[20:19] <waldo323__> my google skills are failing me, i'm looking for a way to convert wav files to a lower bitrate and keep them as wav files to reduce the space they are taking up. if it isn't possible we can go the route of changing to a different format but thats not whats been requested
[20:20] <waldo323__> anyone here have advice or examples? my initial thought was to use ffmpeg but when i tried what i thought was the correct command for lowing the bitrate, it did not work
[20:23] <cmaloney> sox might be the way to do, but what you're looking for is sample rate
[20:23] <cmaloney> or a combination of the two
[20:24] <cmaloney> that said, be sure you want to do this. It can really damage the audio quality and lead to some unpleasant effects if done improperly
[20:27] <waldo323__> yeah, the idea is to backup/archive originals and keep something we can understand 
[20:27] <cmaloney> The Speex codec is really good for this
[20:27] <cmaloney> and is OSS
[20:28] <waldo323__> also needs to be natively accessible on windows :-\
[20:29] <waldo323__> converting from wav to flac was around a 60% improvement, mp3 was a better size but definite drop in quality but was still understandable
[20:30] <cmaloney> https://www.speex.org/samples/
[20:31] <waldo323__> oh neat
[20:35] <waldo323__> thanks, i'll see where this gets me- i think the right track
[20:37] <cmaloney> np
[20:37] <cmaloney> Note that the samples on that site are still .wav files
[20:37] <cmaloney> but the quality for speech is really impressive
[20:39] <waldo323__> I saw that note and i was hoping to see what they used to do that :)
[20:43] <cmaloney> heh
[20:56] <waldo323__> for some of the files we have them created from multiple sources and one is using a bit rate of 128k and the other is 13k and the 128k bit rate files are using tons of space
[20:59] <cmaloney> mp3 or wav file?
[21:00] <waldo323__> that reads less clearly than i'd like.  some audio files are the same audio but created from difference sources so there are duplicates of some of these but the higher bitrate files use a lot of space
[21:00] <waldo323__> they are all wav
[21:00] <cmaloney> Yeah, because .wav isn't compressed
[21:01] <waldo323__> the higher bit rate files are encoded 16-bit Signed Integer PCM and the smaller are gsm
[21:01] <cmaloney> it's the same as running reel-to-reel tape at 1/4" vs 2" per second 
[21:01] <cmaloney> That's why I'm recommending not using wav files
[21:01] <cmaloney> because you're going to get more compression with something like mp3 or flac
[21:02] <cmaloney> and you're not going to have to fiddle with .wav settings (which can make files that are unreadable)
[21:02] <cmaloney> a 64kbps mp3 file with VBR mono should suffice for archive.
[21:03] <waldo323__> i agree with and like your logic. 
[21:07] <waldo323__> i was strongly encouraged to keep the filename the same
[21:07] <waldo323__> which was the wrench i didn't want
[21:58] <cmaloney> that is unfortunate
[21:58] <cmaloney> because it means losing data is going to be easier
[22:38] <jrwren> mp3 is 30yr old tech at this point.
[22:38] <jrwren> AAC would be a much better choice IMO.  only 20yr old tech ;)
[23:50] <cmaloney> Only Apple fanboys recommend AAC. ;)