How do I reduce bitrate on multiple MP3's??[SOLVED]

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Using Audacity 2.0.3 on Windows XP. I downloaded and installed LAME. I am a casual user of Audacity.

I listen mostly to audio books in my car. The MP3 audio files are much larger than they need to be (typically 256 kbps). Using Audacity, I can reduce bitrate by 90% and tell no difference in the audio quality.

But I am only doing one at a time. I have literally hundreds of small MP3 files on which I want to reduce bitrate. Is there a way to “batch” this process and do a hundred files at a time? :question: I looked in the Tutorial. I would think this is a common task.

Thanks for any help, Dave in RI :slight_smile:

2

Audacity handles batch processing with “Chains”.
See these two links:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/edit_chains.html
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/apply_chain.html

When Exporting to MP3 using a Chain, Audacity uses whatever MP3 settings that were used last, so before running a Chain to convert a batch of files, convert one file manually with the settings that you require.
If any of your original files are stereo, you may want to add the “StereoToMono” command to the chain before the Export as MP3 command.

3

Thanks very much Steve! :smiley: