MP3 Encoder ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter PDP
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PDP

PDP

There once was a note
Cubase 5 has an MP3 encoder to export a mix directly to an MP3, but it costs extra. Does anyone have an opinion on whether its worth having, or is a free wav/MP3 converter as good ? These days a good sounding MP3 is pretty important IMO.
 
Moved this over to Digital Recording where it belongs. :)

peace,
 
Thanks,

I was a little confused when I downloaded it (lame) then couldnt set it up. It works with Audacity, is that correct? I setup Audacity and in that program there is the MP3 converter. There are different rates like 128, what is a good rate to use?
 
PDP said:
Thanks,

I was a little confused when I downloaded it (lame) then couldnt set it up. It works with Audacity, is that correct? I setup Audacity and in that program there is the MP3 converter. There are different rates like 128, what is a good rate to use?
Click to expand...

the higher the rate the better the quality but the bigger the file if thats a problem..


soundclick, revernation and similar hosting sites only take 128kbps rates...Myspace is even crappier at 96...


sites like dropbox or soundcloud will take a full 320 file and host it

here's a referral for dropbox if you need a hosting site (gives us both extra space if you use a referral)

https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTMxNDY4MDU5


in truth there is a quality difference between 128 and 320, especially with HF instruments which can get compressed quit badly sometimes...but with rates higher up the difference is pretty indistinguishable (and file size you're talking 4mb versus 16mb as an approximate)
 
Thanks again,

So use 320 when possible but 128 is kinda the default now.

Thanks for your time.

Pete
 
PDP said:
Thanks again,

So use 320 when possible but 128 is kinda the default now.

Thanks for your time.

Pete
Click to expand...

i think when you are just letting the unwashed masses listen to your music ( ;) ) then 128 is fine...if you were to ask for a critique on your mix in the mp3 forum then the bigger the better...you dont want to spend time fixing cymbals after a comment in there just to find its the mp3 compression thats at fault, saying that they should still sound pretty good at that rate or there's something wrong
 
Just to add to the confusion there are CBR and VBR encoding options. CBR = constant bit rate, VBR = variable.

A 128kbps VBR file will tend to sound better than a 128kbps CBR file.

Reason: CBR literally uses 128kbps each and every second, whatever is going on in the recording. VBR uses a guideline bitrate overall, but is allowed to trade-off within that, for instance by allocating very low bitrate to silence or a low frequency 'mono' passage, adding the 'spare' to an adjacent high-frequency 'wide stereo' passage (you can safely ignore that there's also ABR, 'average' bit-rate, looser than CBR, stricter than VBR, - it's little used).

If encoding files for a particular purpose, check the destination accepts VBR files. A few years ago a large minority of software and hardware had problems with VBR - these days (in my experience) VBR is almost always OK to use and really does offer more bang-for-your-kilobit.

By the way, some VBR encoders offer a 'target' bitrate like 128, others only specify quality settings like 'highest','medium' etc, but you soon get used to what bitrates they tend to approximate to. LAME itself has a bunch of handy presets which are in common usage - you'll see people just write that a file is "-v0".

I personally always use -v0 (--preset fast extreme), 245kbps VBR - it's about as good as mp3 can get. I'll not go below -v2 (190kbps VBR) for anything I intend to be listened to offline, though online players often require a lesser bitrate. Where a very low bitrate is needed I'll encode the file to mono, as loads of the lo-fi artefacts arise from corruption of the stereo image.
 
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It seems that most web sites assume 128kbps. Some will only accept that rate.

As for my own personal listening, when I set up my own MP3 server I used a 192kbps rate. To my ears that seems to be the best compromise - sounds significantly better than 128, but the file size is still pretty small.
 
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