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Anyone know of any decent free programs that will convert the bitrate on mp3s?

iTunes.

Why would you want to convert the bitrate of MP3s?

I don't know of any free software that allows you to convert the bitrate of mp3, but if you don't mind doing it in a roundabout way, go to http://www.mp3fe.com/ and download mp3-2-wav converter, then go to http://www.mgshareware.com/ and download FreeRIP.

Use mp3-2-wav converter to convert the mp3 to wav, then use "Convert Single Wav file" or "Convert Wav files" to convert the wav file to mp3 with the bitrate you want.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Why would you want to convert the bitrate of MP3s?

Perhaps it's because I want them all at 128 instead of 160 or 320 to save hard drive space... I always rip CDs at 128 anyway.

Yuri Prime wrote:Perhaps it's because I want them all at 128 instead of 160 or 320 to save hard drive space... I always rip CDs at 128 anyway.

In that case I recommend you get a program to convert the bitrate.

You may as well re-rip your MP3s. Recompressing them will suck.

I prefer my mp3s to have at least a 160 bitrate. 128's fine, but any lower than that and it sounds like a fucking telephone! If ya got the hard drive space, get the Good Stuff!

Use LAME's "--alt-preset standard" mode instead of specifying a bitrate like 160 or something.

phongn wrote:You may as well re-rip your MP3s. Recompressing them will suck.

Exactly. All you're doing is taking an already compressed file and uncompressing it. This won't change the audio quality all that much, but it will sound HORRIBLE when you re-compress it.

Use CDex to rip your music to whatever bitrate you want. Its by far the best ripping utility I've ever encountered....and its open source! (ie: Free)

Bah. Use Exact Audio Copy instead.

Use Ogg Vorbis. Good compression yet retaining quality...

http://www.vorbis.com/

LAME --alt-preset standard is just as good as Ogg Vorbis and more compatible.

Isn't MP3 compression patented in the US, meaning that encoding them with LAME or other OSS is illegal (not that anyone gives a fucking damn).

You can use LAME to your heart's content, AFAIK, but you're not actually supposed to distribute it in the United States (and as such, many of the binary sites are in Russia). It's also patented in most of the Western world, AFAIK.

I mostly use Monkey's Audio, though have considered switching to FLAC in the past, but its compression is somewhat inferior to APE.

If filesize reduction is required, then VBR encoding may be a good idea. Theoretically, a VBR encoding will be of better quality than a CBR encoding of the same size.

Yuri Prime wrote:

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Why would you want to convert the bitrate of MP3s?

Perhaps it's because I want them all at 128 instead of 160 or 320 to save hard drive space... I always rip CDs at 128 anyway.

Dude, I think you need to invest in better speakers/headphones, because I personally can't stand 128... too low quality for me.

Uraniun235 wrote:Dude, I think you need to invest in better speakers/headphones, because I personally can't stand 128... too low quality for me.

Tell that to half of people on the kazaa network.... Bunch of damned idiots! Why do so few people encode at 192 or above?

Most people on Kazaa seem to use the Xing MP3 codec, which is extremely fast. It also sounds very poor (160 LAME CBR/ABR probably could beat out 192 Xing CBR).