When I try to import some wav files it won’t let me. I need to convert these files to MP3. I select import audio and it comes up with a message that says Audacity attempted to use FFmpeg to import an audio file but the libraries were not found. Then it comes up with another message that says Audacity did not recognize the file type. If it is uncompressed try importing it using raw data. I do that and the file imports but as a buzzing track.
The audio I’m trying to import is an audio book recorded at a local radio station.
Any help would be much appreciated!
We’re parsing your verbs. Most of them opened OK and only some of them won’t?
Is this your first audiobook with them? This is highly recommended, by the way, rather than trying to turn your apartment into a recording studio.
Assuming you’re on Audacity 2.1.1, the FFMpeg software is here:
http://audacityteam.org/download/windows
Scroll down a little bit. You had to have done this kind of thing at least once because Audacity will not export an MP3 without the lame software add-in on that same panel.
If you’re posting to ACX, the minimum MP3 quality is 192 (options in the Audacity export panel. That’s higher than the 128 Audacity default) and the maximum duration is 120 minutes. They used to have a file size limit, but I don’t see that posted any more. They recommend chapter breaks.
You only need FFMpeg for the more modern compressed file formats. Not WAV. That’s why I’m looking at you funny. What you have is strange. I can’t think of an instance where some WAV files will open and some won’t. Did you call them?
Koz
Thanks so much for your response. I should not have said ‘some’. I was having issues with all of them. I downloaded the software and it’s working now and have exported it at the higher quality. And yes, it’s my first audiobook. Thanks for your help!
You might want to call them anyway. WAV delivery is highly recommended. Other compressed formats sacrifice quality and the quality gets worse when you make the MP3. Please note that ACX is going to make yet another MP3 or possibly more from your submission for their other products and services and each one is going to take another quality hit.
So studio master delivery is not a good place to start the quality decline. Plus it’s very highly recommended that you store your production archives in WAV.
You can go downhill from WAV to anything else, but you can’t come back. There is no “I converted it to higher quality.”
Audacity doesn’t need FFMpeg to manage WAV files. Something is wrong.
Koz