I'm having heaps of trouble finding a free mp3 encoder. I have a trial on nero, but you can only use it 30 times. Apart from uninstalling it after every time it runs out, there isn't much I can do there.
I also downloaded lame-3.96.1 but I have no idea how to work that, it doesn't seem to want to do anything. :(

I can probably get one if I pay, I know, but I'm not all that rich, so ...

Oh, yeah, and don't tell me winamp, because the latest version has changed and you can no longer rip Cd's into mp3's. Which sucks. Thanks anyway Machinehead.

LAME is the best mp3 encoder you will find out there.


I feel bad for posting this, but it should guide you through setting up EAC and using the Lame codec.

You can pick accurate results or speed when setting it up. If you want to rip at 5 or 6x pick accurate, but if you want the max ripping speed select speed.

It takes about 4-5 min to set it all up, and after that it's good forever.
http://www.luna-fx.com/blog/guides/eac/


I just wrote it and had not time to edit it, and it looks horrible.
I plan to fix it up after finals are over.


I'm on AIM @ Matt2Paxil if anyone here has questions on ripping with EAC / LAME.

It's kind of what I live for... and the most accurate ripping tool out there.

I use CDex with a lame plug-in so I can encode in VBR.....
I think it's pretty decent, and I never had problem with it.
Of course it allows you a CDDB research like Winamp to rename your tracks.

LAME is the best mp3 encoder you will find out there.


I feel bad for posting this, but it should guide you through setting up EAC and using the Lame codec.

You can pick accurate results or speed when setting it up. If you want to rip at 5 or 6x pick accurate, but if you want the max ripping speed select speed.

It takes about 4-5 min to set it all up, and after that it's good forever.
http://www.luna-fx.com/blog/guides/eac/


I just wrote it and had not time to edit it, and it looks horrible.
I plan to fix it up after finals are over.


I'm on AIM @ Matt2Paxil if anyone here has questions on ripping with EAC / LAME.

It's kind of what I live for... and the most accurate ripping tool out there.

Ahh, thank you so much, it all works fine now :D . I don't think you need to fix that page, all the instructions were really clear to me, and I'm pretty thick at this kind of thing. *gives rep :p*

That's cool

EAC is one of the best ripping programs out there.

If it's ripping too slow for you and you want speed, just reconfigure it from the EAC menu.


And if you want to get dirty with the commandline settings, here is a list of them all.
http://lame.sourceforge.net/USAGE

Keep in mind though that the presets I listed on the guide will always give the best quality.


Personally I use

--alt-preset extreme -b 128 -F -q 0
(250-320kbs avg)


but that will make it really slow on the encode, so

--alt-preset standard -b 128 -F
(180-220kb avg)

is usually better for slower systems.



You want to avoid encoding to CBR files (simply 128, 192, 256, so on...)
The quality won't be as good.

I use dBpowerAMP (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/) for all my mp3 encoding/converting. It comes with LAME, and if you're not happy with that (there's no reason why anyone would be unhappy with LAME, since it RAWKS! but anyway.. meh.), this program makes it really easy to install other codec packs, like WMA, mp3PRO, etc.