Audacity Forum

Hello,

I'm capturing some spoken word audio playing on my computer and have my recording device set to 'stereo mix', which I think is right, but what should I set the 'channel' to: mono or stereo, etc.? Also, when I have finished capturing, what would be the best format to export the file to, wav or mp3?

Thanks for all assistance

<<<Stereo/Mono.>>>

It's possible only one of those is going to work at all. A lot of web work is mono, especially it's spoken word.

WAV is uncompressed and undamaged. It's as close to the original performance as you can get, but it's large, slow, and takes up a lot of hard drive space. MP3 and its cousins damage the sound in order to reduce the file size in the delivered product. They are variable. The more damage you can tolerate, the smaller you can make the sound file.

If your goal is music CD or further production and editing, then use WAV. If your goal is web or email, then it's MP3 or other compressors.

WAV is a production medium. MP3 is a delivery medium.

Music CDs are uncompressed and always take WAV files. The technology they used for Music CD always carries 75 or 80 minutes of music no matter what you do. If you put ten minutes of music on the disk, you have room for seventy more. If you do manage to cram more than 80 minutes of music on a disk, you don't have a Red Book Compact Disk® any more.

Koz

Thanks a lot for the advice Koz. I'm smarter now.