PRINT OUT THIS DOCUMENT TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOURSELF TO FOLLOW IT STEP BY STEP


Why Compress a WAV?
This is the burning question. Why should I compress my wavs? They are fine just the way they are! Besides, if I compress them, I will lose the quality of sound!!

Okay! okay! No need to yell at me.

Losing the sound quality is true to a certain extent, however this weighs heavily on the format of compression you choose. A lot of people are choosing 4 bit compression which really makes the sound crappy for the most part. There is a better way that is more effective than 4-bit compression. Read on.

My preferred compression format is the MPEG Layer-3 WAV format. This is in fact a REAL WAV format, hence the extension *.WAV. I take all my wavs, whatever they are 16-bit, 8-bit, Mono, Stereo, 11KHz, 22KHz, 44KHz, and convert them to 32Kbit 22KHz Mono MPEG 3-Layer wavs. This format retains the sound integrity, assuming you have a good quality wav to begin with and reduced the size DRASTICALLY. As an example, I can take a 8-bit Mono 11KHz full song wav at 3+ Megs and reduce it to somewhere between 600K-900K in size. There is over a 2 MEG size reduction! That is just one example. See for yourself.

IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE YOU CONTINUE

Not everyone has the audio codec to support this format! Wait a minute, Joy, what the heck is a "codec" anyways? I hate it when you throw those tech terms at me!

A codec is the combination of the terms code and decoder. This is a circuit for converting audio or video signals into and out of digital format. You already have the circuit if you have the sound card, now all you need is the code to decode this format. 

The most comprehensive codec i have found is mpeg.exe
If you find you can't hear compressed wavs then ask me to send you this file.

Once you download the MPEG.EXE, run the file to install the codec. It takes about 1 second to install and it will probably be installed before you can bat an eyelash. Now, you may or may not have to reboot for it to take effect. Now you can play the MPEG compressed wavs.


The easier way to compress wavs is with a file called soundrecorder which comes with Windows 98

To find soundrecorder go to Start/Programs/accessories/entertainment and then click on sound recorder.

If for some reason you have this file located somewhere else and it is not found in your C:\WINDOWS directory, which would be unusual, you can try doing a search for SNDREC32.EXE. 

Now that Sound Recorder is open, click on the FILE Menu and then choose OPEN 

Now after you choose OPEN, an OPEN Dialogue box will apear. Here you will navigate to the directory where the wav is and if you are reading this you will most likely find the file in mirc/sounds or if downloaded with napster in your napster/completed files.  Now click on the wav you wish to compress and then click OPEN:

Now I have a Sound Recorder box with the name of the wav on the top of it. Now that my the wav is loaded into Sound Recorder, I can procede to compress the wav. Now click on the FILE menu and then choose PROPERTIES 

Now a Properties windows appears.  This Property windows tells you the size of the wav file and it's current format is(something like PCM 22,050Hz 8 bit Mono).


We are going to convert this to MPEG 3-Layer 32Kbit Mono 22,050Hz and you will see the difference in the size. 
In the choose from make sure all formats is highlighted
then click CONVERT now

A Sound Selection box will pop up and you need to click on the little down-arrow on the Format field and scroll down to choose the MPEG 3-Layer format 


Now in the Attributes box, scroll down and select the 32kBit/s 22,050 Hz, Mono 4KB/s selection 

Now you should have a Sound Selection box that shows the format and attribute as we have selected. You need to go ahead and save this format as MPEG. This way next time you go to compress a wav, all you have to do is scroll down the NAMES box and find your predefined compression format called MPEG. To save this format for later use, click on the SAVE AS button:

And now type: MPEG in the area provided and click OK  Now your format is saved for later use under the NAMES box in the Sound Selection Box.

Now to actually convert the wav, finally, click on the OKAY button! The OKAY button converts the wav NOT the SAVE AS button. The SAVE AS Button only saves a specified format.

Now you will see your wav being processed as Windows converts it.

Now, look at your revised Property window for the wav. Wow! It reduced the wav considerably in size. You can see the Audio Format is in the MPEG format now. Now you can click OKAY and test drive the wav!

Finally the last step, you can hear your newly converted wav by clicking the play button. If you want to save it in its new format, click on the FILE Menu and choose SAVE. Then you may exit the Sound Recorder program! You are done!

Congratulations on learning how to compress wavs. The more you do it the easier it becomes.  

Good luck 
Lena