Audacity Forum

Ok - I figured out how to get a file from a wma file to a wav file. NOW - I want to record and save a clip (only about 10 seconds) from that wav file. I searched but can't find any info on the Forum on the matter. Thanks - Jim

<<<I want to record and save a clip (only about 10 seconds) from that wav file.>>>

Or better, load the clip into audacity File > Open > myMusic.wav. I guess in Windows it would be myMusic with no extension.

Select and delete the area before your clip. Select and delete the area after your clip. Export As WAV.

That's one way. Do you know how to zoom in and out and use the editing tools?

Koz

Thank you! I got it. I deleted the parts of the tune I didn't need and then exported it as an Mp3 so I could burn it to a c/d and use it to learn the clip on my guitar. Media player won't burn .wav files....Wow. Such a learning curve for an old guy! Thanks again! Jim

Or, you can click and higlight the section you want then file, then export selection as WAV or MP3.

<<<Or, you can click and higlight the section you want then file, then export selection as WAV or MP3.>>>

And the only problem with that is the complete inability of Audacity to set accurate edit points.

If you delete everything else you don't need (editing upside down), you can use the magnifier tools to get right down there to note by note delete or manage exactly the work you want.

You can't use the magnifier and the drag-select (the valuable clip) at the same time, and you can't select one point accurately and go looking for the other one.

There are improved ways of doing that in 1.3, but not in Audacity 1.2. This is one of those problems that makes video editors nuts.

Koz

Hi Koz - here's a good one for ya! I messed up and u/l all my music c/d's into .wma files (dumb). so now - I need to convert all of em into Mp3. I looked on the web and there's quite a few conversion programs out there - but they all have pro's and cons in the reviews. Can you direct me to one that works the best? I need one that will do it in 'batch' to save time.......

Thank you! - Jim

I sense a thread war.

What form do you save your digital music in?

Gone are the days of going out to the garage to get the vinyl records you left out there fifteen years ago to listen to them on the recently refurbished turntable -- even if it is one of those dreadful USB things. I still have records I bought when I was in my teens, back during the Harding administration.

I still have the stack of CDs I bought over the years and I still use them now and again. But I also remembered recently about the music I bought on my iBook iTunes years ago that is still in its Apple protected form in a backup system somewhere. I recently tried to retrieve one of those songs and iTunes made me register the original computer again to listen. That means I only get five of those before my music is gone for good.

The music companies are pushing us back to the Live Performance Concert model. Listen Once/Pay Once. Full Stop. With all music drifting to on-line servers (because it's vastly more convenient "for you" that way), it's a simple matter to miss a payment and no more music.

The people over on the video forum recently did a backup disk discussion. How do you do that with good reliability. With everybody's attention span reduced to fifteen seconds, it's hard to think fifteen years out.


And you understand that Windows Media is a modern, highly compressed h.264 system, so if you convert to MP3, you will be converting twice, the last step to a barely adaquate music format designed in 1988. It's going to get very much larger and seriously ratty -- or both.

Koz

I ripped it using the WMA (woops) format instead of Mp3 using Media Player. WMA is the default for Media Player, and I didn't change it to Mp3 before I ripped it. I guess now I'm confused about which format is the better - Wma or Mp3 (or whatever) for what you might want to do with the music file. I just now d/l the FFMPEG libraries, and so now Audacity will open the Wma files. Maybe I don't need to re-convert them. I'm such a rookie about this, I hope I'm not being a bother by asking you all this!

Jim

Neither.

Live captures should always be Exported As WAV and pushed off to an archive disk or some other backup system. That's the Master, uncompressed, perfect, undamaged digital version of the music. From there, you can go "downhill" and compress to a format that causes damage (almost all of them) and when you change your mind later, go back to the perfect music files on the backup disks and do something else.

Compressed music files (MP3, AAC, M4A, WMA) have compression damage baked in. You can't recover and the quality will never get better, although if you go between compressors, it can get a lot worse.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/WAV-MP3.wav

Koz