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  • .wav compression?

    I'm doing a project at the moment for a friend involving a lot of sound files which need a lot of cutting up and editing.

    I'm using Audacity for the most part and for the end result the files need to be in .wav format (I don't get a choice of formats)

    The only problem is that Audacity only exports .wav's in a very high quality format, meaning that if I take a recording, cut it in half and save it, it ends up a lot larger than the original file.

    Does anyone know where/how i can compress a wav file to be smaller (the quality of the recording really doesn't matter for this, as long as you can hear what the artist is saying reasonably clearly). I've tried google but not gotten very far as I'm not sure what will actually work and the couple of links that have seemed promising my AV hasn't liked.

    Free options would be prefereable as I really don't have a budget and its for personal rather thatn commercial use.

    Any ideas?
    "You can only try so hard to look like you are working before actually doing your work seems easy in comparison" -My Boss

    CW: So what exactly do you do in retentions?
    Me: ummm, I ....retent stuff?

  • #2
    On the Audacity web page, there is a link to the piece (lame MP3 encoder) necessary for it to export the resulting file to MP3. You have to install it as well, but if I recall correctly it's pretty easy to do on a PC. I haven't gotten it to work on my Mac though, so YMMV.

    Click the appropriate OS to find the exact link for your system.

    IIRC, Audacity will prompt you for where the encoder is installed. Just direct it to whatever directory it was installed into.


    Eric the Grey
    In memory of Dena - Don't Drink and Drive

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    • #3
      Unfortunately I need the final file to be in a .wav format, not mp3.

      basically if I use audacity to export a wav file its about 5 times the size of the original recording file even though i've cut huge amounts out of it. Either I need to find a way within audacity of saving at a lower quality or a way of compressing wav files.

      I really wish I could use mp3...
      "You can only try so hard to look like you are working before actually doing your work seems easy in comparison" -My Boss

      CW: So what exactly do you do in retentions?
      Me: ummm, I ....retent stuff?

      Comment


      • #4
        I just looked at my version of Audacity, it has a quality and a file format setting. Have you tried experimenting?

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        • #5
          Ahhh, gotcha.

          Are you exporting as WAV, or just saving the file? Audacity uses it's own "project" file structure for what it's working on, which tends to be huge.

          I believe if you "export as WAV" it'll be smaller, but I don't know. Trouble with WAV format is that they are, by default, uncompressed. I don't know of any way to compress them and keep them as a WAV file, other than perhaps reduce the sample rates, and that goes beyond my knowledge...



          Eric the Grey
          In memory of Dena - Don't Drink and Drive

          Comment


          • #6
            Quoth Mikkel View Post
            I just looked at my version of Audacity, it has a quality and a file format setting. Have you tried experimenting?
            I'm currently using the lowest quality setting it has for wav files, but when a 300kb wav file is the original recording and inputted into audacity, I then cut the 5 min recording down to 2:30 mins and output as wav in the lowest quality setting the output file is over 4 Mb!

            I really don't need the sample rate to be that high, the original is quite bad but more than good enough for our purposes
            "You can only try so hard to look like you are working before actually doing your work seems easy in comparison" -My Boss

            CW: So what exactly do you do in retentions?
            Me: ummm, I ....retent stuff?

            Comment


            • #7
              If you've got a Linux machine and a little command line confidence, SoX should let you generate all sorts of WAV files, even thoroughly proprietary stuff that only SoX can open without data forensics. (6-channel AC3 in a WAV container using the ACM structure... oh yes!)

              I'd be kinda subversive about it. Send him a WAV in a very obscure format (you can actually embed MP3 audio data in a WAV container, complete with .wav file extension, and still be fully standards-compliant, but only very old WMP and some Linux utilities will be able to read it); when he says he can't open it, tell him you can open it just fine, and offer to export it to FLAC or Ogg/Vorbis.

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              • #8
                Most likely the original WAVs are actually wrapped MP3s. It should be possible to convert the output files back to that format.

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