jackobean wrote:It was my understanding that you could convert WAV files into MP3 formats so you don't have so many disks after recording. I have several old cassettes I want to go to CDs so that's why I thought I had read of the Audacity ability to convert.
Jack,
Short answer: you are likely to need WAV files to burn your musdic CDs - it is unlikely that MP3 files will work for you.
Long answer:
you will be recording your Audacity projects from tape. Audacity will create its own file structure - when you save an Audacity project as <project_name> it creates a number of things
1. a top level
master project file called
<project_name>.aup
2. a
folder at the same filing level called
<project_name>
3. and within the folder lots of little .au files - segments of the recording
When you re-open a project with Audacity you should always open the
<project_name>.aup top level file. This tells Audacity how to thread together all the little .au files. It is deliberately designed this way so that Audacity doesn't have to open and work with a single humungously large file, which would hamper performance.
When you have finished editing your Audacity project you can
Export it from Audacity as a
WAV file or
MP3 file. WAV files are around ten times larger than the equivalent MP3 files but are uncompressed and thus the audio quality is higher. Once you have exported and backed up the files then you can delete the whole of the Audacity project you created - do this to save space on your hard drive Audacity projects are BIG -
there is no Audacity Delete function, you dust delete the file and folder called <project_name> that you created.
You are almost certainly likely to need WAV files - most CD players will not play music CDs that have MP3 files on them - some can, though not many - so you may want to test by making an initial MP3 CD and testing it in all your CD players (deck, car, boat, truck, portable, friends' players etc.). MP3 files are most commonly used in applications like portable music devices (iPods, Mp3 players) where disc space is comparitively small - though this is rapidly not becoming the case - the new iPod classic has a massive 160Gb drive.
WC
