Hey,
I have been able to create a quality recording using headphone mike and version 1.2.6 of Audacity. My problem is that even when I export as MP3 the file size of a 35 minute recording is already nearly 33 Mbytes. I have read through many past posts to this list but I cannot find out how to change parameters to get this down to single digit Mbytes. I am using 16 bit recording. I have not been able to find out how to reduce bit rate. Your help would be most appreciated.
Thank You
Frank
Edit > Preferences > File Formats will get you a dialog box where you can set the MP3 export bitrate (provided that you have already installed LAME and pointed Audacity to it).
WC
Thank You. I had extraced lame_enc.dll as I read from the documentation, Audacity never prompted me to find the location of this file so, there is no option for me under Edit - Preferences to File Formats in the menu of Audacity. If you can provide specifics of how to get audacity to point to LAME, it would be most appreciated.
Thank You Again.
Frank
Audacity 1.2.6 Windows XP SP2:
“Edit > Preferences > File Formats”
<<<35 minute recording is already nearly 33 Mbytes…get this down to single digit Mbytes.>>>
While that’s possible to do, you may not like the results very much. You will probably get serious bubbling in the quality even if you reduce the show to mono and only have one person talking. This is getting into answering machine quality.
A perfect recording (WAV, 48000, 16 bit) for 35 minutes will be a 380M file, so you’re talking 42 to 1 compression. That’s steep, unless, like I said, you have a mono show and don’t mind some bubbling in the performance.
Koz
CD quality WAV files are about 10 MB per minute.
Compressing as mp3 you can’t go above about 10:1 compression for reasonable sound quality (for music), although you can double this for mono. If you’re not bothered about some loss of quality you could go to about 40:1 in mono (LAME quality setting=0 mono). If you need even greater and are using voice only, then you could use “Speex” rather than mp3 and get a massive 100:1 compression (though this is definitely no better than telephone quality).
Thank you for your responses.
What I am looking to do with this recording is to have my audio course downloadable by a wide variety of internet access methods without taking forever to download. I am not aiming for CD quality voice, even though that would be nice. I am not sure what quality streaming audio is on the internet but that would be nice. Your suggestions on how to accomplish would be further appreciated.
In any case, in experimenting further, I have set my preferences in Edit->Preferences to ~11khz rate but when I go to record it, it starts recording at ~44khz. It seems like my preference choices are being ignored. Is there something that I am missing when I set the preferences that is being ignored.
Thanks in advance
Frank
The mp3 encoding settings in Audacity are optimised for music rather than high ratio speech. I recommend that you download LameDrop (which is free and very easy to use). Right click on LameDrop and select “Encoding options”, then select Quality=0 and “convert to mono”. If the sound quality is too poor, try a slightly higher quality setting. To encode a WAV file, you just drag and drop it onto LameDrop. To decode an mp3, just drag and drop that and it will be decoded into a WAV file.
Thanks.
If you have a web address as to where to source lamedrop, it would be a help. I assume that when you download lamedrop that it either works alongside lame as a sort of plug in for audacity or post processes as a standalone application on the desk top. Right clicking on lamedrop as you describe below makes tend to think that it is a stand alone application. Your help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
If you have a web address as to where to source lamedrop, it would be a help. I assume that when you download lamedrop that it either works alongside lame as a sort of plug in for audacity or post processes as a standalone application on the desk top. Right clicking on lamedrop as you describe below makes tend to think that it is a stand alone application. Your help is greatly appreciated.
Frank
Yes. LameDrop is a standalone application.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lamedrop&btnG=Search