How To Compress MP3 Files

By Satyam Srivastava

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• Step 1: Open Winamp. 
• Step 2: Click the "PL" button on the right side of the player if the playlist isn't already open ( the box where it tells the names of songs, lengths, etc.)
• Step 3: Once open, press the "+ file" button on the bottom left of the playlist.
• Step 4: Locate the songs you want to compress ( they are most likely in C:/Program Files/Napster/Music or wherever else you keep your mp3s)
• Step 5: Select the songs you want to compress by highlighting them and then pressing open.
• Step 6: Now that you are back into the player click the little button on the top left of the player and go down to options, then to preferences.
• Step 7: Once in preferences click on "Plug-Ins" then click on "output"
• Step 8: After clicking on output double click on "Nullsoft Disk Writer Plug-In v1.0" and select where you want your files to go, desktop or something easy is a good choice. After that press ok, then close out of that window. 
• Step 9: Now, once you are back in the player and have your selected files visible in the playlist box you can press play. The songs will not play, the time bar should move quickly and then go on to the next selected song. This means your songs are being converted to ".wav" format.
• Step 10: After all files are converted to ".wav" format, you can go to Start/Programs/Accesories/Entertainment/Sound Recorder. Once in the Sound Recorder application click file and then Open. Select the song you want to compress first, it is saved wherever you selected for your .wav's to go when in Winamp. 
• Step 11: The song is now open in the Sound Recorder, Click File then Save As..
• Step 12: Once in this window, be sure to add the suffix ".mp3" to the filename, and in "Save As Type.." select "all files". Hold on though, don't press save yet..
• Step 13: Now click on the change button by "Format" this is where you compress the song.
• Step 14: Once in the change window select "MPEG layer 3" for format, and then for attribute select "56 kBit/s 22,050 Hz, Stereo 7 KB/s
• Step 15: Now click ok, and save your compressed Mp3 to the desired location.