MP3 export - having problems with lame

[Shroomz~>]

Hi,

It works fine on our offline Scope system, but I can't seem to get MP3 export from Wavosaur or Audacity working on this internet machine. I've followed the detailed instructions on the Audacity wiki pages, but still it doesn't work.

XP sp2
Wavosaur v1.0.4.0
Audacity v1.2.6
Latest lame_enc.dll (downloaded from Audacity pages)

The system has the K-Lite Codec Pack installed, so I ran the CodecTweakTool to see if something was being disabled by that, but it all looks ok.

Looking for suggestions as to where to look next.

Thanks,
~Mark

[Shroomz~>]

Well, I started over again. Uninstalled Audacity 1.2.6 & installed Audacity 1.3 beta as well the recommended 'Lame for Audacity' exe. Followed the instructions, but to no avail. Audacity simply doesn't locate & load the lame MP3 export library when I ask it to. It automatically detected the FFmpeg library no problem, but as with v1.2.6 that I had installed previously, it won't locate & load lame_enc.dll for some reason. *&%$£~~?

Any suggestions are welcome.

~Mark

[astroman]

imho Audacity is a total piece of crap...
if you want to get along without licensing anything, Reaper 1.0 is Freeware
only have a German site at hand, but download shouldn't be a problem

cheers, Tom

[Shroomz~>]

Cheers Tom, I'll maybe give it a go, but only if it'll work on this P3 733 box. Have you tried Wavosaur btw? It seems to be excellent from first impressions.

[astroman]

actually I like the lower versions of Reaper much more than recent ones.
It's getting overcomplicated with it's virtual routing and all that stuff.
Don't know what this Wavosaur is - but I'll have a peek

cheers, Tom

[kylie]

imho Audacity is a total piece of crap...

...and that would be why exactly?

[valis]

Shroomz,

Extract the attached zip & try using this for encoding. Just drag & drop files to be encoded and hit "encode". Files must be 44.1khz, 24bit files *may* work as it's actually converting to a 32bit mp3, but some LAME builds truncate (the only way to tell is to test it) depending on the build environment that it was compiled under. I didn't test with this build myself...

I've configured it for you to use -V0 (highest quality VBR encoding) with the newest stable LAME build. If you want 128kbit CBR or something let me know and I'll tell you what preset to put into the "Switches" field in all2lame.exe.

[Shroomz~>]

Valis, thanks for that. It seems nice & simple. Just what the doctor ordered. It didn't seem to work on my first attempt, but I was using 24-bit wav files, so maybe that was the issue, either that or I just don't have it set up right yet.

cheers,

~Mark

[valis]

Oh sorry, I missed an important step! Click "locations" on the left and define the current path to lame.exe (where you extracted the folder+lame.exe). It's currently set to C:\Program Files\Audio\all2lame\lame.exe in that particular zipfile.

[Shroomz~>]

Valis, I figured that out from the readme file when i first tried it, but it still didn't seem to work. I'm thinking there must be something blocking Lame encoding on this system.

[valis]

Lame is completely independant of any system-level codecs (K-lite etc are completely irrelevant). For the all2lame, the lame.exe & lame_enc.dll are all that are requred & they're in that zip package.

Are you seeing any error log or anything? I can't think of a single thing that would actually 'prevent' lame encoding--especially on Xp sp2.

[valis]

Just fyi, I've updated that file to work for anyone that downloads it now (ini file points to local dir for lame)
http://kief.net/studio/all2lame.zip

Also here's a few razorlame versions I have:
http://kief.net/studio/RazorLame.zip (older version of lame, will check in a bit and put a newer version up too)

[astroman]

btw I just put a lame.dll into the Wavosaur program dir and it worked without problem (XP here)
thanks for mentioning it, Mark - that seems to be a neat little application

cheers, Tom

[Shroomz~>]

Are you seeing any error log or anything? I can't think of a single thing that would actually 'prevent' lame encoding--especially on Xp sp2.

The only error was that the lame library wasn't being found, even after pointing to it manually as per the instructions. I'm sure I followed the simple instructions correctly. There isn't really room for error.

Anyway, now it mysteriously works! Been busy with other things & gave up on it temporarily, but in the meantime AVG free was giving us some trouble, so uninstalled it & installed the latest version. Now lame is miraculously working without even the slightest effort to force it to.

[Shroomz~>]

btw I just put a lame.dll into the Wavosaur program dir and it worked without problem (XP here)
thanks for mentioning it, Mark - that seems to be a neat little application

cheers, Tom

Yeah, it seems really cool. I haven't spent much time with it yet tbh, but it certainly seems well coded in the 'more has been done with less' sense.

[valis]

Glad you got it working