Awesome MP3 Encoder: LAME
Friday, September 22, 2006
Well, today I was looking around for a good Linux MP3 encoder to create some smaller .mp3 files of a couple huge .wav files I have (save space on iPod). So, I looked around and nothing really seemed to meet my needs until I found LAME. LAME is, as their website says, an LGPL MP3 encoder. It started in 1999 and is now a "highly evolved MP3 encoder, with quality and speed able to rival state of the art commercial encoders." Yeah, I'll say so! LAME is just super awesome... yes "super awesome." But, I didn't know that then, so I decided to download the source code and give LAME a whirl. Installing was easy, just the basic
I did enable --enable-mp3x to get mp3x, a GTK based graphical MP3 frame analyzer (haven't used it yet though... perhaps later). So the install went fine, I didn't even have to install any dependencies... w00t! Ok, so then I got to the encoding part... what was that saying I used... oh yes... "super awesome." Ok, I haven't had much experience with mp3 encoders, but LAME was really easy to use. You just open a terminal and type:
Yes, that easy! My AMD Athlon 3700+ handled the encoding in no time, and soon I had converted a 100+MB .WAV file to a nice 10MB .MP3 file! That was quite a surprise to me... now, instead of having one file taking up 100MB, I can have 10! As for the quality... well, its a 100MB file into a 10MB file, I did notice a difference... but really... it still sounded great! I can't wait to see what more LAME can do, but until then, refer to this link to see a guide to the command line options. So check out LAME!
Link to homepage | Download | Using LAME
./configure
make
make install
I did enable --enable-mp3x to get mp3x, a GTK based graphical MP3 frame analyzer (haven't used it yet though... perhaps later). So the install went fine, I didn't even have to install any dependencies... w00t! Ok, so then I got to the encoding part... what was that saying I used... oh yes... "super awesome." Ok, I haven't had much experience with mp3 encoders, but LAME was really easy to use. You just open a terminal and type:
lame filename.extenion filename.newextension
Yes, that easy! My AMD Athlon 3700+ handled the encoding in no time, and soon I had converted a 100+MB .WAV file to a nice 10MB .MP3 file! That was quite a surprise to me... now, instead of having one file taking up 100MB, I can have 10! As for the quality... well, its a 100MB file into a 10MB file, I did notice a difference... but really... it still sounded great! I can't wait to see what more LAME can do, but until then, refer to this link to see a guide to the command line options. So check out LAME!
Link to homepage | Download | Using LAME