Tutorial: Sound Format Conversion

Total Recorder is a powerful but easy-to-use sound format converter that converts sound files from one format to another. The program can perform audio conversion between a variety of different audio file formats including WAV, MP3, WMA, FLAC, APE, Ogg Vorbis, etc. There are many situations in which you may need your sound in a particular format (for example, you want to put it onto an audio CD or a portable music player). In the past, you needed a number of specialized programs to convert between different formats.

Total Recorder provides two different methods of audio conversion: direct audio conversion and conversion by re-recording:

Direct Audio Conversion

Direct audio conversion is the conversion between formats supported by Total Recorder. Total Recorder supports the following formats:

  • PCM (uncompressed)
  • MPEG Layer 3 (MP3)
  • Windows Media Audio (wma)
  • Ogg Vorbis
  • FLAC
  • Monkey's Audio (APE)
  • AAC audio within MPEG-4 and 3GP containers under Windows 7 and above
  • AAC audio within MOV container (for playback only) under Windows 7 and above
  • Any format for which a valid and fully functional Windows codec is present on your computer and that is accessible to all of the programs.

To perform direct audio conversion from one audio format to another, take the following steps:

  1. Start Total Recorder.
  2. From the File menu, select Open, and then select the file you want to convert.
  3. From the File menu, select Save As:
  4. Type the desired file name.
  5. Click the Change button.
  6. Select the desired format and attributes of the target file:
  7. Click OK.
  8. Click the Save button. The conversion process starts and a progress bar should appear.

Conversion by re-recording

Conversion by re-recording is a conversion from a proprietary format which is not supported by Total Recorder to one of the formats above, which is supported by Total Recorder. You can play a file with a proprietary player and record it with Total Recorder. For detailed instructions, refer to the Recording an Internet Broadcast tutorial.

Please see Selecting an Optimal Recording Format Tutorial for additional information.