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Topic: [Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings (Read 309095 times) previous topic - next topic
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[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #200 –
Quote from: JayShoemaker on
You can add Tag&Rename to the Tagging Software section...

Very good software!

http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm


thanks, you & EmSiV cause work for moderators to split these 3 posts from the sticky topic to the discussion topic.
What have you thought replying here, when nobody replies here, and there are 2 big red links "discussion has been moved here and here" ?!

As Tag&Rename isn't freeware, it costs around 24 bucks, I am reluctant to add it (though I'd do it, when somebody comments knowledgeful on my following thoughts), as there are excellent free alternatives, Speeks Front end etc., and:
the more uncommented alternatives, the more the newbie gets irritated. This should be a straight forward List with best filtered settings/software. Eg., we don't mention or recommend MP3-Fraunhofer, which might (have been) be at certain settings competitive to comparable MP3-Lame, as Lame-Mp3 covers it.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #201 –
Another good, powerful (and free!) tagging & renaming tool: The Godfather ( http://users.otenet.gr/~jtcliper/tgf/ )

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #202 –
hello, 
when i read all the material, in the initial post, i got the impression that the insane preset - 320 kbps CBR matches quality with my current custom preset for Lame encoder: 3.97b2, VBR - OLD, V0, Q=0, kbps range: 192 - 320, but produces  larger file.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #203 –
Quote from: DJDiabolik on
hello, 
when i read all the material, in the initial post, i got the impression that the insane preset - 320 kbps CBR matches quality with my current custom preset for Lame encoder: 3.97b2, VBR - OLD, V0, Q=0, kbps range: 192 - 320, but produces  larger file.


ABX, ABX!! The two settings you mention are completely different.
Reason is immortal, all else mortal
- Pythagoras

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #204 –
Quote from: DJDiabolik on
hello, 
when i read all the material, in the initial post, i got the impression that the insane preset - 320 kbps CBR matches quality with my current custom preset for Lame encoder: 3.97b2, VBR - OLD, V0, Q=0, kbps range: 192 - 320, but produces  larger file.


That's not the case. One of them is a (quite braindead) VBR setting, the other CBR.
It's not recommended to limit the range of bitrates when using VBR.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #205 –
to: audiomars
it was ABX test belive me. it was quite a test. 
when i made the tests, i was listening to the files lot of times each, on various of players and speakers. i even made different combinations with different players and different speakers. 
They are different yes but i'm interested of filesize and quality. for me it is not important is the algorithm CBR or VBR. Yes theoritically CBR 320 should produce the best quality that mp3 format can achive. But if you put it to practice conditions, 320 CBR makes some improovements that you cannot hear. if you cannot hear it than why it must be there to increase file size without hearable benefit?

to:
Dev0
First i made tests with wider range 112 - 320, but while i was monitoring the kbps i saw that only once kbps fall to 192, on one single file only, and on all the other files the kpbs NEVER fall under 224. this is the reason to repeat the tests with 192 as lowest value. usually i use 112 - 320 as range.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #206 –
Quote
it was ABX test belive me. it was quite a test. 
when i made the tests, i was listening to the files lot of times each, on various of players and speakers. i even made different combinations with different players and different speakers.
That doesn't sound like an ABX to me. More like comparison.

Edit: typo
//From the barren lands of the Northsmen

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #207 –
actually Digital, i couldn't find the word, that why i wrote abx. my bad. You are right i compared them to see the quality loss and file size. it was quite a comparison. different players, different speakers and on each player i tested all speakers, so i can eliminate the differencies of players and speakers.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #208 –
DJDiabolik wrote
>it was ABX test belive me. it was quite a test.

Without the ABX logs and links to the samples it sounds more like quite a bunch of BS.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #209 –
A new version of LAME has been released. 3.97b3... is this the new recommended version?

EDIT: I actually wanted to post to this thread...
lame -V 0

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #210 –
Quote
A new version of LAME has been released. 3.97b3...
 

3.97b3? Are you sure? Where did you find that one?

