Hey guys, I know a lot of you here make music so perhaps you could help me with this.

I have this song I recorded, which at the moment is in WAV format. The problem of course is that it's raw, uncompressed audio, and is a 46mb file despite the fact that the song is just over 4 and a half minutes long.

I'm very much a newbie when it comes to working with audio and I need some advice on compression. Ideally I'd like to get it down to around 10mb without losing too much quality (I'm a bit of an audiophile). It would be really really nice if any programs I need to do so were free.

Well, I'm not much of an Audio buff, but your best bet would probably be to convert it to .mp3 format.

If you have iTunes, you can actually just use that to convert it. If not, a quick Google search should find lots of converters/encoders.

First of all, why the hell did you save your audio as .wav? It's quality sucks compared to almost every other filetype in comparison to filesize.

Second, do you want to keep your music in wav format?

If so, you'll need to lose some quality to get it down to 10 megs, unless you've got a really poor original.

If you want to convert it, pretty much anything will use less space than wav.


I suggest using dBpowerAMP Converter 11.5 for both cases. It's what I use to convert MP3's into a specific .wav format for playing music over the microphone on Steam games.


It can be used to trim down the filesize if you want to keep the file as a .wav by lowering the frequency and other options, or it can convert to other filetypes.

Here's the website. http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

Quote from Doomdooer

First of all, why the hell did you save your audio as .wav? It's quality sucks compared to almost every other filetype in comparison to filesize.

Second, do you want to keep your music in wav format?

If so, you'll need to lose some quality to get it down to 10 megs, unless you've got a really poor original.

If you want to convert it, pretty much anything will use less space than wav.

I suggest using dBpowerAMP Converter 11.5 for both cases. It's what I use to convert MP3's into a specific .wav format for playing music over the microphone on Steam games.

It can be used to trim down the filesize if you want to keep the file as a .wav by lowering the frequency and other options, or it can convert to other filetypes.

Here's the website. http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

It's in wav format right now because wav format is your basic, raw, uncompressed audio. I wasn't talking about an electronica song or something that I made on the computer or in a program or anything. The audio file in question is something I recorded with real instruments. When I uploaded it to the computer I didn't have a choice as to how it saved, I just uploaded the uncompressed file from my recording thingus.

That being said, of course I don't intend to keep it in wav format, and mp3 would be preferable, since that's a pretty standard format for songs and has a decent filesize.

I'll check out dbpoweramp though, thanks much for the suggestion.

I guess you just forgot about me. No answer for you >:3

Yeah, it's a pretty basic issue to solve. Just convert it to .mp3 with any converter, or load it into a program like Wavepad or Audacity and just save it as a .mp3 from there.

If you really want loseless audio, though, go with FLAC. It'll compress the WAV file down to about 20-25 mb, which is still pretty large, but won't lose any quality. Your best bet is still MP3 though.

I'd say just convert it to an mp3, but if it's still too big, use a program like mp3 to ringtone gold, which I can send to you via PM if you like, which basically just lowers the sound quality just enough to lower the file size to nothing more then a few megabytes, tops, with a barely noticeable difference.

It's supposed to be used to put tons of mp3s on your phone. It works great.


[edit]

You can also use the same program to convert wavs to mp3s, I think.

Mp3's seem to get too much hype.
I'd actually suggest going with WMA if you're going to keep it for yourself on your computer.
Unfortunatly, I dont think WMA is one of the filytypes you can save as in DBpoweramp.

Reasons:
The filesize is almost custom-made for Windows players and devices used for editing sound that are specifically made for the Windows OS.
It'd just be easier to handle.

If you actually want to do anything with the file though, yeah, go with mp3.

Quote from Doomdooer

Mp3's seem to get too much hype.
I'd actually suggest going with WMA if you're going to keep it for yourself on your computer.
Unfortunatly, I dont think WMA is one of the filytypes you can save as in DBpoweramp.

Reasons:
The filesize is almost custom-made for Windows players and devices used for editing sound that are specifically made for the Windows OS.
It'd just be easier to handle.

If you actually want to do anything with the file though, yeah, go with mp3.

WMA isn't very universal, though. For one thing, with all the Mac users out there, they won't be able to here it. And many sites don't support WMA files. MP3 is a popular file type because of the fact that it's a pretty good quality file that takes up very little space and can be heard by all.

WMAs sound almost exactly the same as MP3s at average bitrates. I don't like them just because of Microsoft's claims about how great the format is when it, at best, is about the same as MP3s as far as quality. That mixed with the compatibility issues make MP3s a lot more convenient to use.

Also, doomdooer, WMAs might have been made for programs by Microsoft, but unless you only use Windows Media Player they're not worth it.

Quote from Exilement

WMAs sound almost exactly the same as MP3s at average bitrates. I don't like them just because of Microsoft's claims about how great the format is when it, at best, is about the same as MP3s as far as quality. That mixed with the compatibility issues make MP3s a lot more convenient to use.

Definitely. I couldn't agree more.

Quote from Exilement

Also, doomdooer, WMAs might have been made for programs by Microsoft, but unless you only use Windows Media Player they're not worth it.

Well, I was talking about post-production editing.
Several semi-professional programs, like Vegas Movie Studio, that run only on the Windows OS, for whatever reason, are a bit more biased towards WMA format in their editing options, compatability, and quality.

Like I said, if you are just keeping the file on your computer, maybe to do some editing with some medium-grade tools, WMA is slightly better.

If you want to do anything else, MP3 is the way to go.