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LAME

LAME is a high quality MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) encoder licensed under the LGPL. It is considered the best MP3 encoder at mid-high bitrates and at VBR. Both quality and speed improvements are still happening, probably making LAME the only MP3 encoder still being actively...

Cost / License

  • Free
  • Open Source

Alerts

  • Discontinued

Platforms

  • Mac  compiled binaries can be obtained with a converter app or downloaded directly at [http://www.thalictrum.com/](http://www.thalictrum.com/)
  • Windows  compiled binaries can be obtained with a converter app or downloaded directly at [http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php](http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php)
  • Linux  Provided by distribution
  • BSD  Provided by distribution
  • Haiku
LAME alternatives  
Discontinued

The latest version (3.100) is from October 2017.

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AlternativeTo Category

Audio & Music

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Our users have written 1 comments and reviews about LAME, and it has gotten 312 likes

LAME was added to AlternativeTo by ruka_m on and this page was last updated . LAME is sometimes referred to as LAME Aint an MP3 Encoder. 

Comments and Reviews

   
kn
0

I tried every possible configuration and ripped my CD collection over and over with different settings. After all this years I suddenly became aware that LAME is very easy to configure:

lame -V2 input.wav output.mp3

That's it. "-V2" produces ˜190 kbs with so much quality that its impossible to tell input from output. This is tantamount to Banshee's quality setting VBR 7.

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What is LAME?

LAME is a high quality MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) encoder licensed under the LGPL. It is considered the best MP3 encoder at mid-high bitrates and at VBR. Both quality and speed improvements are still happening, probably making LAME the only MP3 encoder still being actively developed.

Mike Cheng started it as a patch against the 8hz-MP3 encoder sources. After some quality concerns raised by others, he decided to start from scratch based on the dist10 sources. His goal was only to speed up the dist10 sources, and leave its quality untouched. That branch (a patch against the reference sources) became Lame 2.0, and only on Lame 3.81 did we replaced of all dist10 code, making LAME no more only a patch.

The project quickly became a team project. Mike Cheng eventually left leadership and started working on tooLame, an MP2 encoder. Mark Taylor became leader and started pursuing increased quality in addition to better speed. He can be considered the initiator of the LAME project in its current form. He released version 3.0 featuring gpsycho, a new psychoacoustic model he developed.

In early 2003 Mark left project leadership, and since then the project has been lead through the cooperation of the active developers (currently 4 individuals).

Links where the latest compiled binaries are always available: http://lame.sourceforge.net/links.php#Binaries http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php