Does any one know of software that will convert audio recordings from .mp3 or .wav into .au (audio) files? 
try: http://home.att.net/~mkw/mkwact.html
.wav is the same as .au I think. you can burn .wav onto cds and theyâll play in a standard cd player anyhow.
Nope .wav is not the same as .au 
Winamp can convert mp3âs to wavs â you just have to select the (included) diskwriter output plugin in preferences.
I donât see any reason why you would need to create a .au file at all (.au files are sun uLaw files â it was the sound format used on ancient sun workstations). Itâs basically a legacy format â thereâs no reason I can think of youâd want to make them, only deal with them when you find them.
If you donât mind getting down ânâ dirty with the command line, SoX can convert between pretty much any format and any other format. Really, it should be as easy as:
sox file.wav file.au
While weâre on the subject, a more general question: Iâve been posting mp3âs on Clips&Snips. Is there a better, newer format that most people can access that gives better or equal sound at smaller file size? Or better sound at same file size? Know what I mean?
Tony
There are Ogg Vorbis files, which are allegedly better/smaller. Pretty much every software mp3 player nowadays includes support for them.
The main attraction of them is thier unencumberd nature â if youâre using mp3âs in a commercial endeavour, you owe the patent holders around $15K or so.
I really wouldnât recommend switching over to them, though, as there is basically no support for Ogg in portable mp3 players, and Iâm sure Iâm not the only one around here that grabs tunes from your site and loads them onto a portable mp3 player for practice purposes
Goldwave - http://www.goldwave.com/ - will make the conversion. It is a great inexpensive program.
Whatâs this? Royalties for using a file format? Isnât that about like Dolby allowing noise reduction on cassette tapes unless for Professional Use then you have to payâŚ? I have never heard of that⌠How exactly is that set up?
Scott McCallister
I believe the way it goes is you have to pay them if you a) write a program that encodes files into mp3 format, or b) stream files in mp3 format from your website. I think one or both of these rules might require that you be making money from the activity.
Youâre pretty much correct. The exact values have changed since I looked at them last (theyâve come down), but the gory details are all over at http://www.mp3licensing.com/ (under Royalty Rates)
I am trying to put a web-site together using, admitedly, an old programme. When I try to embedd a sound file, it produces an error saying that there is a problem converting the wav into au. My thought was if I could convert a source before importing the file into the web builder, it should work.
Or mabe I just buy a newer web editing programme!
How curious! Are you running Unix or Linux there? And which website software are you using? .au is a legacy audio format native to Unix, and both Netscape and IE recognise it.
Most legacy web-pages that have audio embedded use .wav files as the source⌠you can use the following html code to âembedâ a sound file which will play automatically when a web-page is loaded into the browser:
embed src=âwinpipes.wavâ height=â61â width=â151â
but you need the start and end tags at the beginning and end of the code ie < line of code > I had to delete the carets (the < and >) from the above 'cos it actually tried to embed the code in the post.
You can get rid of the height and width statements, or set them both to 0, they just show the audio player.
This is what itâd look like if I use the line of code above with the carets in place:
Clicking the play button wonât do any good though, 'cos I doubt the âwinpipes.wavâ file exists on this server! Thereâs no reason why you couldnât use URL to link to the wav file though, like the next one:
embed src=âhttp://www.m-i-p.co.uk/comment.wavâ height=â61â width=â151â
Which would look like this with the carets in place and should work when you click the play button:
\ \ Be advised though...embedding anything but the smallest of sounds can be a real PITA to dial-up users.Gasp. I suspect now I have revealed the secrets, weâll have audio-enhanced posts now⌠:roll:
Hope this helps,