... but I have a couple of follow up questions to my post from a few days ago.

VBR: Ok, so here's what I'm wondering. Let's say I encode a song in CBR at 320 kbps and then encode the same song in VBR at whatever it's highest rate is (I assume that's 320). According to my understanding, VBR will only encode the frames that need to be at 320 at that rate, and everything else at it's corresponding rate. The CBR file records everything at 320 kbps, even the stuff that doesn't need it (wouldn't benefit from it?). Is it accurate to say then that the two recordings would be of equal audio quality?

LAME: Ok, I'm a little slow. It looks to me like LAME is some sort of plug-in, rather than it's own software (like say, MusicMatch). So I guess the question is, which software should I be looking to use it with? Maybe a better way to approach this is to tell you what I'm looking to do, and see if that narrows down the possiblities. Basically, I'm looking to rip/encode a few hundred cds. I want to be able to encode them in VBR with a high end of at least 320 kbps. Dunno if I got this right, but from another post on here, I got the sense that maybe I have to rip the files to my hard drive seperately and then encode them as the second step. Is there software that does both? I know Musicmatch does, but people don't seem to keen on it's VBR ability, and it seems not to encode anything higher than 192 in VBR mode.

Sorry for all the questions. Please don't flog me.

Check out this thread... they were talking about LAME and software that uses it.

http://empeg.comms.net/php/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=empeg_general&Number=63884&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=

Is it accurate to say then that the two recordings would be of equal audio quality?

The two recordings would not be of equal audio quality. The VBR file will be slightly lower quality. It would be significantly smaller than the 320-CBR file (this is VBR's advantage), but certain parts of the file would be of lower quality than the 320-CBR file.

HOWEVER, and this is the key, the lower-quality parts should (if the VBR encoder is a good one) be not noticeable. Because it will only lower the quality in parts that can stand to have their quality lowered without you being able to notice it.

So, although the two recordings would not be of truly equal audio quality, they would appear to have equal audio quality to your ear. But the VBR file will be smaller than the 320-CBR file.

When you choose the "level" of VBR (different software lets you select this level in different ways), what it does is choose where those quality cutoff points are. The higher you set the VBR encoder, the more often it will choose to encode a frame at 320 instead of 256, for example.

LAME: Ok, I'm a little slow. It looks to me like LAME is some sort of plug-in, rather than it's own software (like say, MusicMatch).

LAME is an encoder, not a ripper. It can work either as a plug-in (in its DLL form), or as a stand alone command-line program that you feed WAV files to.

The difference between encoders and rippers is explained here in the FAQ.

I got the sense that maybe I have to rip the files to my hard drive seperately and then encode them as the second step. Is there software that does both?

Yes, that is correct. It is two steps, ripping followed by encoding. Again, this is explained in the FAQ.

Most software will allow you to do both steps together, transparently. The software handles all the messy details of how to get the files shuffled around to get the ripping and encoding done.

Examples of ripping software which allow you to use LAME as the encoder are Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and AudioGrabber. I'm not sure, but I think you can use LAME in either form (EXE standalone or DLL plug-in) with both of these programs.

I'm pretty sure Lame Ain't an Mp3 Encoder..

- reid

Yeah, they need to change its name to "LDUTBAMEBIIN".

(Lame Didn't Used To Be An MP3 Encoder But It Is Now.)

they need to change its name to "LDUTBAMEBIIN"

They should, but it'd be a lot harder to pronounce. I'm curious, though, if it didn't used to be an encoder, what was it before?

The should, but it'd be a lot harder to pronounce. I'm curious, though, if it didn't used to be an encoder, what was it before?

A patch against the ISO sources for MP3 encoding, so it wasn't really an encoder. But the sources got updated enough and the ISO stuff was eventually replaced so it was no longer a patch, but a complete and independent implementation.

Don't confuse our novices!

(For copyrighit purposes LAME was technically a patch to reference ANSI implementation of Fraunhofer Institute MP3 compression algorithm. They now managed to get rid of all patented code - the format itself is, I believe, public domain.)

Edit: Oops, ISO, not ANSI! (And here I am, confusing patents and copyright! Fraunhofer patented their algorithm.)