Edit: quote problems:-)
//From the barren lands of the Northsmen

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #212 –
psycho's right:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...lease_id=440772

Changes: Just a small fix over beta2 regarding a potential problem with some specific signals (like trumpet)

john33 :-] ?

EDIT: Paging john33 ;-]
WavPack 5.7.0 -b384hx6cmv / qaac64 2.80 -V 100

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #213 –
Cool, so now it's up to beta 3 status.  Maybe sometime this decade, ver. 3.97 will become an official release (i.e. lose the "beta").

I'll probably wait at least a month or so before upgrading.  Or better yet, wait until Hydrogenaudio officially recommends 3.97b3 over 3.97b2.

Thanks for the heads-up, psycho.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #214 –
Can I bring up a very old issue.

The recommended settings page makes a very bold claim...

Quote
Target is always highest possible quality under given circumstances like target bitrate range or usage.

So we only deal with the famous MP3-Encoder LAME, because LAME offers best quality of all MP3-Encoders, even better than eg. the Fraunhofer MP3-Encoder.


I needed to demonstrate the quality of mp3 @ 96kbps last week.

I grabbed the edit of various material which I used years back for demonstrating ReplayGain. I edited it down to 1 minute, and resampled to 32kHz in Cool Edit Pro.

I encoded it using Lame 3.97b2 @ 96kbps CBR. It didn't sound very good (shock!). I tried a low pass filter @ 14.5kHz - it helped a bit.

I dug out an old FhG mp3 encoder for Cool Edit, and tried that. It sounded better. (ABX 8/8, though it wasn't really worth it at 96kbps!). I used the FhG file to demonstrate what mp3 could do at 96kbps.

I can upload the files, but I don't think the content matters that much. It's the bitrate, and using CBR. (IIRC FhG has the advantage of using intensity stereo, while lame doesn't?).


Just a small point. It makes us sound rather arrogant (and possibly incorrect, judging from what I found) to claim that Lame is better for everything always.

YMMV. I'd encourage someone else to try it. I'm sure there are plenty of releases of FhG's FastEnc out there to play with!

Cheers,
David.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #215 –
Very good point: about two 1.5 years ago I was converting FLAC's (decompressing and recompressing, not transcoding) to LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset cbr 96 for my Nokia mobile (a 6230 if I remember correctly) and on (quite) a few occasions files produced with MusicMatch Jukebox sounded slightly better (mainly alternative and metal), switched to EAC, WavPack and HE-AAC now, don't have those files anymore and can't therefore provide any ABX info, sorry.
WavPack 5.7.0 -b384hx6cmv / qaac64 2.80 -V 100

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #216 –
Lame does not have any specific code to deal with low bitrates. So on 'mid low" (70-100kbps) it can sometimes sound good, but it is likely to fail on some samples. At very low bitrates, it will fail badly in most cases.
FhG encoders have some specific handling for low bitrates.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #217 –
Quote from: Gabriel on
Lame does not have any specific code to deal with low bitrates. So on 'mid low" (70-100kbps) it can sometimes sound good, but it is likely to fail on some samples. At very low bitrates, it will fail badly in most cases.
FhG encoders have some specific handling for low bitrates.
Yup, further proof of 2Bdecided's point's correctness.
Not a knock on LAME to any extent anyway: my (decently trained ears) simply love --preset fast extreme :]] !
WavPack 5.7.0 -b384hx6cmv / qaac64 2.80 -V 100

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #218 –
Quote from: DARcode on
Very good point: about two 1.5 years ago I was converting FLAC's (decompressing and recompressing, not transcoding) to LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset cbr 96 for my Nokia mobile (a 6230 if I remember correctly) and on (quite) a few occasions files produced with MusicMatch Jukebox sounded slightly better (mainly alternative and metal), switched to EAC, WavPack and HE-AAC now, don't have those files anymore and can't therefore provide any ABX info, sorry.

I'm going slightly off topic here.  When you said "about two 1.5 years ago", is that a fancy way of saying "about 3 years ago"? 

Getting back on topic, I haven't tried experimenting with lower bitrate songs.  I guess the conclusion is to use a LAME alternative MP3 encoder for those audio sources.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #219 –
Quote from: beowulf7 on
Cool, so now it's up to beta 3 status.  Maybe sometime this decade, ver. 3.97 will become an official release (i.e. lose the "beta").

I'll probably wait at least a month or so before upgrading.  Or better yet, wait until Hydrogenaudio officially recommends 3.97b3 over 3.97b2.

Thanks for the heads-up, psycho.

Yeah. Nice to see free softwares leaving out those "beta"s

Like for instance, Aoyumi recently produced "aoTuV Release 1". Granted, it is identical to "beta 4.51", with the sole difference being the vendor tag. But it's an improvement anyways

Hopefully with 3.98alpha will somehow graduates to 4.0RC ... or even full-fledged 4.0

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #221 –
4.0 if i remember correctly is a completely different encoder. It's a different branch with mostly rewritten code all over the place. Thus, it has nothing to do with 3.9x.

- Lyx
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #222 –
So 4.x will eventually be superior to 3.x?

For now, I'm just waiting for Hydrogenaudio to give the thumbs up to 3.97b3.

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #223 –
Quote from: Gabriel on
Lame does not have any specific code to deal with low bitrates. So on 'mid low" (70-100kbps) it can sometimes sound good, but it is likely to fail on some samples. At very low bitrates, it will fail badly in most cases.
FhG encoders have some specific handling for low bitrates.


This is an honest (and definitive, "from the horse's mouth") answer.

Can someone with access update the "recommended settings" thread please?

Cheers,
David.
 

[Discussion] List of recommended LAME settings

Reply #224 –
Quote from: Gabriel on
Lame does not have any specific code to deal with low bitrates. So on 'mid low" (70-100kbps) it can sometimes sound good, but it is likely to fail on some samples. At very low bitrates, it will fail badly in most cases.
FhG encoders have some specific handling for low bitrates.
Guruboolez tried a lot of samples with various MP3 encoders at ~96 kbps here:
http://forum.hardware.fr/hardwarefr/VideoS...jet-84950-1.htm

LAME was clearly the best MP3 encoder and he chose it to be used in the test.


Personally, I have tested WMP10 FhG "CBR 48 kbps", Helix "CBR 48 kbps" and LAME "--preset 48" with a few samples. On average all were equally bad. Only this sample that has extreme stereo separation showed LAME to be clearly worse than the two others:

Code: [Select]
ABC/HR for Java, Version 0.5b, 07 june 2006
Testname: twist&shout mp3

Tester: Alex B

1R = E:\test\48kbps\09\MP3Helix - 09 - twist_shout.wav
2L = E:\test\48kbps\MP3FhG - 09 - twist_shout.wav
3R = E:\test\\48kbps\MP3Lame - 09 - twist_shout.wav

---------------------------------------
General Comments: no 3 is clearly the worst. The other two are just very bad.
---------------------------------------
1R File: E:\test\ogg\Test\09\MP3Helix - 09 - twist_shout.wav
1R Rating: 1.5
1R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
2L File: E:\test\ogg\Test\09\MP3FhG - 09 - twist_shout.wav
2L Rating: 1.5
2L Comment: 
---------------------------------------
3R File: E:\test\ogg\Test\09\MP3Lame - 09 - twist_shout.wav
3R Rating: 1.0
3R Comment: 
---------------------------------------

ABX Results:

The used settings were these:

FhG (WMP10): "default 48 kbps CBR"
Helix MP3 (the latest binary from Rarewares): "default 48 kbps CBR" (If I recall correctly I couldn't make Helix to encode 48 kbps VBR)
LAME 3.97b2: --preset 48

The tested samples are from Gabriel's recent 48 kbps test.


The five other samples that I tried didn't show as clear differences:

Code: [Select]
ABC/HR for Java, Version 0.5b, 07 june 2006
Testname: chanchanT mp3

Tester: Alex B

1R = E:\test\01\MP3Lame - 01 - chanchanT.wav
2R = E:\test\01\MP3FhG - 01 - chanchanT.wav
3L = E:\test\01\MP3Helix - 01 - chanchanT.wav

---------------------------------------
General Comments: 
---------------------------------------
1R File: E:\test\01\MP3Lame - 01 - chanchanT.wav
1R Rating: 1.4
1R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
2R File: E:\test\01\MP3FhG - 01 - chanchanT.wav
2R Rating: 1.6
2R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
3L File: E:\test\01\MP3Helix - 01 - chanchanT.wav
3L Rating: 1.2
3L Comment: 
---------------------------------------

ABX Results:
Code: [Select]
ABC/HR for Java, Version 0.5b, 07 june 2006
Testname: fools mp3

Tester: Alex B

1R = E:\test\02\MP3Helix - 02 - fools.wav
2R = E:\test\02\MP3Lame - 02 - fools.wav
3R = E:\test\02\MP3FhG - 02 - fools.wav

---------------------------------------
General Comments: 1 is a bit better with the "breaking glass sound"

1 and 2 are better with voice.

3 is worst

all are bad.
---------------------------------------
1R File: E:\test\02\MP3Helix - 02 - fools.wav
1R Rating: 1.3
1R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
2R File: E:\test\02\MP3Lame - 02 - fools.wav
2R Rating: 1.2
2R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
3R File: E:\test\02\MP3FhG - 02 - fools.wav
3R Rating: 1.1
3R Comment: 
---------------------------------------

ABX Results:
Code: [Select]
ABC/HR for Java, Version 0.5b, 07 june 2006
Testname: kraftwerk mp3

Tester: Alex B

1R = E:\test\03\MP3Helix - 03 - kraftwerk.wav
2R = E:\test\03\MP3Lame - 03 - kraftwerk.wav
3R = E:\test\03\MP3FhG - 03 - kraftwerk.wav

---------------------------------------
General Comments: 
---------------------------------------
1R File: E:\test\03\MP3Helix - 03 - kraftwerk.wav
1R Rating: 1.4
1R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
2R File: E:\test\03\MP3Lame - 03 - kraftwerk.wav
2R Rating: 1.3
2R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
3R File: E:\test\03\MP3FhG - 03 - kraftwerk.wav
3R Rating: 1.2
3R Comment: 
---------------------------------------

ABX Results:
Code: [Select]
ABC/HR for Java, Version 0.5b, 07 june 2006
Testname: sandman mp3

Tester: Alex B

1R = E:\test\06\MP3Helix - 06 - sandman.wav
2R = E:\test\06\MP3FhG - 06 - sandman.wav
3R = E:\test\06\MP3Lame - 06 - sandman.wav

---------------------------------------
General Comments: 
---------------------------------------
1R File: E:\test\06\MP3Helix - 06 - sandman.wav
1R Rating: 1.1
1R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
2R File: E:\test\06\MP3FhG - 06 - sandman.wav
2R Rating: 1.2
2R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
3R File: E:\test\06\MP3Lame - 06 - sandman.wav
3R Rating: 1.0
3R Comment: 
---------------------------------------

ABX Results:
Code: [Select]
ABC/HR for Java, Version 0.5b, 07 june 2006
Testname: Stravinsky_Capriccio mp3

Tester: Alex B

1R = E:\test\07\MP3Lame - 07 - Stravinsky_Capriccio.wav
2R = E:\test\07\MP3Helix - 07 - Stravinsky_Capriccio.wav
3R = E:\test\07\MP3FhG - 07 - Stravinsky_Capriccio.wav

---------------------------------------
General Comments: 
---------------------------------------
1R File: E:\test\07\MP3Lame - 07 - Stravinsky_Capriccio.wav
1R Rating: 1.1
1R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
2R File: E:\test\07\MP3Helix - 07 - Stravinsky_Capriccio.wav
2R Rating: 1.1
2R Comment: 
---------------------------------------
3R File: E:\test\07\MP3FhG - 07 - Stravinsky_Capriccio.wav
3R Rating: 1.1
3R Comment: 
---------------------------------------

ABX Results:

I tested these because a web site needed to publish some audio files at about 48 kbps MP3. We ended up using LAME ABR in mono mode because the stereo files were simply too bad.


[!--sizeo:1--][span style=\"font-size:8pt;line-height:100%\"][!--/sizeo--]Edit: typo[/size]