--- title: "WAV to MP4: Song or Master to Video, Free | audiogram.video" description: "Convert a WAV or FLAC master to an MP4 with artwork and a subtle visualiser, without levelling or fades changing your mix. 1080p, AAC 192 kbps, no watermark." url: https://audiogram.video/wav-to-mp4 --- Free · no watermark · in your browser # Convert WAV to MP4 for YouTube and previews Turn a finished mix or master into a video with its artwork, keep the levels as you mastered them, and get a file small enough to upload or send. To convert a WAV to MP4, open the WAV above, add the artwork, switch off the volume levelling so your master is left as it is, and export. The result is an MP4 with your artwork as the picture and the song as 192 kbps AAC sound, which YouTube, Instagram, clients’ phones and every media player will open. WAV files usually come from a studio, a DAW or a mastering engineer, which changes what matters. You want the mix to sound exactly as approved, the start and end untouched, and a file that isn’t ten times bigger than it needs to be. This page opens the studio on the **Audio** panel for that reason. FLAC masters work the same way. For an ordinary MP3, the [MP3 to MP4 converter](https://audiogram.video/mp3-to-mp4) has the general steps. ## How to convert WAV to MP4 1. ### Open the WAV **Landscape** (16:9) is selected for YouTube. Press **Choose a WAV** (Ctrl+O or ⌘+O) or drop the file. FLAC, AIFF and other formats open the same way. 2. ### Leave the master alone The **Audio** panel is open. Switch **Even out the volume** off, then drag **Fade in** and **Fade out** to 0.0 s unless you are cutting the song short. 3. ### Include the whole song A song longer than 75 seconds opens on its liveliest 30 seconds. Drag **Clip start** to the very beginning and **Clip end** to the end of the timeline. Up to 10 minutes fits in one video. 4. ### Add artwork and titles In **Text**, press **Cover art** and choose the release artwork. Add the song as **Title** and the artist under **Show or speaker**. **Wave** sets how much the visualiser moves; **None** keeps it still. 5. ### Export Press **Export**, choose **1080p**, press **Export video**, then **Download video**. ## What happens to the sound A WAV is uncompressed: every sample of the mix is stored as it is, which is why a three-minute song is around 30 MB. An MP4 can’t usefully carry uncompressed sound for upload, so the audio is encoded as AAC, the standard sound format for MP4 video, at 192 kbps in stereo. * **Is that lossy?** Yes. AAC at 192 kbps throws away detail that is very hard to hear, but it isn’t bit-for-bit your master. For archiving or sending stems, keep sending the WAV. * **Does it matter on YouTube?** Little. YouTube re-encodes every upload for streaming, so viewers always hear a compressed version whatever you send. Starting from a clean 192 kbps AAC rather than a twice-compressed MP3 is what helps. * **File size:** the sound in the MP4 takes about 1.4 MB a minute, against about 10 MB a minute for a 16-bit, 44.1 kHz WAV. The picture adds more, depending on how much moves. ### Levelling and fades **Even out the volume** lifts quiet recordings to a steady speech level. That is welcome on a podcast and wrong on a master, where you chose the loudness on purpose, so switch it off. The default **Fade in** and **Fade out** are short, gentle fades that hide a cut mid-sentence; a finished song already starts and ends where it should. ## Previews for clients, labels and collaborators A video of the mix with its artwork and title is easy to play on any phone, in a chat or on a shared drive, where a WAV link often just downloads. A few choices make it work better: * Use **720p** and **30 fps** for a smaller file that still looks clean. * Put the version in the **Tag line**, such as “Mix 3, 12 Nov”, so nobody comments on the wrong one. * The **Player** template shows a now-playing card with the time, which helps when people send notes like “at 1:42”. * Choose **Seek bar** in **Wave** to show the whole song’s waveform filling as it plays, so the listener can see the structure. ## Uploading a master to YouTube * Keep **Landscape** at **1080p**. Artwork is usually square; the **Visualiser** and **Still cover** templates fill the sides with a soft-focus copy instead of black bars. * YouTube’s recommended upload settings ask for AAC-LC sound at 48 kHz and 384 kbps for stereo. The 192 kbps AAC made here is below that figure but well within what YouTube accepts, and the sound is re-encoded for streaming either way. If every last detail matters, export the video from your DAW or an editor at YouTube’s numbers. * Loud masters gain nothing: YouTube turns loud videos down so that playback volume is similar from one video to the next. * If the song is distributed to streaming services, YouTube may already have an automatic “Art Track” for it, and Content ID may claim your own upload. The [YouTube upload guide](https://audiogram.video/upload-mp3-to-youtube) explains both. Releasing a track with something more than a still? A [music visualizer](https://audiogram.video/music-visualizer) with spectrum bars or a spinning record suits a single or an album teaser. ## WAV to MP4: frequently asked questions ### Will converting WAV to MP4 lose quality? A little, because the sound is stored as 192 kbps AAC rather than uncompressed. Most listeners can’t hear the difference, and every streaming platform compresses the sound anyway. Keep your WAV as the master copy. ### Can I convert FLAC to MP4? Yes. FLAC opens directly and is treated exactly like a WAV. Switch off **Even out the volume** and the fades to keep the master’s levels. ### Why is my WAV file so much bigger than an MP3? WAV stores the sound uncompressed, about 10 MB per minute of CD-quality stereo. MP3 and AAC remove detail that is hard to hear and come out at roughly a fifth to a tenth of that size. ### Can I upload a WAV directly to YouTube? No. YouTube accepts video files, not sound on its own. Convert the WAV to a video with a picture first, as above. ### Is there a length limit? One video holds up to 10 minutes. For a longer piece, such as a full DJ set, use a desktop tool; the [MP3 to MP4 page](https://audiogram.video/mp3-to-mp4) has an FFmpeg command for still-image videos of any length. ### Is my unreleased song uploaded anywhere? No. The WAV is decoded and the video encoded in your browser, and the file never leaves your computer. Captions are off for music; the speech service is used only if you press **Make captions**, and then only for the selected clip. ## More ways to turn sound into video * [ Free audiogram maker Turn a recording into a video with a moving wave, cover art and captions. ](https://audiogram.video/) * [ Convert MP3 to MP4 with an image Give an MP3 a picture and save it as an H.264 MP4 at 720p or 1080p. ](https://audiogram.video/mp3-to-mp4) * [ Convert M4A or a voice memo to MP4 Voice memos and other M4A files to video, with captions and a waveform. ](https://audiogram.video/m4a-to-mp4) * [ How to upload an MP3 to YouTube Give the audio a picture, then upload it in YouTube Studio, with copyright notes. ](https://audiogram.video/upload-mp3-to-youtube) * [ Music visualizer maker Spectrum bars, rings and spinning records that move with a song, saved as MP4. ](https://audiogram.video/music-visualizer) * [ MP3 vs MP4 explained Sound format versus video container, with quality, size and when to convert. ](https://audiogram.video/mp3-vs-mp4)