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-
- % lame [options] inputfile [outputfile]
-
- For more options, just type:
- % lame --help
-
-
- =======================================================================
- Constant Bitrate Examples:
- =======================================================================
- fixed bit rate jstereo 128 kbps encoding:
- % lame sample.wav sample.mp3
-
- fixed bit rate jstereo 128 kbps encoding, higher quality: (recommended)
- % lame -h sample.wav sample.mp3
-
- Fast encode, low quality (no noise shaping)
- % lame -f sample.wav sample.mp3
-
- =======================================================================
- Variable Bitrate Examples:
- =======================================================================
- LAME has two types of variable bitrate: ABR and VBR.
-
- ABR is the type of variable bitrate encoding usually found in other
- MP3 encoders, Vorbis and AAC. The number of bits is determined by
- some metric (like perceptual entropy, or just the number of bits
- needed for a certain set of encoding tables), and it is not based on
- computing the actual encoding/quantization error. ABR is still in
- beta, but it should always give results equal or better than CBR:
-
- ABR: (--abr <x> means encode with an average bitrate of around x kbps)
- lame -h --abr 128 sample.wav sample.mp3
-
-
- VBR is a true variable bitrate mode which bases the number of bits for
- each frame on the measured quantization error relative to the
- estimated allowed masking. VBR is currently under heavy development.
- Right now it can often result in too much compression. I do not
- recommend using VBR. But if you must, you should at least use a
- minimum bitrate of 112 kbps. This will let LAME increase the bitrate
- for difficult-to-encode frames, but prevent LAME from being too
- aggressive for simple frames:
-
- Variable Bitrate (VBR): (use -V n to adjust quality/filesize)
- % lame -h -v -b 112 sample.wav sample.mp3
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- LOW BITRATES
- =======================================================================
- At lower bitrates, (like 24 kbps per channel), it is recommended that
- you use a 16 kHz sampling rate combined with lowpass filtering. LAME,
- as well as commercial encoders (FhG, Xing) will do this automatically.
- However, if you feel there is too much (or not enough) lowpass
- filtering, you may need to try different values of the lowpass cutoff
- and passband width (--resample, --lowpass and --lowpass-width options).
-
-
- =======================================================================
- STREAMING EXAMPLES
- =======================================================================
-
- % cat inputfile | lame [options] - - > output
-
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- Scripts are included (in the 'misc' subdirectory)
- to run lame on multiple files:
-
- bach script: mlame Run "mlame -?" for instructions.
- sh script: auenc Run auenc for instructions
- sh script: mugeco.sh
-
- Windows scripts:
- lame4dos.bat
- Lame.vbs (and an HTML frontend: LameGUI.html)
-
-
- =======================================================================
- options guide:
- =======================================================================
- These options are explained in detail below.
-
-
- Quality related:
-
- -m m/s/j/f/a mode selection
- -k disable all filtering
- -d allow block types to differ between channels
- --athonly ignore psy-model output, only use masking from the ATH
- --voice experimental voice encoding mode
- --noshort disable short blocks
- -q n Internal algorithm quality setting 0..9.
- 0 = slowest algorithms, but potentially highest quality
- 9 = faster algorithms, very poor quality
- -h same as -q2
- -f same as -q7
-
-
- Constant Bit Rate (CBR)
- -b n set bitrate (8, 16, 24, ..., 320)
- --freeformat produce a free format bitstream. User must also specify
- a bitrate with -b, between 8 and 640 kbps.
-
- Variable Bit Rate (VBR)
- -v VBR
- --vbr-old use old variable bitrate (VBR) routine (default)
- --vbr-new use new variable bitrate (VBR) routine
- -V n VBR quality setting (0=highest quality, 9=lowest)
- -b n specify a minimum allowed bitrate (8,16,24,...,320)
- -B n specify a maximum allowed bitrate (8,16,24,...,320)
- -F strictly enforce minimum bitrate
- -t disable Xing VBR informational tag
- --nohist disable display of VBR bitrate histogram
-
- --abr n specify average bitrate desired
-
-
- Experimental (undocumented): may work better or worse:
-
- -X n try different quality measures (when comparing quantizations)
- -Y
- -Z
-
-
- Operational:
-
- -r assume input file is raw PCM
- -s n input sampling frequency in kHz (for raw PCM input files)
- --resample n output sampling frequency
- --mp3input input file is an MP3 file. decode using mpglib/mpg123
- --ogginput input file is an Ogg Vorbis file. decode using libvorbis
- -x swap bytes of input file
- --scale <arg> multiply PCM input by <arg>
- -a downmix stereo input file to mono .mp3
- -e n/5/c de-emphasis
- -p add CRC error protection
- -c mark the encoded file as copyrighted
- -o mark the encoded file as a copy
- -S don't print progress report, VBR histogram
- -g run MP3x, the graphical frame analyzer
- --strictly-enforce-ISO comply as much as possible to ISO MPEG spec
-
- --decode assume input file is an mp3 file, and decode to wav.
