Audio help: make smaller WAVs in Vista

Machu · Post by **Machu** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:18 am

Ever since I've been working on my game on my new computer with Windows Vista, it wasn't until now that I've wanted to add new sound effects. Then I found out the hard way: Vista's "Sound Recorder" is a slimy piece of slimety slime-slime. For general purpose editing, I use Audacity, but I'd like to simply save a lower quality version of my sounds to include with my game. Usually by reducing bitrates and bitdepth and other science-sounding adjectives that I want to make smaller.

I used to be able to do this with the old built-in Sound Recorder, because it actually lets you save at different quality. But now, I want to be able to do it on THIS computer. Unless there's a way to do this in Audacity, or I can somehow download the old Sound Recorder, I need an alternative.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 2:31 am

In Audacity you can reduce the bitrate of a wav.

Although personally, I would just save everything as ogg, especially if this is to import into your game.

Machu · Post by **Machu** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:49 am

Elaborate.

I noticed a tiny arrow that let me change some number that was 44000 or something down to like 22000, but it made it sound like it's in slow motion. I then manually sped it back up and saved it, resulting in... a 56k sound lasting 0.5 seconds becoming 430k lasting 5 seconds, mostly silence. Also, mousing over the file says the bitrate was 705kbps, and become... 705kbps. So... that was the wrong setting? (For comparison sake, my old low quality files I made with my old computer were 32kbps, and close to 1/100 the filesize)

Also, I don't wanna use the extension that lets me use oggs in Game Maker just yet, because I just want to use some of its own functions for volume and effects.

Machu · Post by **Machu** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:29 am

Zat herped me arot, sanks.

EDIT: So I just tried copying the old recorder over, and it seems to work okay. Well, at least as much as I remembered.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:08 pm

Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I guess it is moot now since you got the old sound recorder moved over (cool!) but just in case you are interested, here is how to do it in Audacity.

Don't mess with the project sampling rate. As you have discovered, that affects the speed of the recording.

1) Open your original WAV
2) From the file menu, choose "Export"
3) In the file-type drop-down, choose "WAV AIFF or other uncompressed types"
4) Click the "Options" button
5) Pick "WAV (Microsoft 8-bit PCM)"
6) Save with a new filename

For me this resulted in a file that was more than 50% smaller than the original.

There are also some 4-bit WAV formats, but I don't necessarily recommend them, since playback compatibility may be spotty, and they aren't all that much smaller than the 8-bit ones.

So this is for a Game Make project, huh? I hadn't realized that at first, which is why I told you to just use ogg.

Machu · Post by **Machu** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:35 pm

Well, I'll try your method real quick to see if it's any more efficient.

...

There is no command that says simply "Export". The only possible ones are "Export WAV", "Export MP3", and "Export OGG". After choosing any of them, there are no more options to pick, besides the filename and where to save it.

wut

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:32 pm

Machu wrote:Well, I'll try your method real quick to see if it's any more efficient.

...

There is no command that says simply "Export". The only possible ones are "Export WAV", "Export MP3", and "Export OGG". After choosing any of them, there are no more options to pick, besides the filename and where to save it.

wut

Hmm. What is the version number on your copy of Audacity? I am running 1.3.5

Now that I check the audacity website, I see that 1.2.x is actually the stable release. I had not realized that i was running the new unstable testing release. Maybe WAV export options are a new feature they added in the 1.3.x series.

Machu · Post by **Machu** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:53 am

I was using 1.2.6.

I would kindly ask everyone else I've talked to about this on the Internet to stop treating me like I'm retarded for using a stable release instead of a beta.

So, I just downloaded 1.3.7. Oh, there are some options now.
...
Geez, not very much. The only one option that seemed to make it actually smaller was unsigned 8-bit PCM, and that only cut it in half. I didn't see any lower options, and I can make files lower with sndrec32.exe with some quality loss.
I wonder why it doesn't seem to have as many options?

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:19 am

You know, the file size of .wav files is probably small enough. Keep in mind that most people now-a-days download huges gb sized files. So your 5-6 mb file is still going to seem small.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:33 am

Machu wrote:I would kindly ask everyone else I've talked to about this on the Internet to stop treating me like I'm retarded for using a stable release instead of a beta.

Sorry :)

I guess in the minds of some developers "stable" means "old" and "unstable" means "has bugfixes not included in the last stable"

Ah, Language!

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:19 am

Machu wrote: I'm retarded

hehehe

Machu · Post by **Machu** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:44 pm

Smaller files usually mean smaller loading times, too. And smaller loading times mean faster testing.

Also, there's going to be lots of sounds, man.

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:05 pm

Another thing you can do in audacity to get the file-size smaller is to go to the "Tracks" menu, and choose "Stereo to Mono".

You mentioned that you didn't want to use the OGG extension for Game Maker because you want to use some effects. Can you just do the sounds that need effects as WAV and do the sounds that don't need effects as OGG? Or does Game Maker not let you mix like that?

Machu · Post by **Machu** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:50 pm

Dude, if I need quality later, for like voices or something, then yeah, I'll probably put OGGs in it.

camdog · Post by **camdog** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:03 pm

If putting OGGs in it is no big deal, why are you wasting time trying to get WAV file size down?