Spin Doctor aiff files won't open in any program

[george packard]

I recently tried to open some spin doctor aiff files which I had archived a year ago both to hard drive and to a dvd. These files will not open in any application: Soundtrack Pro, Quicktime, Toast Titanium versions 5 or 7, Itunes or in Spin Doctor itself. I get various types of error messages all related to "wrong format."

 

I created the files with Spin Doctor V.3.1.1.304t packaged with Toast Titanium 7.

 

I am a very experienced computer user, and had used Spin Doctor on a G4 mac running Panther and then Tiger for 4-5 years doing hundreds of vinyl and tape capture and transfer to CD.

 

I last used Spin Doctor about a year ago, and have a number of Spin Doctor aiff files which I had done for clients backed up to hard drive and to dvd. Those files will not open.

 

I have tried every conceivable workaround, including reinstalling both Toast 5 and Toast 7 on a mac running OS 10.3.8, 10.4 and Leopard.

 

Any ideas?

[george packard]

I'm sorry but I'm really crunched with doing my taxes so I can't help as much as I'd like. The workaround doesn't apply to your situation because it wasn't saving the file with any content so there was nothing to open. It involved having to choose Save As after marking one track and so on. Yours seems to be a corruption of the file after it is saved but I don't know what that could be. You'll need to find a better expert than me. Maybe someone at Bias has a solution.

 

thanks, tsantee. I'm not sure what "Bias" is, but I'll try to find it. Is Bias a product, a company, a forum?

[tsantee]

thanks, tsantee. I'm not sure what "Bias" is, but I'll try to find it. Is Bias a product, a company, a forum?

Bias is a company. Their site is www.bias-inc.com . They make lots of audio software products. I don't see, however, a customer forum there so they probably won't be any help. I'm also sending you a private message.

[tsantee]

This is the first time I've heard of this issue. There was a problem with later versions of Spin Doctor (5 and 6) where it couldn't read the files it saved at the time it saved them. That required a several step workaround and is now fixed, but this wasn't an issue in the past. You also know that you were able to open these at an earlier time so it isn't that the files are corrupted.

 

What extension appears on the file name? Is it .aiff? Have you tried opening them on a different Mac or on a PC?

[george packard]

This is the first time I've heard of this issue. There was a problem with later versions of Spin Doctor (5 and 6) where it couldn't read the files it saved at the time it saved them. That required a several step workaround and is now fixed, but this wasn't an issue in the past. You also know that you were able to open these at an earlier time so it isn't that the files are corrupted.

 

What extension appears on the file name? Is it .aiff? Have you tried opening them on a different Mac or on a PC?

 

Thanks very much for the quick response...needless to say, I'm a little desperate, with the client asking now, after a year, for CDs (I digitized more than 6 hours of his original compositions from his 1/4 reel to reel tapes!)

 

The file extension is .aiff. I've tried renaming to .aif and .mov but no difference. I've tried opening the .aiff files on PC, no luck.

 

All the audio programs I've tried, from Soundtrack Pro to ITunes recognize the files as .aiff, but will not open them.

 

Spin Doctor does NOT recognize them, i.e. they do not appear in the Spin Doctor window as "previous files".

 

I cannot import them into the Toast Audio window.

 

I reinstalled Toast 7 on a G4 Ibook running OS 10.3.9, and did a test Spin Doctor recording, which produced an .aiff file that works fine. But when I copy off one of the archived files from a dvd onto that machine, again, nothing works.

 

The icon for the bad files is the normal Spin Doctor .aiff file icon.

 

So...what is the workaround you mention for the problem with later versions of Spin Doctor? I'll try anything.

 

As I mentioned in my first post, I'm a very experienced computer jockey...I work professionally as a video producer and documentary maker...and I have never, ever run into anything like this!

 

Thanks!

[tsantee]

I'm sorry but I'm really crunched with doing my taxes so I can't help as much as I'd like. The workaround doesn't apply to your situation because it wasn't saving the file with any content so there was nothing to open. It involved having to choose Save As after marking one track and so on. Yours seems to be a corruption of the file after it is saved but I don't know what that could be. You'll need to find a better expert than me. Maybe someone at Bias has a solution.