Hi, I'm using Lame 3.96 and want to encode (VBR) with a target bit rate of about 160kbps. I've found that --preset medium (or -V4) is pretty much right for me, however I have one problem. I'm trying to use cdex1.51 and it doesn't have many preset options, it's got --preset standard (which is a bit high on the bit rate) and one called -r3mix that I dont know much about.

I've done some seaching here and it appears that -r3mix is now mapped to "-V3 -vbr new" in recent versions of lame. I've found the bit rate for this -r3mix is pretty similar to --preset medium (even a bit lower for some tracks but just a bit higher for most). So is it safe to use -r3mix in place of -preset medium in 3.96, will it give results that are as good ?


BTW. I know I can use the "external encoder" option in cdex to get whatever preset I want but that option only works for me when ripping from CD. Unfortunately I mostly want to transcode from lossless ape (money audio) and I just cant seem to make the external encoder option work at all for this purpose. So now I'm pretty much stuck with either preset standard or r3mix for my ape to mp3 transcodes.

--r3mix is mapped to -V 4 (--preset medium) in 3.96.1. See this post.

There are so many great free frontends like Foobar(imo the best),speek,frontah...and tons of more.Keep cdex for ripping and use a proper tool for encoding so you got a greater options to choose

I've used foobar (with CLI encoder) for encoding for a few months, works great for me!

From this thread:

Not exactly. In 3.96 --r3mix is mapped to -V3.

Since preset medium is -V4, using the "r3mix" setting in 3.96 will produce an higher quality (but bigger) file than preset medium.

Thanks all for the very informative replies.

Yes I've now discovered the foobar CLI plugin and am now happily trancoding my ape to mp3's using this. I did look for something similar to this earlier today (before starting this thread) but couldn't find anything suitable on the offical foobar site. Eventually I found what I needed (the cli plugin) HERE.

just use EAC...it's pretty much Cdex, but with the most secure rip-mode + it allows you to use all presets etc. http://www.exactaudiocopy.de

Yeah I've got EAC, it's a great little program but it doesn't allow for direct transcode (or re-encode) from ape to mp3. Of course I could decode all my ape's to wav's and re-encode to mp3 using any number of programs, but it's much more awkward, uses lots of disk space and most problematic disgards tag information. Thats why I was using CDex, it was the only proggie I had that would do direct ape to mp3 with tags intact. . Now I've got the foobar cli plugin so I've got the choice of two proggies that do it properly.


BTW. I just found a customized lame_enc.dll that John33 made over at rarewares that ignores all passed parameters and instead gets all its settings from an ini file. This is brilliant, I've just tested it with CDex and it works great, I can now get any option that I want in CDex. Now a very happy camper.

I'm very happy with 3.96.1 --preset medium (or -V4), from the albums encoded with it (about a dozen)
I can't see why it should not replace --preset standard as the default recommendation for VBR.

On difficult material (just had "Ozzy Osbourne - No Rest for the Wicked", the original non-squashed.. err -remastered version yesterday) it won't hestitate to go well over 200k on average.
Normally it is about 25-30k lower on average than -V2 without noticeable difference for me, even when listening with headphones at night.

If --r3mix still points to "-V3 --vbr-new" I personally would not use it, because vbr-new gives me considerable more volatile bitrates every time I give a shot at it... often 20k more than vbr-old without any good reason.

Yep same here, I'm finding 3.96.1 --preset medium to be "transparent" for my listening ability. So far it's averaging about 165kbps for me, but I do notice it can be well down in the 140kbps (track average) range for fairly simple tracks yet still go up to averages of around 190kbps for more difficult stuff.