A few questions;

 

 

 

1. Is it possible to compress music files?

 

 

 

2. If so, what's a good (free) program to use?

 

 

 

3. Would the output file be compatible to play on a Creative Zen?

 

 

 

4. Would compression drastically alter sound quality?

 

 

 

5. Some files are mp3's and others are .wma, does this matter?

 

 

 

Thanks in advance, any help would be greatly appreciated.

You could download the Lame Codec and Audacity. Load your audio file into Audacity and save them as MP3, you should be able to play about with the MP3 quality settings so you can reduce the file size. But don't forget any compression will always introduce artifacts into the audio, so you should play with the quality settings until you find something that sounds good to you.

 

 

 

P.S. MP3s are already compressed, but you may be able to compress them further.

If you're at all worried about sound quality, I wouldn't compress below 192kbps. I compressed quite a bit of stuff to 128 a while ago and through good headphones/speakers you definitely can notice the difference. 192 seems like a good compromise between file size and sound quality.

With Lame and Audacity, can I only compress one file at a time?

Audacity has basic batch processing for converting many files, take a look at THIS.

I would use eMusic.

Isn't eMusic an online store? I'm looking to compress files I already have.

 

 

 

I downloaded Lame and Audacity, but it says I need the lame_enc.dll which I couldn't find (it wasn't included in the download).

Take a look at THIS, it tells you how to get lame working on Audacity.

Eh, I'm confused. How exactly do I chage the bitrate? I tried editing the sample format, no change. I then edited the Hz (with hilarious results). Now my music sounds like the chipmunks :lol:

Ok, so I've managed to change the bitrate, but some of my files are .wma's. Do you know of any good programs that convert .wma to mp3? I tried downloading one before but it came with a trojan, so I'm a bit wary.

 

 

 

Thanks for all the help so far, I really appreciate it.

Itunes can convert, well, older versions I know for sure since I don't have it anymore, but I downloaded Itunes to convert once.

There is some software called Protected Music Converter which can convert WMA to MP3 or wav, It will even convert iTunes files (m4p).

 

 

 

Clare.