What?

You can create mp3 files straight from Audacity but you need to download an additional file to do it. After you set it up, it’s just a case of exporting your recording – easy.

Why?

Audacity saves your recordings as .aup files so you can come back and edit them. As we have seen in previous posts, Audacity exports your recordings as .wav files by default. This is OK if you are then going to upload your recording to something like audioboo.fm or play it with a standard audio player on your computer.

However, there may well be times when you need to produce mp3 files which you can use straight away on your mp3 player or on a website which does not accept .wav files.

How?

There is no built-in mp3 production software in Audacity so you need to download a file called ‘lame_enc.dll’ – download it from this page. This is a very ‘busy’ page so make sure you scroll down until you see the table with the actual download links on it. The first item in the table is ‘For Audacity on Windows:
Lame_v3.98.3_for_Audacity_on_Windows.exe’ These are the links you need – choose your operating system etc.

Make sure you save the file somewhere really obvious so you can find it from Audacity.

Here’s a quick screencast of the download and installation process:

Once you have the LAME library installed, you need to tell Audacity where it is so you can start exporting mp3 files. Here’s how:

It may seem like a bit of a pain to have to do this but once you have the LAME library installed you don’t need to do this process again.

Now you can export your sound files as mp3s. Here’s how to do it:

Finally, here’s a tip you might need if you are having difficulty getting a Flash movie to play your mp3s:

So once you have the LAME library in place, you can fill up your mp3 player with your own sound files.