I want to send some files of my playing to a friend for casual listening. I recorded one on Audacity and zipped it but it was still very large and she only has a dial up connection. Is there some way to make the files smaller and still make them listenable? I’m a real newbie when it comes to recording and using Audacity and also in zipping stuff.
Thanks in advance for your input.
If you saved the file as an MP3 with Audacity, zipping it up won’t make much difference to the file-size I’m afraid. MP3 is a compressed format, and programs such as Winzip can’t do much about compressing something that’s already been compressed.
If you saved the file as a .wav however, then of course you can convert the .wav to .mp3 and obtain a goodly reduction in file-size.
Sending large attachments via email is always a pain for those without broadband (I speak as one tied to a 9.6k cellphone modem at home!)…even a ‘small’ picture at around 100kb can take an absolute age to download.
Short of physically sending the file via snailmail (on a CD, for example), the only other thing I can suggest is converting the file to a streaming media file (realaudio, or .wma for example) and posting them on a website for your friend to access… if you set a low enough encoding rate they’ll be able to hear it “live” in “real time” over the web using their 56k modem, but the quality obviously won’t be near as good as an mp3. But this assumes you have access to a webserver, or your own web site.
You can do stuff to reduce the size of an mp3 file…like recording it on mono instead of stereo, and reducing the encoding rate. But again, quality suffers.
Sorry, FJS, but the small pipe/large file issue is a fact of computing life 
hth
Cool, I learned something. I should send it in MP3. I sent the first one in wave.
I am planning on getting a web site and putting up some tunes there but I haven’t done it yet.
Thanks
Yep. Mp3 saves tons of space. There is a tricky part configuring the saving of files as MP3 in Audacity. I remember having to point it towards a codec that was part of a previous program. Or something like that.
Yes, you need the lame mp3 encoder, which for Windows is a file called lame_enc.dll
There’s a link to it on the Audacity home page. Stick it in your system folder, and when you go to “Export as MP3” in the Audacity menu it’ll ask you where the lame_enc.dll file is on your computer. It’ll only do this once though.
I had a program that had the file in it already. DB-something or other. Lets you convert files back and forth with just a right click.
You can also adjust the bitrate of the mp3 to reduce the size. (with a reduction in quality) Going from 128 kbit to 40 kbit will shrink an mp3 to about a quarter of the original size.
Vomit…that would be dbPowerAMP Music Converter, which I got free from downloads.com a year or two ago. Good program.
Yeah. That’s it. Great program if you’r having to convert back and forth.
Oh, and I think you can choose variable bitrate, too. That takes a higher bitrate when the sound demands it, but drops down when it doesn’t.