Is there a way and if so how can I use audacity to record in 16 bit / 44.1 kHz wav file format
I’d appreciate the help.
Thanks!
You can tell Audacity to capture at 44100, 16-bit, Stereo and then Audacity accepts the work after converting internally to 44100, 32-bit floating, Stereo. When you Export the work, you can down-convert to 44100, 16-bit, Stereo WAV and if you turn off the conversion tools, the process is completely bit-for-bit lossless.
If you do anything at all to the show while it’s inside Audacity you will lose the data perfection. Then it becomes just like any other capture, effects, process and export with tiny conversion errors.
Koz
By default Audacity records 32 bit float, 44.1 kHz PCM, and using the default settings, file exporting is 16 bit WAV (Microsoft 16 bit PCM) format with the same sample rate as the Audacity project, so in effect, the thing that you want to do is what Audacity does by default.
The issue that may be causing confusion is that Audacity works with “projects” and not with “files”. This is explained in the manual here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audacity_projects.html