MP3 to WAV
Decode to uncompressed audio for tools that will not take an MP3.
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What this does and does not do
It decodes the MP3 into raw samples and writes them as a WAV. The result is far larger and sounds exactly the same, nothing the MP3 encoder discarded comes back. This is a compatibility step, not a quality upgrade.
It is worth doing when a DAW, a game engine, a phone system or an old piece of hardware refuses MP3 outright, or when you are about to do processing that would compound compression artefacts.
The specific things that demand WAV
- Game engines. Unity, Unreal and most others want uncompressed audio for short sound effects, because decoding an MP3 costs time at the moment the sound has to fire.
- Digital audio workstations. Many will import an MP3 and then internally decode it anyway; giving them a WAV skips a step and avoids surprises with timing.
- Telephony and IVR systems. Phone platforms are famously particular, often wanting a specific sample rate and mono into the bargain.
- Older hardware samplers, CD authoring tools and broadcast playout software, none of which were built with compressed audio in mind.
- Speech and analysis tools that expect raw samples rather than a codec they would have to bundle a decoder for.
The gapless problem, which is real
MP3 encodes in fixed blocks, and a recording almost never divides evenly into them, so the encoder pads the start and end with a small amount of silence. It is usually inaudible on its own. It is very audible when you are building a seamless loop, because that padding becomes a tiny gap every time the loop comes round. Decoding to WAV keeps the padding, so this conversion does not fix it. If you need a clean loop, trim the silence off the ends with trim audio after converting, and check the join.
What the file size will be
Around 10 MB per minute for stereo at 44.1 kHz, regardless of what the MP3 was. A 4 MB MP3 of a four minute song becomes roughly a 40 MB WAV containing the same audio. That is not a sign anything went wrong; it is what uncompressed means. WAV also has a 4 GB ceiling in its standard form, which works out at a little over six hours of stereo, so very long recordings should go to FLAC on the audio converter instead. FLAC is lossless too and about half the size.
Common questions
Does WAV sound better than MP3?
Not when the WAV was made from an MP3. It is the same audio in a larger container.
Why is the file so big?
WAV stores every sample uncompressed: about 10 MB per minute in stereo at 44.1 kHz.