- -t disable writing of WAV header when using --decode
- (decode to raw pcm, native endian format (use -x to swap))
-
- --ogg Encode using Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) instead of mp3.
-
-
-
- ID3 tagging:
-
- --tt <title> audio/song title (max 30 chars for version 1 tag)
- --ta <artist> audio/song artist (max 30 chars for version 1 tag)
- --tl <album> audio/song album (max 30 chars for version 1 tag)
- --ty <year> audio/song year of issue (1 to 9999)
- --tc <comment> user-defined text (max 30 chars for v1 tag, 28 for v1.1)
- --tn <track> audio/song track number (1 to 255, creates v1.1 tag)
- --tg <genre> audio/song genre (name or number in list)
- --add-id3v2 force addition of version 2 tag
- --id3v1-only add only a version 1 tag
- --id3v2-only add only a version 2 tag
- --space-id3v1 pad version 1 tag with spaces instead of nulls
- --pad-id3v2 pad version 2 tag with extra 128 bytes
- --genre-list print alphabetically sorted ID3 genre list and exit
-
- Note: A version 2 tag will NOT be added unless one of the input fields
- won't fit in a version 1 tag (e.g. the title string is longer than 30
- characters), or the '--add-id3v2' or '--id3v2-only' options are used,
- or output is redirected to stdout.
-
-
-
- options not yet described:
- --nores disable bit reservoir
- --noath disable ATH
- --athlower <n db> lower the ATH by n db.
- --athshort use only the ATH for short blocks
- --cwlimit <freq> specify range of tonality calculation
- --disptime
- --notemp disable temporal masking
-
- --lowpass
- --lowpass-width
- --highpass
- --highpass-width
-
-
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- Detailed description of all options in alphabetical order
- =======================================================================
-
-
- =======================================================================
- downmix
- =======================================================================
- -a
-
- mix the stereo input file to mono and encode as mono.
-
- This option is only needed in the case of raw PCM stereo input
- (because LAME cannot determine the number of channels in the input file).
- To encode a stereo PCM input file as mono, use "lame -m s -a"
-
- For WAV and AIFF input files, using "-m m" will always produce a
- mono .mp3 file from both mono and stereo input.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- average bitrate encoding (aka Safe VBR)
- =======================================================================
- --abr n
-
- turns on encoding with a targeted average bitrate of n kbps, allowing
- to use frames of different sizes. The allowed range of n is 8...320
- kbps, you can use any integer value within that range.
-
- It can be combined with the -b and -B switches like
- lame --abr 123 -b 64 -B 192 a.wav a.mp3
- which would limit the allowed frame sizes between 64 and 192 kbps.
-
- Using -B is NOT RECOMMENDED. A 128 kbps CBR bitstream, because of the
- bit reservoir, can actually have frames which use as many bits as a
- 320 kbps frame. VBR modes minimize the use of the bit reservoir, and
- thus need to allow 320 kbps frames to get the same flexability as CBR
- streams.
-
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- ATH only
- =======================================================================
- --athonly
-
- This option causes LAME to ignore the output of the psy-model and
- only use masking from the ATH. Might be useful at very high bitrates
- or for testing the ATH.
-
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- bitrate
- =======================================================================
- -b n
-
- For MPEG-1 (sampling frequencies of 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz)
- n = 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320
-
- For MPEG-2 and MPEG-2.5 (sampling frequencies of 8, 11.025,
- 12, 16, 22.05 and 24 kHz)
- n = 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160
-
-
- The bitrate to be used. Default is 128 kbps MPEG1, 80 kbps MPEG2.
-
- When used with variable bitrate encodings (VBR), -b specifies the
- minimum bitrate to use. This is useful to prevent LAME VBR from
- using some very aggressive compression which can cause some distortion
- due to small flaws in the psycho-acoustic model.
