Audacity Tutorial #3 – How to Export a Project to MP3, WAV and OGG

What we have here is a fully featured free audio editor with an easy to understand interface and a handful of excellent tools and effects that make of Audacity an excellent piece of freeware when it comes to editing (cut, copy, and paste with undo/redo capabilities), mixing and applying effect to all kinds of recording projects. In a previous tutorial I told you how to record and save a project in the .aup format which is really useful if you need to edit and apply effects, but this format may not be the most suitable for most players so today I'm going to tell you how to export such projects to the WAV, MP3 and Ogg Vorbis formats.

Before starting this tutorial you need Audacity installed and ready to run in your machine. If you don't go to the “Download” button above and once you have the installer in your computer run it and the InstallIQ™ manager will take care of the rest.

The first step is to open Audacity and the project file you want to export. So, in Audacity go to File > Open... and in select the .aup file you want to export.

And click OK.

Now audacity should look like this:

Go to the File menu and select the format you want from MP3, WAV or Ogg Vorbis.

Note: At this point I have to let you know that due to software patents the LAME MP3 encoder is not included with the Audacity installation package so you have to download ans install it yourself. Here is a short guide to do it:

1.Go to this link with your favorite browser, it will identify the file Lame_v3.98.2_for_Audacity_on_Windows.exe and offer you to choose between download (or save file) and run, select to download or save the file and save it to a place where you'll remember later (i.e. Mozilla Firefox will probably save it in the Downloads folder).
2.Launch the "Lame v3.98.3 for Audacity on Windows.exe" by double clicking on it (Ignore any warnings).

3.Follow the "Setup" instructions to install LAME for Audacity and do not change the offered destination location of "C:\Program Files\Lame for Audacity", or wherever your Audacity folder is located.

4.The first time you select the "Export as MP3" action from the File menu, you will be prmpted to select the location of "lame_enc.dll". Browse to "C:\Program Files\Lame for Audacity", or wherever your Audacity folder is located, select "lame_enc.dll", then click "Open" and "OK".

OK, now you are ready to start exporting, as the rest of the procedure it just the same, I chose MP3 format to export my .aup project.

Go to File > Export as MP3... and you'll get this window where you should enter the destination folder and the mane of the file. Then click “Save”.

You will have the chance to add some information like title, artist, album and much more, see all of them in the next screenshot.

Just click “OK” when you are done and a progress bar will show you how the exporting procedure is going.

As I said exporting in the other two available formats (WAV and Ogg Vorbis) is exactly the same, the only difference is that you do not get the info dialogue box as this kind of ID3 tags are not supported by WAV or Ogg Vorbis formats, so, just change your selection when you go to the file menu.

Final Words

As you can see, exporting audio projects to MP3, WAV and Ogg Vorbis formats can be a bit long procedure for the first time (specially if you are trying to do it to the MP3 format) but it is neither complicated nor difficult. Audacity is the perfect choice for your audio edition needs, just download it by clicking on the “Download Now” you will find below this lines and start exporting your projects right away!!

Audacity Specs: » Version: 1.3.1 » Download Size: 10.9MB » Tested Virus FREE » Operating System (OS): Windows 7,    Vista, XP and older OS's, Linux/Unix,    Mac OS X and others

Audacity Tutorials  How to configure Audacity  How to Record Sound  How to Export a Project   How to Cut, Copy & Paste  Using the Noise Removal Tool Audacity Español  Audacity Spanish Translation

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