Really good MP3 encoder needed ???

[scary808]

During the process of assembling demo sounds for the CWA demo contest, I realized something. The MP3 encoder in Soundforge is really bad. I Converted a simple saw wave & the results were very poor. The artificats it left behind were excessive even at 192kbs. I was running out of time for entry into the contest & I needed something to encode with.

I remembered hearing something about LAME MP3 encoder. I did a search & I came up with this site:

http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.html

I ended up downloading "WORM MP3 encoder". After I came to grips with the drag & drop functionality I listened to the resulting file. I was very impressed. The artificats were very minimal(compaerd to Soundforge's encoder). The site has links to various other encoders using the LAME algorithms(?) spanning all current OS platforms(even Linux).

Anyway, I eventually got my files converted for the contest & they all sounded pretty darn good. Unfortunately I didn't get this encoder until yesterday so my sound submissions probably won't be entered into the pool(although I sent them anyway).

Try this test: take a saw wave with no effects filtering or anything, record it at 16bit 44.1kHz, then encode it with your usual MP3 encoder. I think that may be a good way to measure the quality of an encoder.

If you aren't pleased with the results of your current encoder give one of the LAME ones a try. If your using Windows, go straight for the "WORM MP3 encoder".

If anyone else knows of other good encoders,
by all means, please share...

[Shayne White]

Yeah, LAME is the best MP3 encoder available. I encode files using the Winamp encoder plugin that uses LAME. For my own music library, though, I use Ogg Vorbis, as its sound quality beats the s*** out of MP3.

Shayne

[giucant]

Hi all!

Try this one http://www.cdex.n3.net/
Best & fastest ripper/encoder for free, with LAME, OGG and Monkey's Audio...

cheers
giucant