Audacity Forum

i'm very happy to have found this program and have successfully recorded a few songs of our band. I am, however not very computer savey and am a bit overwhelmed. i dont understand, if i save a project to a file in my computer, can i email it or upload it to our myspace page compressed or not, & what must i do, i dont see it in the manual as such. thank you it's probably like riding a bike for most of you, but this is over my head yet very important for me to know

chrisjwhitehouse wrote:if i save a project to a file in my computer, can i email it or upload it to our myspace page

No you can't - at least not easily and it's not recommended. Audacity Projects are made of 2 parts - there is the .AUP file and a "_data" folder. If you have "Imported" audio files into the project there may also be references to that data that does not exist in the data folder. Audacity Projects are designed to be used for the "production" of your masterpieces, not for "delivery". This is all explained here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/File_Management_Tips

To send a recording to someone else, "Export" the recording.
Exporting converts the Audacity Project into a normal audio file that you can then attach to an e-mail, upload to MySpace, or whatever.
There are several different "file types" that you can Export as. The most common are "WAV" files and "MP3" files.

WAV files have the advantage of providing almost perfect sound quality, but the files are very large. This is the best option if you want to burn the tracks onto an audio CD.
MP3 files have the advantage that they are much smaller than WAV files, but there is a small loss in sound quality. This is a good option for sending by e-mail or uploading to the internet.

Unfortunately Audacity cannot include MP3 encoding directly within the program due to licensing restrictions. To enable MP3 Export you need to install "LAME".
Instructions how to do this can be found here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Lame_Installation

thanx much fiddler!!! will chk out the wiki. is there anything special i should know about burning to cd? thnx agn

Audacity just prepares the music so a Music CD Authoring program can use them. It's the authoring program that burns the CD.

http://audacityteam.org/help/faq?s=files&i=burn-cd

Koz

That article covers about everything, but there's a couple of points that I would highlight.

1) The CD burning application MUST be set to make an AUDIO CD (not a "data" CD)

2) You can burn audio CDs with Windows Media Player, but it is horrible to set up and has a frequent habit of messing things up. A much better (and free) CD burning program is CDBurnerXP http://cdburnerxp.se/ - commercial programs such as Nero and Easy-CD can also be used.

3) To get an audio file that is in the right format for all CD burning programs, check the "Project Rate" box in the lower left corner of the Audacity window before you export and set it to 44100. Then when you Export, choose "WAV (Microsoft) 16 bit PCM".

thanx again folks, i just downloaded `lame_dll' converter, but when i pick a project to test it, the computor recognizes the software but says "cannot open mp3". i followed the steps in wiki verbatum for windows xp & audacity 3.1. i dont wanna be a problem child, i learn quik but sometimes have to be shown i guess. thanx again you guys

chrisjwhitehouse wrote:the computor recognizes the software but says "cannot open mp3".

Are you sure that was the exact message? Not something about LAME not being recognised?

Do you know what a "ZIP" file is and how to "Extract" the contents of a Zip file?

just tried it again to be sure, msg: "cannot open mp3 encoding library"..............not sure what a `zip' file is or how to extract it......................all is not lost, i, although for some reason i couldnt get the "cdburnerxp" to work even after i downl;oaded the 3.5 & windows inst3.1, i did successfully label multiple songs off 1 track and "export multiple to wav & am listening to it on media player now......yea.............dont know why i cant get mp3 working

chrisjwhitehouse wrote:"cannot open mp3 encoding library"

Ah yes, that makes more sense

chrisjwhitehouse wrote:not sure what a `zip' file is or how to extract it

Hmm, shame - you want to learn?
Let's have a go....

Go to this page http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/ and download:
ZIP OPTION:
libmp3lame-win-3.98.2.zip
Put this file somewhere that you will be able to find it - you'll need it later.

Now go to this page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... files.mspx
Follow the instructions to enable "hidden files" to be seen.


Once you've done that, find the folder:
Documents and Settings<user name>Application DataAudacity

In that folder you should see a file called "audacity.cfg"

Open the Windows Notepad application:
Click START, point to "All Programs", point to "Accessories", and then click "Notepad".
Now drag the file "audacity.cfg" into Notepad - you should see a whole load of strange text appear.

Find the line that says Below it there may be a line that starts with: If you have a line like that, delete it - the whole line, then from the Notepad File menu select "Save".
Now close Notepad.

(if neither of those two lines exist - just skip this step - but check carefully first to make sure that they are not there)

--------------

Now time to go back to that downloaded file "libmp3lame-win-3.98.2.zip"

Right click on that file and select "Extract All".
The Windows "Extraction Wizard" should now open - click "Next"
Click on the "Browse" button and navigate to:
C:Program FilesAudacity 1.3 beta (unicode)
Click "OK"
Click "Next"
Click "Finish"

You have now successfully extracted the contents of a "Zip archive".
--------------

Open Audacity
"Edit menu > Preferences > Libraries tab"
Click on the "Locate" button and navigate to:
C:Program FilesAudacity 1.3 Beta (Unicode)libmp3lame-3.98.2
Click on the file "lame_enc.dll"
Click "Open"
Click "OK"

If all has gone according to plan, you should now see in the "Libraries tab" of Preferences that it says "MP3 library version: Lame 3.98.2"

That's it - all done. Click "OK"

If that has all worked without a hitch, you can now export MP3 files.