Convert WAV to MP3 With Audacity
Audacity is one of the best ways to edit audio files, so it’s only natural to want to convert files with the program too. However, when you need to export an audio file in a format like WAV to MP3, you quickly learn that, by default, you can’t do it—unless you tell Audacity where to find the LAME MP3 encoder. When you use the LAME MP3 encoder in Audacity, you can reduce the space that the audio files are using on your hard drive because MP3 is a lossy format (i.e., not a bit-perfect conversion) that saves the audio to a compressed format. With Audacity installed and the proper LAME files ready to go, you can now convert from WAV to MP3.
Audacity Can’t Find the LAME Encoder
If you get a lame_enc.dll error or a similar message about how Audacity can’t convert to MP3, you need to tell the program where it can find the LAME encoder library. Click Save. Click OK. Alternatively, you can go to Edit > Preferences > Libraries and click Locate to select the LAME plugin. In Windows, you can expect to find the file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Lame For Audacity; Mac users should look in /usr/local/lib/audacity/. The file is called lame_enc.dll in Windows and libmp3lame.dylib in macOS.
Don’t Have Audacity or LAME?
Windows: Download the LAME encoder installer package. Double-click the EXE file and accept the default file destination path. macOS: Download the LAME library DMG package. Extract the contents of the DMG file and then open the PKG file to install libmp3lame.dylib to /usr/local/lib/audacity.
