From WAV to MP3: Audio Made Easy with VLC for the Mac

In this episode, Siddarth shares a simple, stress-free way to convert audio files using VLC Media Player — no expensive software or confusing tools required! Whether you're working with WAV, MP3, or other formats, VLC makes the process quick, free, and accessible to everyone.

What’s Covered

• How to convert audio formats (like WAV to MP3)
• Common challenges: installing new software, app usability, accessibility
• Why VLC stands out as a lightweight, powerful alternative to programs like QuickTime

Why VLC?

• Free and open-source
• Easy to install on Mac
• Perfect for audio and video conversions

Step-by-Step Conversion Guide

1. Open VLC Media Player
2. Use the shortcut Command + Shift + S
3. Select your WAV file
4. Choose MP3 (or your preferred format)
5. Set the destination, filename, and extension
6. Start the conversion – done in just a few minutes!

Wrap-Up

• Quick format comparison (WAV vs MP3 size)
• A nod to VLC’s nostalgic value
• Encouragement to explore and share this tool

Simplify your audio workflow with VLC — a reliable, no-cost way to manage your media. Because learning and sharing helps us all grow. 🌱

Download VLC: videolan.org

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Siddarth: Hello, welcome to another short demonstration. I'm Siddharth and today we are going to touch upon an interesting topic and which is... or which will be useful for us in one or another time.

Siddarth: We often deal with multiple video formats or audio formats as well, like MP3, MP4, WAV or MKV, etc. What if we have an WAV audio file and we want to convert that to MP3?

Siddarth: installing multiple softwares, dealing with inaccessibility, or trying to figure out, trying to work around with the application, navigating, interacting, un-interacting. That's so much hectic and very time consuming, isn't it? For that, I have brought a simple solution. And the application what I'm going to use is VLC Media Player. Sounds familiar, right? Yes. I've installed VLC Media Player on my Mac.

Siddarth: VLC Media Player, if someone is very new to it, it's just like a QuickTime player or any video audio player in that sense. So through that, we can play any type of video or audio format files to watch films, movies, videos. in MP4, MP3, whatever.

Siddarth: So using that, I'm trying to show you how can we convert from a particular source format to our desired target format. Right, without further ado, let's get started. I'm on my Finder, and I have this audio file which I demoed a few days back regarding how to check a battery count.

Siddarth: and that is that is wav if someone is new to wav that's a one of the standard and lossless file so now i have this wav and the file the size of this file is something around 90 95 mb maybe because it's a lossless So I want to share this and I want to convert this to MP3.

Siddarth: Of course, maybe we have options like using shortcuts or using automator on Mac or using any websites to convert. But this is one of the solutions which I loved and it's very simple, very handy. So now I have installed VLC Media Player and I'll be opening it right now. And if you want to download VLC Media Player, you can just visit videoland.com or just type in Safari VLC Media Player for Mac.

Siddarth: And the website is very simple. Go ahead and download it and install it like any third-party application. And let me caution you here. It is not an app store. So you need to download it. It's a third-party application. And... The great thing is it's free. So let's grab whatever is free because the world is expensive, right? Okay, so let me open Spotlight. And I have VLC.

Siddarth: Enter or return.

Siddarth: All right, I'm into my VLC media player.

Siddarth: here we have a shortcut key to convert or get it to option called convert by hitting command shift s and also we can go in menu i guess we can find that in menu as well let's try to explore and i won't be uh i'm sorry if i don't um keep telling yes every single

Siddarth: command or basic commands, because I believe that we have a bit of experience of using basic commands. So I won't be keep telling each and every command, right? So right arrow, VLC, and file, again right arrow, file. Just do your down arrow here.

** SpeakerSiddarth: Yes, command shift S. If you hit on convert slash stream. So I'll just press VivoSpace here. The first option, the very first option we get is open media. I'll hit VivoSpace on this.

Siddarth: And my browse list is already on desktop. Just quickly go and select this WAV format, or WAV file, which is on my desktop. List view, I'll interact. OK, it's WAV. And let's hit Viewer Space.

Siddarth: Let's confirm is it uploaded or is it loaded in this open media by going to left arrow. Viewer left. Right. So now I just keep navigating till I get choose profile and next another right. H264. This is a pop-up. This is where we need to select the file format. Let me hit viewer space.

Siddarth: And I'll select audio slash mp3. I keep pressing down arrow or viewer down arrow. I think everything works here.

Siddarth: Audio. Yes, audio mp3. Viewer space here. Audio mp3.

Siddarth: Let's verify everything is well from the top.

Siddarth: And I'm going right, customize. We don't need these all customizations. Choose destination. And if we hit VivoSpace on this, nothing happens.

Siddarth: yes nothing happens so we'll go right stream we don't want this save as file this is the browse button where you want to save the file and the file title you can enter the file name for this let me hit view or space so we are on open media again so let's go again right and we should get a browse button here

Siddarth: Browse. VivaSpace. Title.

Siddarth: Let me just put the title name here. A-U-D-I-O and test. And remember, you need to enter the file extension or else it won't be saved properly. so now i'm i'm doing here mp3 so i'll enter test.mp3.mp3 this is very important guys so don't uh forget this so let me go right

Siddarth: That's normal, you know, standard saving window.

Siddarth: I'm doing it on desktop itself. Save.

Siddarth: Let me hit save.

Siddarth: I'm going left and verifying. And this is the last button, save. When we hit on save default, it starts converting. All right, so it takes a few seconds slash minutes. Meanwhile, so thank you so much, guys. Thank you for your constant support. People are appreciating and hope it is useful. So let me keep doing these type of demos from your support.

Siddarth: And honestly speaking, I am learning something out of this. I am exploring. Because VLC is someone who has come from Windows, it's actually a very, very old application. And I personally become nostalgia when I talk about VLC, because I used to use this to watch movies in 2009, 10. There are a few players like Gunplayer, Vinamp, VLC.

Siddarth: These are very, I would say, you know, vintage players. So let's go and check on desktop. Maybe it is converting.

Siddarth: Wait, this is not completed yet. Sometimes, even if it's in progress, it shows the file name. Let's go into info of this.

Siddarth: Let me hit VivoShift M.

Siddarth: finally after few minutes it has completely converted so let's see the file size once

Siddarth: test mp3 mp3 audio viewer m sorry yeah viewer shift m get info 5.8 mb great it was some 6 to 7 minutes of audio depending on your audio it will be nice and sometimes it might take some only kbs and it won't play so i'll just play with quick time

Siddarth: So this was a short demo guys. So hope this is useful. And if you want to convert anything, I guess we can also convert from video format to audio or audio to video. It'll be great if someone or if I want to upload audio or demo on using Mac, but I want to convert into a video. So hope this is useful and thank you so much.