-
- =======================================================================
- max bitrate
- =======================================================================
- -B n
-
- see also option "-b" for allowed bitrates.
-
- Maximum allowed bitrate when using VBR.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- copyright
- =======================================================================
- -c
-
- mark the encoded file as copyrighted
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- block type control
- =======================================================================
- -d
-
- Allows the left and right channels to use different block types.
- Normally this is not allowed, only because the FhG encoder does
- not seem to allow it either. If anyone finds a sample where -d
- produces better results, let me know. (mt@sulaco.org)
-
-
- =======================================================================
- mpglib decode capability
- =======================================================================
- --decode
-
- This just uses LAME's mpg123/mpglib interface to decode an MP3 file to
- a wav file. The input file can be any input type supported by
- encoding, including .mp3 (layers 1, 2 and 3) and .ogg.
-
- If -t is used (disable wav header), LAME will output
- raw pcm in native endian format (use -x to swap bytes).
-
-
- =======================================================================
- de-emphasis
- =======================================================================
- -e n/5/c
-
- n = (none, default)
- 5 = 0/15 microseconds
- c = citt j.17
-
- All this does is set a flag in the bitstream. If you have a PCM
- input file where one of the above types of (obsolete) emphasis has
- been applied, you can set this flag in LAME. Then the mp3 decoder
- should de-emphasize the output during playback, although most
- decoders ignore this flag.
-
- A better solution would be to apply the de-emphasis with a standalone
- utility before encoding, and then encode without -e.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- fast mode
- =======================================================================
- -f
-
- Same as -q 7.
- disable noise shaping. Encodes faster, but lower quality.
- Psycho acoustics are computed for bit allocation and
- pre-echo detection.
-
- =======================================================================
- strictly enforce VBR minimum bitrate
- =======================================================================
- -F
-
- strictly enforce VBR minimum bitrate. With out this optioni, the minimum
- bitrate will be ignored for passages of analog silence.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- free format bitstreams
- =======================================================================
- --freeformat
-
- LAME will produce a fixed bitrate, free format bitstream.
- User must specify the desired bitrate in kbps, which can
- be any integer between 8 and 640.
-
- Not supported by most decoders. Decoders only required to support
- up to 320 kbps.
-
- Decoders which can handle free format:
- supports up to
- MAD 640 kbps
- "lame --decode" 550 kbps
- Freeamp: 440 kbps
- l3dec: 310 kbps
-
-
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- graphical frame analyzer
- =======================================================================
- -g
-
- run MP3x, the graphical frame analyzer analysis on the inputfile. The
- inputfile can be either an .mp3 file or uncompressed audio file. MP3x
- support must be compiled into LAME, and requires GTK 1.2.
- Documentation (outdated) is under the About pull down menu.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- high quality
- =======================================================================
- -h
-
- use some quality improvements. The same as -q 2.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- keep all frequencies
- =======================================================================
- -k
-
- keep all frequencies. (Disable all filters)
-
- LAME will automatically apply various types of lowpass filters. This
- is because the high frequency coefficients can take up a lot of bits
- that would be better used for lower, more important frequencies.
-
- -k will disable all lowpass filtering. Not recommended.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- Modes:
- =======================================================================
-
- -m m mono
- -m s stereo
- -m j joint stereo
- -m f forced mid/side stereo
- -m d dual (independent) channels
- -m i intensity stereo
- -m a auto
-
- MONO is the default mode for mono input files. If "-m m" is specified
- for a stereo input file, the two channels will be averaged into a mono
- signal.
-
- STEREO
-
- JOINT STEREO is the default mode for stereo files with fixed bitrates of
- 128 kbps or less. At higher fixed bitrates, the default is stereo.
- For VBR encoding, jstereo is the default for VBR_q >4, and stereo
- is the default for VBR_q <=4. You can override all of these defaults
- by specifing the mode on the command line.
-
- jstereo means the encoder can use (on a frame by frame bases) either
- regular stereo (just encode left and right channels independently)
- or mid/side stereo. In mid/side stereo, the mid (L+R) and side (L-R)
- channels are encoded, and more bits are allocated to the mid channel
- than the side channel. This will effectively increase the bandwidth
- if the signal does not have too much stereo separation.
