Exporting WAV to MP3 in Audacity...It Still Works

[Kristofer Emerig]

I'm certain whether this is a discussion, blog, article, or whatnot. Eventually, we'll have to categorize discussions in delineated topic areas, but for the moment, there doesn't seem to be pressing need.

At the time of this writing, my musical gear, I mean music on electronic media, projects, recordings, and all of the associated software, is almost entirely stored on one dedicated computer which keeps a 6" x 18" patch of shelf space clean and dust free. Hopefully I remember the password to access it when I get it set up. Meanwhile, in order to post a bit of music here, I've resorted to scrounging through this funny little Win7 laptop, and I've managed to find a few scraps, most too old and poorly produced to post here. In fact I've found several lengthy writings I'd forgotten about entirely, which is always fun.

Hearing HS Teoh's ear-ravaging fugue, I was reminded of Prelude-like and Double Fuguish in A Rather Flat, one of my own (many) examples of auricular abuse. Unable to locate it on my neolithic laptop, I turned to Soundcloud. Unfortunately what a download produced, quite predictably, was precisely what I'd uploaded, a sprawling WAV file. I have no music software on my laptop capable of conversion, save Audacity.

I discovered today that Audacity, handy for converting your WAV files to MP3 in a pinch, is no longer operable, due to some liscensing (il)legalities. I confess I didn't spend much time looking into the backstory, but I did discover that there's a patch...

 

The solution to this dilemma can be found here : https://lame.buanzo.org/#lamewindl

Once there, right click the file, Lame_v3.99.3_for_Windows.exe, and save it to your desktop (or other desired location on your computer)

Double click the file and procede through the installation process, and your Audacity will now export MP3 files from WAV files, or whatever other file types it accepts.

 

Voila, it's that easy. Even when I had music producing software at the ready, I often used Audacity for conversion. It's fast, simple, and produces decent results that can be tweaked at the export stage to balance quality and file size as desired.

 

[David]

if there's any problem with this (I used to occasionally use Lame in the past with varying results), I can easily convert a .wav file to any desired depth with Cubase which is rock solid.

[Kristofer Emerig]

I have Cubase on my "rig", but at present, I have to make room to set everything back up. With tower, external hard drive, keyboard, midi interface, monitors, keyboard, speakers, etc, it really requires a significant amount of workspace.

[HS Teoh]

Hey I remember "Prelude-like and Double Fuguish in A Rather Flat" from the old days! Or at least, I remember the title, the music itself I've unfortunately forgotten. I'm pretty sure it did not make my ears bleed unlike my Wild Fugue, though. 😅 Would love to hear it again, even if just for the nostalgia.

[Kristofer Emerig]

It's not quite as dissonant as Wild Fugue, no. You shouldn't need a transfusion after, or anything like that.

Uploading another right now, again, out of Audacity. Audacity doesn't have an EQ feature (that I've found), and my soundfile was completely dry, so it won't be the best sonic experience. But, that's all I have to work with right now.

[HS Teoh]

I openly admit my ignorance in audio processing. Until recently my audio files were also completely dry, recently I've started adding some rudimentary reverb to them, but I've no idea how effective that actually is.

If anyone with more experience can post some tips for the total n00b on how to improve the quality of midi playback (how much reverb to add, what effects might help, when to use them, etc), that would be highly appreciated.

[Kristofer Emerig]

I misspoke previously, HS. Audacity does indeed have an EQ feature. It was deftly hidden behind a menu item labelled "equalizer" :) So I overlooked it. To hell with it; I've already uploaded my piece, and equalization won't be the ultimate arbiter of its musicality anyway.

[HS Teoh]

Wow, who'd have thought! 😉 Real sneaky, hiding in plain sight like that. It's steganography, I tell ya, pure, wicked steganography!

[Kristofer Emerig]

Well Lame is working just fine, but now my laptop screen went wonky. Anyone want to convert a WAV to MP3 for me?

https://app.box.com/s/8kfjzoxnp4vvtvjv4smannncupw12f15

[David]

here we go
https://app.box.com/s/9u86ufcs0uv3lrurh7cfdrp18bi9gsdy

it's 128kb/s -- the Cubase default. If you want something different, you only need to ask.

[Kristofer Emerig]

Thank you David, I appreciate that.

I've got my laptop apart right now. It's that silly video cable (again) that's routed through the hinge. Securing it back on the board requires almost complete disassembly.