I have recorded songs on a TASCAM Recorder and they export as WAV. files. These are to large to send by E-Mail and I want to convert them to MP3 or something that can be sent in an E-Mail. can I do this with Audacity??? I cannot find anything about converting files.
You can install the Lame software into Audacity from here (scroll down).
http://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/
Then you can open the work in Audacity and Export it as an MP3. (File > Save Other).
You should know what quality you want. WAV files are more or less always perfect quality and they’re very large. MP3 files have quality settings. You can pick the sizes of file you want and the quality you’re willing to give up to get it. The smaller the MP3 file, the rattier the quality. 32 quality is generally the lowest for a mono show (one blue wave) and 64 is minimum for stereo.
Audacity default stereo export quality used to be 128.
Koz
If your work is going to someone for post production editing, it is strongly recommended you get them the WAV file somehow rather than reducing the quality with an MP3.
You can post the work in a file hosting service such as DropBox, or you can chop the work up in Audacity to several smaller WAV files and send those.
Koz
You’ll need to download and install the optional [u]LAME MP3 Encoder[/u]. The files still might be to large to email.
Open the WAV file in Audacity.
Then File → Save Other → Export As MP3.
At the bottom of the window there are some options for quality, etc.*
…If you are not editing the audio and you just want to convert to MP3, try [u]TAudioConverter[/u]. Once you’ve set-up your output format it’s just drag, drop, and click, and you can convert multiple files at once.
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- With higher bitrates you get higher quality (bigger files with less data thrown-away). With variable bitrate V0 is the best quality and V9 gives you the most compression (smallest file). But… A higher bitrate doesn’t always sound better, so we can’t always say it has “better” quality.
You can host your audio on SoundCloud, (which is like YouTube, but for sound), for free.
Then you just email a link to the SoundCloud page with your audio, rather than send them a huge email attachment.
As with YouTube, you can make the links unlisted, so only the people who have the link (the URL) can listen to the sound.
MP3 has hidden problems, too.
MP3 is designed as an end-product.
If you edit an MP3 into another MP3, the quality may take a very serious hit. It will be the combined sound damage of the two MP3s.
Time bomb.
“How come my new MP3 sounds like a bad cellphone?”
Koz
Very good information from each of you. Thank you for taking the time to share your answers. Soundcloud might be an option after I have the Copy-write on the songs. I was a member of a band (All Grew up together) who wrote all our own Music. Now we have all wound up in different parts of the country and I wanted to be able to share with them to get there Ideas on final product. I have saved all the WAV files from the different tracs of each song I have recorded so that I can go back and edit songs in the future if I choose. that is why I am not concerned with Losing quality with the MP3 if I convert. Again thank You for your answers. Good Stuff!!!