How to Decide on a Format in Which to Save Windows Sound Files

The sound format you select will be based on the intended use for the file.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sound Cards
• Sound Recording And Editing Software

1. Open a sound file in the Windows Sound Recorder or in other sound editing software.

2. Look for a command (Export, Save As and so on) in the File menu that lets you save the file in a different format.

3. Choose the command. You'll receive a number of options.

4. Select a file format. Refer to the tips below for information about the more commonly used formats.

5. Decide whether to save the file as mono or stereo. Mono sound is 8-bit; stereo sound is 16-bit. Stereo sound is much higher-quality, but the file size is much larger. Select mono when speed of Internet download or storage space is an issue. Select stereo if you want high quality regardless of speed or size.

6. Decide on your sampling rate. The higher the sampling rate, the better the sound quality but the larger the file size. Select low sampling rates if download speed or storage space is important.

7. Save the file with a different name from the original. That way, you can make changes or save in another format if desired.

Tips & Warnings

• Sound files ending in .au (short for "audio") will play on a wide variety of systems, but the sound quality is low.
• Sound files ending in .wav (short for "wave") are compressed for use in a Windows computer. These files are widely used.
• Sound files ending in .aiff are used primarily on Macs. The sound quality is good, but Windows users may not be able to play such files.
• Sound files ending in .ra have been compressed for RealAudio. They're used for streaming sound on the Internet. Special editing software is needed to convert sound files to .ra.
• MP3 audio files are high-quality sound files that are small enough to download quickly and use a relatively small space on your disk. Converting files to MP3 requires special editing software.
• Files ending in .mid (MIDI) will play music and various sounds, but these files are not analog. MIDI files are created on a synthesizer and consist of programming instructions to the computer. A MIDI file cannot be edited in Sound Recorder, since it isn't analog sound, and Sound Recorder will not export an analog file to MIDI format.
• A sound file converted to .wav format and saved as mono with a sampling rate of 8,000 Hz will be low-quality but will be the smallest sound file you can produce without purchasing specialized software (such as MPEG3 editors).
• A sound file converted to .wav format and saved as stereo with a sampling rate of 44,100 Hz will be high-quality but very large.
• Multimedia developers often use a highly sampled stereo sound file for their opening sequence, then convert to mono files with low sampling rates for sound files played elsewhere in the application.
• Older sound cards may not provide as high-quality sound as you'll get with more recent products.