WMA to wav or mp3

[aud409]

hello
i know this has been addressed before and i have found some information but need a bit more clarity please.

i have many windows WMA files but but i see audacity cannot work with these.
can these be converted to wav or mp3 for working within audacity?
i see something about a plug in but its not totally clear to me.

currently running the latest version of audacity, on both windows 7 and windows 10 computers
dont know if the operating system makes a difference?

thanks

[Trebor]

i have many windows WMA files but but i see audacity cannot work with these.
can these be converted to wav or mp3 for working within audacity?
i see something about a plug in but its not totally clear to me.

You have to install something called FFmpeg into Audacity to play WMA ...
https ://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_ffmpeg_for_windows.html

[DVDdoug]

Download and RUN ffmpeg-win-2.2.2.exe. Then you should be able to open the WMA for editing, and you can re-export to WMA or another format after editing.

can these be converted to wav or mp3 for working within audacity?

Just to be clear - Audacity isn't editing the "file". The file gets decompressed and then Audacity works on the decompressed audio data. In the case of uncompressed WAV files, the samples are converted to floating-point data.

Note that if you re-export to WMA or MP3 or other lossy format you are going through another generation of lossy compression and the "damage" does accumulate. You may not hear any quality loss, and you may not have a choice, but it's something you should be aware of.

[aud409]

thanks for the info
i followed the steps just want to confirm its correct and i am not missing something

i noticed that the .exe file does not execute as a normal .exe file (it did not run?)
i had to extract the zip file and browse to the avformat-55.dll" using the Libraries Preferences as noted

also

what is "lame"
i did not download that utility, i noted within audacity it specified something to the effect that it was loaded?
do i need to download that also?

anyway it seems to work, i was able to import a wma and work with it

when it comes time to save are the defaults OK? or are there some particulars that are important?
bitrate=preset
quality=med
variable speed=fast
"joint stereo selected"

thanks for the help

[DVDdoug]

what is "lame"
i did not download that utility, i noted within audacity it specified something to the effect that it was loaded?
do i need to download that also?

LAME is now built into Audacity so you don't have to worry about it. (It's used when you export to MP3).

when it comes time to save are the defaults OK? or are there some particulars that are important?
bitrate=preset
quality=med
variable speed=fast
"joint stereo selected"

Bitrate (kbps) is related to file size and compression. A higher bitrate gives you a bigger file (less compression) and generally better quality.
The "speed" is how much time it takes to compress. "Standard" may take longer but it might give you better quality.
Joint stereo is generally best. Any sounds that are common to left & right are compressed/saved only once which makes more efficient use of the "bits", potentially giving you better quality.