small.
> Same result.

Show us the exact command (presumably something like
"sox -V file1.aiff ... fileN.aiff output.aiff")
and the exact and full output of that command.

Upload those very small input files and the reasonably small
output file that exhibit the problem somewhere where people
can download them, and reproduce your problem,
and see what SoX actually says and does.

> > What exactly was the command line and what exactly was the error message?
> I sent the command in a response to Eric (see below),

No:

> >> > What's the exact command?
> >> ['sox', '--multi-threaded', '--combine', 'concatenate',
> >> 'flacs/1-01HornetIntro.flac', 'flacs/1-02Hornet01a.flac',
> >> 'flacs/1-03Hornet01b.flac', 'flacs/1-04Hornet01c.flac',
> >> 'flacs/1-05Hornet01d.flac', 'flacs/1-06Hornet01e.flac',
> >> 'flacs/1-07Hornet02a.flac', 'flacs/1-08Hornet02b.flac',
> >> 'flacs/1-09Hornet02c.flac', 'flacs/1-10Hornet02d.flac',
> >> 'flacs/1-11Hornet02e.flac', 'flacs/2-01Hornet02f.flac',
> >> 'flacs/2-02Hornet03a.flac', 'flacs/2-03Hornet03b.flac',
> >> 'flacs/2-04Hornet03c.flac', 'flacs/2-05Hornet03d.flac',
> >> 'flacs/2-06Hornet03e.flac', 'flacs/2-07Hornet04a.flac',
> >> 'flacs/2-08Hornet04b.flac', 'flacs/2-09Hornet04c.flac',
> >> 'flacs/2-10Hornet04d.flac', 'flacs/2-11Hornet04e.flac',
> >> 'flacs/2-12Hornet04f.flac', 'big_file.flac']

That's not the AIFF command line exhibiting your problem
(namely, the premature end of a concatenated aiff file).
That's a Python array of arguments to a different command
with different files, namely FLAC files,
where the original problem does not show.

> and there was no error message.

Yes, because this is another command with another files.
What was the error message with the AIFF files
(that sox "kept whining about" as you put it)?

> Eric solved my last week's problem last week.

It's fine that the FLAC version works for you,
but it's not an answer to the original AIFF problem.

To be clear: the issue here is not that VLC cannot play your AIFF file,
but rather (this being a SoX ML and all) that SoX creates, allegedly,
broken AIFF files; or at least broken in the sense that players
such as VLC don't play them properly. That's what I'm trying to get to
(but you're making it hard).

> > 316M of flac is a lot. What exactly are you doing here and why?
> 
> What? I'm trying to convert audiobook CDs into a single file on a
> computer disk. [...] > The source was a reading of
> 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'. Big, real big.

Sorry for the confusion. I thought 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'
is a song you are recording and confused the "Hornet1.flac" with
parts of a musical instrument. Please excuse my English (not native).
Being a reading of an audio book, the size makes sense.

> > What "subprocess"?
> See Python dox. It's a class/module Python uses to interact with the kernel.

No, I'm not gonna see python dox to get to the bottom of an AIFF
problem, because it has nothing to do with it. Isolate the problem
to SoX itself; don't complicate it by running the entire thing
in a Python script (or anything like that, for that matter).

> > You can create a flac output that long,
> > as opposed to an aiff output that long?
> 
> Well, pretty much. The are both lossless files containing all the
> data, but the flac is way shorter that the aiff. And it works.

Good. Now please exhibit in full detail the AIFF version
which does _not_ work (in VLC).

Then please run this command (it's all typed out for you)
and quote the output in full, to see what concatenation
of audio into a long aiff actually does on your system:

> Concatenating AIFF files as follows works as expected for me.
> Exactly what problem do you experience when you run this?
> (That't an hour of concatenated aiff audio.)
> 
> for i in 1 2 3 4 ; do sox -n file$i.aiff synth 900 sin $(($i * 200)) ; done
> sox -V5 file*aiff out.aiff 
> soxi out.aiff 
> play -V5 out.aiff 

Does the concatenated file stop playing after ~900s in VLC?
Does it play correctly in other players, play(1) in particular?

	Jan


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