From recording or mixdown to a shareable file
WAV is what recorders, DAWs and screen-capture tools export, and at 10.58 MB per minute (16-bit/44.1 kHz stereo) it is too heavy for email, messengers or podcast hosts. As MP3, the same minute is 0.96 MB at 128 kbps or 2.4 MB at 320 kbps — about 4 to 11 times smaller.
Keep the WAV as your master. MP3 is lossy, so any later edit should start from the WAV rather than from the MP3.
Bitrate for music, podcasts and voice
- Music: Stereo, 192–320 kbps (256 kbps default).
- Podcast with music: Stereo 128 kbps, or Mono 96 kbps.
- Speech, lectures, voice notes: Mono 64–96 kbps.
- Audiobooks: Mono 64 kbps.
Stereo options start at 128 kbps because below that the encoder silently lowers the sample rate to 32 kHz or less. Mono keeps the full rate from 64 kbps, which is why a mono voice recording at 64 kbps sounds cleaner than a stereo one at the same size.
24-bit, 32-bit float WAV and clipping
24-bit and 32-bit float WAV files are read at full precision; MP3 has no bit-depth setting, so the extra resolution simply feeds the encoder. Float WAV can hold peaks above 0 dBFS that fixed-point formats cannot.
Before encoding, audio is converted to 16-bit samples, and anything above 0 dBFS is limited. The result card counts those samples and shows the peak level; if clipping is reported, lower the master level in your editor by that many decibels and export again.
Exact length for loops, game audio and gapless tracks
MP3 encoding adds about 1,100 samples (25 ms at 44.1 kHz) of delay before the audio and padding after it, which makes loops click and gapless albums stutter. This converter adds a LAME header with the exact delay and padding, and players that read it (Chrome, Firefox and most music apps) play exactly the original number of samples.
The result card shows the sample count, so you can confirm it matches the WAV before using the file in a game engine or a looping player.
Tags for your MP3
Tags stored in the WAV's RIFF INFO list — title, artist, album, track, year, genre, comment — are copied to ID3v2.3 so music players can show them. Many WAV exports carry no tags at all; in that case the MP3 is written without a tag and the result says so.
Editing tags inside this converter is not available yet. Tag the MP3 afterwards in your music app if needed.