Reducing the size of a wav file

[compushine]

I have about a dozen wav files that are 700-1000 KB. I need to reduce them to about 150-200KB. Can Audacity do that?

[kozikowski]

No, and nobody else can, either. WAVes are point for point representations of the original sound. Anything you do to mess with that relationship stops being WAV, or damages the show sound.

For two to one compression, you might be able to use, I think FLAC files can do reductions like that with little or no damage to the original file, but those aren't WAV files and if you send them to someone, they have to know how to decompress them back to the original sound.

Let's take this backwards. Why are you in love with WAV? There may be another way to resolve your job.

Koz

[Trebor]

I have about a dozen wav files that are 700-1000 KB. I need to reduce them to about 150-200KB. Can Audacity do that?

Only by reducing the sample-rate and/or the bit-depth, both of which will degrade the sound ,
if the end result still has to be WAV.

[kozikowski]

If they're stereo, you can resave them as mono and get almost a 2:1 reduction that way. Of course, that's not the original show any more, but if the original show is two-track mono, then that particular conversion is "free" and easily reversible.

This is where you tell us all about the show so we can be constructive.

Koz