Save Trace as .WAV Data File

Controls: File Menu >> Save WAV
Macro: SaveWAV

This option saves standard .WAV files, without the special Daqarta supplemental information added in .DQA format. It saves the data from the current display to a single-screen file, which contains data for 1024 samples per channel. All active channels will be saved, even if they are not currently displayed. Files are always stored in standard signed 16-bit format, which all .WAV software supports.

The main reason to use this option is if the file must be opened by other software that doesn't comply with the Microsoft RIFF standard. This standard requires that each section of the file be properly labeled, and that programs ignore any sections they can't handle properly, such as the special Daqarta data section in .DQA files. However, many older programs were hard-coded to expect only the most common format of the vast majority of .WAV files.

The .WAV option is disabled when the current display shows averaged data. The averager stores 64 bits per sample plus a separate frames count, which the standard .WAV format does not support. Use .DQA files for averager data.

Files may be saved with up to four channels of data (Left and Right Input plus Left and Right Output), which may be more than some older programs that read .WAV files can handle.

If you don't need to exchange data with such software, the .DQA format is much better for saving your data because it includes user notes and calibration data.

This option is disabled during DDisk recording, or when there are no active Input or Output (Generator) channels.

You can not save Spectrogram or Pitch Track (Sgram/PT) data to a .WAV file using this option. If you try that, the saved file will be the waveform data used for the most recent spectrum computation. If you want to save a complete spectrogram or pitch track, you will need to use DDisk mode and save the raw waveform data, then display it in Sgram or Pitch Track mode when you later open it.

Macro Notes:

The SaveWAV macro has no effect if any File Open or Save As dialog is already active.

SaveWAV= without a name will open the Save As dialog showing all .WAV files, with the default set to Data or the most recent name.

SaveWAV="MyFile" will open the Save As dialog with the default name set to MyFile. (Note that quotes are needed around all filenames in macros.) If you accept this by hitting Enter or the Save button in that dialog, Daqarta will assume you want to save a file named MyFile.WAV. If that file already exists, you will be prompted to replace it.

A.SaveWAV="MyFile" will save MyFile.WAV directly, without any Save As dialog. Note that if the file already exists, it will be overwritten without any confirmation prompt.

SaveWAV can use string variables and expressions. For example, SaveWAV=Field1 will use the contents of Field1 as the default file name, and A.SaveWAV=Field1 will save a file with that name directly.

Similarly, if the Macro Variable Var0 holds a value of 12, then SaveWAV="Test"+Var0 will set a default file name of Test012.

A.SaveWAV= will save directly using the current default file name. If you have previously set file names to Auto-Increment, either manually or using AutoInc=1, then this will save using the next file name (MyFile-001.WAV, MyFile-002.WAV, etc).

See Macro Variables for a way to use a Field to supply the initial name that AutoInc starts with.