first off i'd like to know how to tell what version of mp3 lame I have ( installed it and everything, it was just a while ago that I did it). And next, I kind of want to set my options in EAC to "user defined" in the compression setup menu, so I can set my mp3's to rip at 1024kb/s or so, but I don't really nnow how to enter in the command line stuff so that it rips right.

1024kbps?

I'm not sure I want to help you.

Before we go any further, can you explain why you need 1024kbps MP3s?

We've had a sticky post in the MP3 section for almost 6 years, explaining LAME commandline options, and how to set up EAC with LAME.

If you don't know what version of LAME you have, you could try running it and see. Or just overwrite it with the latest version.

ah, I was using 1024kb/s as an example, just as if i wanted to use 512kb/s. Cuz when I use the LAME, it onyl goes up to 320, but i kind of want to mess around with bit rates, so I'll check out that stuff on the command lines.

To wager a guess, those additional bitrates beyond 320 were included so that the compression size as displayed in the main window made more sense when using lossless codecs.

Unless you use the %r parameter in EAC, the bitrate is meaningless when the parameter passing scheme is set to "user defined encoder" (as it should be!). If you try to pass a bitrate higher than 320 to lame, you'll probably get an error. Feel free to try it and tell us what happens.