Converting sound files - WAV to MP3

[FredLC]

Hello there, fellow CivFanatics:

I have several digital recordings of classes I watched in the last year.

I'd like to make a CD with them, so that I can hear at my car, and also at work.

However, the files are WAV, and much to large for a good, comprehensive compilation.

Making many CDs is not very hand, and too much work.

Hence, I'd like to convert these files to MP3 compact format.

I have installed Audacity software, but all my attempts to convert were futile, I can't even manage to read the files properly.

As I have no experience whatsoever with sound files, I thought maybe I could get some help in here. If anyone knows how to handle this, please reply here or PM me. I'll send you one such files, so you can see what has to be done. I'm sure that if someone tutor me through, I'll learn quickly what to do.

Also, if anyone can point me to tutorials and/or foruns that can help, it will be great.

Regards .

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: Moved to computer talk.


winamp should do it. ALternatively, try media player 10, or even sound recorder.

 

[FredLC]

Hehehe; Sorry, ainwood; I forgot CT, as I don't use to come here.

 

[taper]

I've used both mediamonkey and mediacode. I can't say if they're the absolute best, but they're both free and they work. Pretty simple GUI on both. Here's the wiki category if those don't work for you.

 

[Speedo]

IIRC Audacity needs a (free) 3rd party plugin to handle mp3s.

 

[Grisu]

I used to use LAME together with Audiograbber link

haven't used it in some time now, so I can't give guarantees

 

[Grisu]

IIRC Audacity needs a (free) 3rd party plugin to handle mp3s.

yep, that would be LAME again

 

[kristopherb]

on a related topic
how do you from MPEG-4 to MP3
MPEG-4 is the Itunes format

 

[kuukkeli]

If your using Windows I'd use winLAME for that wav->mp3 conversion. It's very easy to use user interface for LAME.

And even though the OP doesn't require CD ripping I guess it's somewhat fitting to recommend the best program for that too: Exact Audio Copy. I rip my own CDs for computer listening with these two programs.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

MPEG-4 format is the Apple proprietary format, and I dont think its possible to convert from it, only to it.

On another note, open audacity, open up the .wav file, click file>export as MP3. First time it will ask you for a .dll ( lame_enc32.dll or something like that), find it, and then enter all the info for the mp3 ( default options will do fine btw) and it will save it. Note that it will take a bit to save it as mp3 so have a good amount of time to do it.

 

[FredLC]

Guys, I've tried the Media Monkey and it's really very easy. Only problem is, my gain is file size has been negligible - and one of the reasons I wanted to do it was to compress with as little quality loss as possible.

What am I missing here, that my MP3s are getting the same file size as my WAVs?

Regards .

 

[felagund]

Maybe reduce the bitrate of the output mp3s... that should reduce the filesize.

 

[Jamesds]

your bitrate should be about 96-128kbps for max compression with little quality loss, IMO. If it is speech only, i.e. no music or other non-speech sounds, you can probably get away with something near 48-64kbps, am I right?

Another free program which can convert between many file formats, including taking the sound track from a video, is Super (C). [http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

 

[FredLC]

your bitrate should be about 96-128kbps for max compression with little quality loss, IMO. If it is speech only, i.e. no music or other non-speech sounds, you can probably get away with something near 48-64kbps, am I right?

Damn; I used a 56kbps ratio in the conversion, and the file size of my WAV increased from 23.710 KB to 38.345 KB as a MP3.

I guess I'll leave those file untouched...

Regards .

 

[Phlegmak]

Well, Goldwave should shrink your files.

 

[FredLC]

Another thing:

I see that my problem with audacity was not the WAV files (I opened other wav files without a problem), but most likely some incompatibility of the recording process of my MP4 device.

Afeter I used MediaMonkey to convert these into MP3 (even over-sized ones) files, audacity has read them, no problem.

Thing is - the option to clear noise still marks as "disabled". Heck, I have no clue what should I do now to clean and shrink these files.

Is there any sound wizard here willing to take a look at one of these files and maybe gimme some pointers as how to proceed? If yes, PM me or post in this thread.

Regards .

 

[Phlegmak]

Another thing:

I see that my problem with audacity was not the WAV files (I opened other wav files without a problem), but most likely some incompatibility of the recording process of my MP4 device.

Afeter I used MediaMonkey to convert these into MP3 (even over-sized ones) files, audacity has read them, no problem.

Thing is - the option to clear noise still marks as "disabled". Heck, I have no clue what should I do now to clean and shrink these files.

Is there any sound wizard here willing to take a look at one of these files and maybe gimme some pointers as how to proceed? If yes, PM me or post in this thread.

Regards .

You can send it to me. I'll try shrinking it in Goldwave. I honestly don't see what your problem is. It should be trivial to shrink one of your big wav files.

 

[Pyrion]

"-V 2 --vbr-new" should be all you need as commandline params in LAME to keep the quality without making really really huge files.

 

[Phlegmak]

I have gotten the 23MB file from FredLC. Here are my findings:

I am surprised that this thing is 23MB. It's a wav file, which means there is no compression, but it's only 1:15 long. That's 1 minute and 15 seconds. One of the sound editors in Linux said the wav was corrupted. Is this file supposed to be longer than that?

I noticed this about the wav:
8000 Hz
4 bit
Mono

GoldWave is having a lot of trouble with this file. It won't recognize it as 1 hour and 41 minutes. It thinks it's only 1 minute and 15 seconds. I'm experimenting with Lame to see if it can shrink it. So far, it has not shrunk it accurately (the resulting file is only noise).

 

[FredLC]

Yeah, well, it is 1.41 hour long; in fact, I have heard it, and it works ok here - maybe it was corrupted in the transfer process?

But, As I said, my copy of audacity also had lots of problems and refused to read the file (even though I played it very well on both the VLC media player and with MediaMonkey). I'll try to find out in the internet a description of my MP4 device; maybe it will help to enlighten things up.