Audacity Forum

Hey I just recorded a song using audacity, and it was only 2 tracks, for a total of about a minute and 30 seconds. so i exported it as a .wav so people could listen to it on itunes or other media players, but when I do this, my file sizes always skyrocket. like the song I recorded today was 8.0 MBs for just 1:30 minutes! is this normal? is there anything i could do to get smaller sizes?

any help or comments at all would be much appreciated.

also, i'm not even sure i'm posting this in the right place.

btw, this is my first post and audacity is a great program.

sixers wrote:Hey I just recorded a song using audacity, and it was only 2 tracks, for a total of about a minute and 30 seconds. so i exported it as a .wav so people could listen to it on itunes or other media players, but when I do this, my file sizes always skyrocket. like the song I recorded today was 8.0 MBs for just 1:30 minutes! is this normal? is there anything i could do to get smaller sizes?

PCM WAV is uncompressed, lossless quality. Audacity's standard WAV export is PCM 16-bit, taking up 5 MB per minute for mono or 10 MB for stereo. If you want a smaller file size with some loss of quality, export as MP3, for which you will need to add the LAME MP3 encoder to your computer:
Windows:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... #All_users

Mac:
http://audacityteam.org/help/faq?s=inst ... me-mp3#mac

MP3s will be 1 MB a minute (mono or stereo) if you export at Audacity's default 128 kbps bit rate. Reduce the bit rate (on the File Formats tab of Preferences assuming you are using Audacity 1.2) for a smaller file size and a further quality reduction.

i'm not even sure i'm posting this in the right place.

If you are on Windows using Audacity 1.2.6 this is exactly the right place.

Also keep in mind that MP3 and other compression schemes don't just damage the sound, they restrict your ability to do post production and sound management. The damage multiplies. So the WAV files, as big as they are, should be saved as the Capture Masters -- perfect quality. From those you can make anything else; edited productions, Music CDs, MP3s for your music player or applied directly to iTunes for your iPod.

All common compression formats add damage, the smaller the file, the worse the damage.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:Also keep in mind that MP3 and other compression schemes don't just damage the sound, they restrict your ability to do post production and sound management. The damage multiplies. So the WAV files, as big as they are, should be saved as the Capture Masters -- perfect quality. From those you can make anything else; edited productions, Music CDs, MP3s for your music player or applied directly to iTunes for your iPod.

All common compression formats add damage, the smaller the file, the worse the damage.

Koz

how noticeable do you think the difference is between a wav file and the compressed mp3 file? can you tell a difference quality wise?

I'm trying to get this mp3 converter thing to work and when I try to do the lame_enc.dll to work with audacity it says that it's not a valid windows image. Any ideas? Should I try downloading it again? The lame_enc.dll is in my audacity program file, and i'm not sure what else to try.

thanks.

bump. any help?

A useful workaround would be to export as WAV files and then find a standalone WAV to MP3 converter (a quick google of t'interweb should probably find you a free one).

WC

sixers wrote:I'm trying to get this mp3 converter thing to work and when I try to do the lame_enc.dll to work with audacity it says that it's not a valid windows image.

It sounds like you are doing something wrong. To get Lame to work you must follow the installation instructions exactly: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... stallation