WAV to MP3
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WAV files are uncompressed, which is why a ten-minute recording arrives as a 100 MB file that email refuses and phones struggle to play. MP3 typically shrinks that by around ten to one with no difference most people can hear at 192 kbps and above. It is the right move once a recording is finished — keep the WAV as your master, send the MP3. Pick a higher bitrate for music and a lower one for speech, where 96 or 128 kbps is plenty.
Keep the WAV, send the MP3
WAV is a working format, not a delivery one: it stores every sample so editors can cut and process without decoding anything, at around 10 MB a minute in stereo. That is exactly what you want while a recording is being made and edited, and exactly what you do not want when sending it to someone.
Convert to MP3 at the end, and keep the WAV as your master. If you ever need another version — a different bitrate, a different format, another edit — you will want to go back to the uncompressed original rather than to the MP3 you already made.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my WAV file so large?
Nothing is compressed. CD-quality stereo is about 10 MB a minute, so an hour is roughly 600 MB regardless of what the recording contains — even silence takes the same space.
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