Making MP3's smaller

John Steele (deceased) · Post by **John Steele (deceased)** » 2 Oct 2005 1:19 pm

Once in a blue moon I want to e-mail someone a sound file, and I'm having trouble with file sizes.
I don't want to sound like a piker, but with the ocassional nature of it, I'm unlikely to purchase any zipping software.
Can anyone recommend any decent freeware for making the files smaller ? I'm running Windows XP.
Thanks !
-John

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www.ottawajazz.com

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 2 Oct 2005 2:30 pm

An MP3 file is a compressed file. I'm not sure what a Zip program will help.

You have various MP3 bitrates that you can compress a music file with. The most common is 128bps and that is fairly good fidelity. You can move down to 96kpbs which will be a smaller file but you will lost some fidelity.

As far as the zip program, everyone should have that on their PC. You can download Winzip www.winzip.com and it has a free use feature.

Windows Media Player converts music to the wma format and that is a more compressed format than mp3, just whoever you send the file to must be able to play wma files.

As far as free or programs that you buy, consider that in many cases the old "you get what you pay for" also applies to many free programs.

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 2 Oct 2005 2:47 pm

John--sometimes I send stuff and quality is not an issue--I just want to use the sound attachment as an illustration for a discussion or just want to show someone an intro. In those cases I will reduce the crap out of the file--audibility is the only object. I have a MusicMatch that I just can't remember if it's freeware or not--came with the Dell--and I also downloaded Audiograbber that definitely was free. You can turn a soundclip into a 100K file if you're not worried about your audiophile reputation. I've even sent whole songs at under 200K. Sounded like A. Graham Bell's 'Mary had a little lamb' (or was that T. Edison?) but waddayagonnado?

Steinar Gregertsen · Post by **Steinar Gregertsen** » 2 Oct 2005 3:10 pm

Here's a free converter, never used it myself so I don't know how good it is.

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

John Steele (deceased) · Post by **John Steele (deceased)** » 2 Oct 2005 5:06 pm

Thank you Jack, Jon and Steinar; you guys are great. I'll investigate all those options. At this point I am not too knowledgeable about digital files.
I found a vinyl copy of my first studio session this week, done when I was 14 years old, so I've had a few laughs with that, and wanted to share parts of it.
Thanks again,
-John

Joey Ace · Post by **Joey Ace** » 2 Oct 2005 5:39 pm

Have your friend get a gMail account.
It's free and allows attachments up to 10 MB.

John Daugherty · Post by **John Daugherty** » 3 Oct 2005 8:19 am

In my case, the problem is not the maximum email limit, but my connection speed. I can only get dial up service. My speed at my shop is 50k. The speed at my home is 26.4k.
If I see a song on a website that is much more than 1mb, I won't take the time to download it.
That is the reason I convert my website mp3s at a 32kb bitrate. Not Hi-Fi, but it is accessible by all,even us "hics in the sticks". If someone wants CD quality, I have a CD available.
The handiest mp3 converter I have found, is "switch". It pops up in the menu, in windows explorer, when you right-click on an audio file. It is shareware.

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