WMA Export Options - Audacity Manual

# WMA Export Options

From Audacity Development Manual
WMA is a compressed, lossy audio format developed by Microsoft. It is the default audio format for Windows Media Player.

  Accessed by: File > Export Audio then choosing WMA (version2) Files (FFmpeg) from the Format dropdown menu.

| FFmpeg is not shipped with Audacity but you can download it and then export as WMA (version 2) by following these instructions.

## Audio Options

### Channels

Sets the number of channels for the exported audio file. There are three options

- Mono: single channel
- Stereo: stereo pair with left and right channels - this is the default setting even if you only have mono tracks for exporting
- Custom mapping: use this to export multi-channel (surround sound) files or to make customized assignments between Audacity tracks and the channels in the exported file.
  - Selecting this and clicking on the Configure button causes the Advanced Mixing Options dialog to appear. For details please see Advanced Mixing Options.

### Sample Rate

Sets the sample rate for the exported file. Default setting is 44100 Hz, which is CD quality.

### Bit Rate

Choose a bit rate from 24 kbps to 576 kbps. The default is 180 kbps. This produces a larger file of higher quality than default 128 kbps MP3 encoding, the general consensus being that WMA v2 and MP3 produce comparable quality for the same file size. Increasing the WMA bit rate will increase the quality further but produce larger files.

WMA version 2 only supports CBR (constant bit rate) encoding. This means that increasing the sample rate in Audio Settings Preferences will not produce larger files.