"Sound Recorder" Can I reduce length of WMA file?

johnr9q · 02 Feb 2016

I have my Reel to Reel tape deck hooked up to my computer thru the blue, line in connector. I have windows 7. I have a bunch of short tapes that I want to record on "Sound Recorder". If I start to record and come back later and the Sound Recorder is still recording but the tape ran out some minutes before, is there some way I can go back and chop off the end of the recorded File? I know I could do this with a program like Audacity but I checked Audacity out and it is way too complicated for me and the only editing I want to do is what I just described. Please no complicated explanations.

fireberd · 03 Feb 2016

You need an "audio editor" to do that. Audacity is the best free program for recording and editing.

I have a recording studio, and use "Goldwave" for any editing (after mixdown) but it is not free.

The Windows Sound Recorder is very basic and limited. You are better off working with Audacity to try and learn at least enough to do what you want.

In addition, if you are going to burn audio cd's after converting the reel to reel audio, you need "wav" files, not wma. Audacity will allow saving as wav files.

johnr9q · 03 Feb 2016

Fireberd: Thanks for your help. I already burned the WMA files to a CD and they played fine on my Samsung Blue Ray disc player. Why do you say I need to burn as a WAV file. Please keep answer simple as I'm not computer literate. Thanks again, John R

fireberd · 03 Feb 2016

The "Red Book" is the "standard" for audio CD burning. Red Book standard is 16 bit 44.1Khz wav files.

I suspect the CD burning program may have converted them to wav before burning.

I do a lot of audio CD burning as I have a recording studio. My Audio CD burning speed standard is 8X. I do not burn audio CD's at higher speeds as older CD players will either not play the CD or it will skip. However, I know that almost all SATA CD/DVD burners only have 16X as the lowest audio CD burn speed. Many newer audio CD players, especially ones that will also play MP3's will play audio CD's burned at higher speeds. As my clients sell their CD's at concerts, they have no idea what the customer's audio CD player is and thus except for a rare few very old audio CD players the 8X works OK.

johnr9q · 04 Feb 2016

fireberd: I didn't understand your answer. l have the WMA files I made using Windows 7 "Sound Recorder" then I go to "Windows Media Player" and burn these files to a CD. My question is: Will this CD play on most CD players? (I don't care about quality, size, bit rate, or anything else)

fireberd · 04 Feb 2016

I don't know if WMA files will play on standard audio CD players. All I've ever used is wav, which is the "standard" for audio CD's. Commerical audio CD's use wav files.

However, you DO have to be concerned with bit rate, (16 bit 44.1Khz which is the industry standard) and speed that its burned if you want to play the audio CD on many older audio CD players.

Its not as "easy" as you think, although its not really complicated. You have to abide by the "red book" standard (16 bit, 44.1Khz, wav) for most audio CD players. Although there may be some that will play wma files I haven't run across one. The CD burner in WMP may be automatically converting the wma to the wav standard for burning. I don't use that for burning (I use Nero).