Wavepad and VBR Saving on Mac

[OldyButGoody]

Here is my experience to date with Wavepad and VBR saving on Mac. 

The latest version for Mac that works saving as VBR is 6.64. 6.64 is a 32 bit version which will not run on Mac OS later than Sierra 10.12.6. If you try to open it after installing on a system running a 10.13 or later OS, it will give a pop up error window stating it cannot be used on any OS later than 10.12, the latest version should be downloaded and installed, and the only option button is to quit. 

The next Mac version of Wavepad is 9.29. I believe this is the first 64 bit version. 

I’ve tried all versions of Wavepad for Mac from 9.29 through the latest version. VBR saving does not work on any of them. When selected as the save option, it always saves the file as a straight 128 kbps file.

This isn’t a show-stopper for me. I have a partition set up running OS 10.12.6 that has a purchased registered Wavepad 6.64 running on it that can be used to save files as VBR. It’s inconvenient but one has to be pragmatic about such things. Still it should work as it is supposed to be a valid option for file saving in the 64 bit versions. I can’t believe I’m the only one having this issue. VBR superiority over other types of file saves is a matter for another discussion thread. 

I also recently purchased a registered version of 64 bit Wavepad and have been upgrading free since 2/15/2020 until my 6 months from purchase date runs out on 8/16/2020.

I’ve reported this to NCH and had some communications with suggestions from them on it. It has not been resolved as of this writing.

[Fred28]

That seems like a bug, the best you can do is reach NCH tech team again and see if they have any updates or anything else you can try or to see if they will escalate to the developers of the program.

https://www.nch.com.au/support/index.html

[OldyButGoody]

I’ve done some further experimenting with Wavepad and have come to the conclusion that it is actually working properly regarding VBR saving with 64 bit versions. The problem I think is iTunes not recognizing the VBR saving for some odd reason.

I’ve saved different files using different .mp3 file settings for the same exact original file. The original file I started with each time was in .wav format. Saving as a straight 128kbps file, the .mp3 file is smaller (less MB) than saving using VBR with setting 0 (highest quality) and low 192, high 320. This indicates it is saved as a better quality file.

 

If I save as VBR using Wavepad 6.64 on OS Sierra 10.12.6 with the same VBR settings, the resulting saved file shows up as 196kbps VBR in iTunes. It is actually a little smaller (1.5MB) than the VBR saved file using Wavepad 12.74 on Catalina (1.9MB) with the exact same settings that shows up in iTunes as 128kbps bit rate.

 

The 6.64 saved file shows up in iTunes as encoded with: LAME3.97. The 12.74 saved file indicates encoded with: WavePad Master’s Edition (copyright) NCH Software.

 

So I’m convinced WavePad 64 bit version is saving these files correctly.