For starters, converting audio CDs to MP3 is simple enough. You can do this in two ways: either, by first ripping the CD tracks and then encoding them to MP3s, or by ripping and encoding on-the-fly. The first uses CD ripping software like Audio Grabber or Easy CDDA Extractor. This is stored as a huge WAV file that can then be encoded to MP3. However, certain software like the StreamBox Ripper, or Goldwave for that matter, can use an MP3 codec in conjunction and hence create MP3 files directly. Most CD rippers support most IDE and SCSI CD drives. Note, however, that the quality of the final MP3 is limited to CD-quality because the tracks on the audio CD are CD-quality!

Audio tapes to MP3

This can be useful if you have some sound tracks on tapes or on antique LP records that you want to preserve. For this conversion, you need a stereo audio cable to connect your cassette tape player to the sound card on your PC and a WAV recording software like Windows sound recorder. Connect the Line-out/Headphone-out from the cassette player to the Line-in of your sound card. Start the WAV recorder software, play the tape and it gets recorded. Save the huge WAV file and then follow the process described in the WAV to MP3 conversion above. The whole process may take time as it involves adjusting the volumes on the player and recording volumes on your sound card mixer.

WAV to WMA

When we talk of MP3, we should also be talking of WMA, the compression format from Microsoft. Software like StreamBox Ripper lets you convert WAV, audio CD tracks or even MP3s to WMA format. The encoding quality depends on the parameters you select. However, in our tests we found that the playback sound was crisper in MP3 and echoed a bit in the WMA format.

MIDI to WAV

Theoretically, you can’t convert/encode MIDI files to WAV or any other format. This is because an MIDI file contains instructions and no audio data. No software let’s you do this directly. However, there’s a workaround to the problem. What if you could record the MIDI file being played from your speakers? If you were to create physical connections, then you would run a cable from the line-out of your sound card to the line-in. Well, doesn’t sound like a very good idea. So, enter Total Recorder, a software that creates a virtual audio cable between your card’s line-in and line-out. There are no physical connections but it will record anything played on your speakers. So be it MIDI, a streaming music clip or even the music score from your favorite game! The software’s controls can be adjusted as per the sound quality you desire and the setup you have. So play the MIDI file and press record on the Total Recorder to record it into a WAV. By proxy, but it works!