-
- Mid/side stereo is basically a trick to increase bandwidth. At 128 kbps,
- it is clearly worth while. At higher bitrates it is less useful.
-
- Using mid/side stereo inappropriately can result in audible
- compression artifacts. To much switching between mid/side and regular
- stereo can also sound bad. To determine when to switch to mid/side
- stereo, LAME uses a much more sophisticated algorithm than that
- described in the ISO documentation.
-
- FORCED MID/SIDE STEREO forces all frames to be encoded mid/side stereo. It
- should only be used if you are sure every frame of the input file
- has very little stereo seperation.
-
- DUAL CHANNELS
-
- INTENSITY STEREO
-
- AUTO
-
- Auto select should select (if input is stereo)
- 8 kbps Mono
- 16- 96 kbps Intensity Stereo (if available, otherwise Joint Stereo)
- 112-128 kbps Joint Stereo -mj
- 160-192 kbps -mj with variable mid/side threshold
- 224-320 kbps Independent Stereo -ms
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- MP3 input file
- =======================================================================
- --mp3input
-
- Assume the input file is a MP3 file. LAME will decode the input file
- before re-encoding it. Since MP3 is a lossy format, this is
- not recommended in general. But it is useful for creating low bitrate
- mp3s from high bitrate mp3s. If the filename ends in ".mp3" LAME will assume
- it is an MP3. For stdin or MP3 files which dont end in .mp3 you need
- to use this switch.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- disable historgram display
- =======================================================================
- --nohist
-
- By default, LAME will display a bitrate histogram while producing
- VBR mp3 files. This will disable that feature.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- disable short blocks
- =======================================================================
- --noshort
-
- Encode all frames using long blocks.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- non-original
- =======================================================================
- -o
-
- mark the encoded file as a copy
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- Ogg Vorbis encoding
- =======================================================================
- --ogg
-
- Encode using the Ogg Vobis codec (using libvorbis) instead of
- LAME's internal mp3 codec.
-
- Most options related to the internal workings of the MP3 format
- are ignored when using "--ogg". But downsampling and stereo/mono
- options work.
-
- Currently (8/00) Ogg Vorbis only supports 5 modes, which range
- from approximately 128 kbps to 320 kbps. Based on the bitrate
- specified (or the -V n option), LAME will take its best guess
- as to which of the 5 Vorbis modes will give about close to the
- desired bitrate.
-
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- Ogg Vorbis input file
- =======================================================================
- --ogginput
-
- Assume the input file is an Ogg Vorbis file. Mostly useful
- with --decode for playing back .ogg files, or converting
- your .ogg collection to MP3 :-)
-
- If the filename ends in ".ogg" LAME will assume it is Ogg. For
- stdin or files which dont end in .ogg you need to use this switch.
-
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- CRC error protection
- =======================================================================
- -p
-
- turn on CRC error protection.
- Yes this really does work correctly in LAME. However, it takes
- 16 bits per frame that would otherwise be used for encoding.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- algorithm quality selection
- =======================================================================
- -q n
-
- Bitrate is of course the main influence on quality. The higher the
- bitrate, the higher the quality. But for a given bitrate,
- we have a choice of algorithms to determine the best
- scalefactors and huffman encoding (noise shaping).
-
- -q 0: use slowest & best possible version of all algorithms.
-
- -q 2: recommended. Same as -h. -q 0 and -q 1 are slow and may not produce
- significantly higher quality.
-
- -q 5: default value. Good speed, reasonable quality
-
- -q 7: same as -f. Very fast, ok quality. (psycho acoustics are
- used for pre-echo & M/S, but no noise shaping is done.
-
- -q 9: disables almost all algorithms including psy-model. poor quality.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- input file is raw pcm
- =======================================================================
- -r
-
- Assume the input file is raw pcm. Sampling rate and mono/stereo/jstereo
- must be specified on the command line. Without -r, LAME will perform
- several fseek()'s on the input file looking for WAV and AIFF headers.
-
- Not supported if LAME is compiled to use LIBSNDFILE.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- output sampling frequency in kHz
- =======================================================================
- --resample n
-
- where n = 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48
-
- Output sampling frequency. Resample the input if necessary.
-
- If not specified, LAME may sometimes resample automatically
- when faced with extreme compression conditions (like encoding
- a 44.1 kHz input file at 32 kbps). To disable this automatic
- resampling, you have to use --resamle to set the output samplerate
- equal to the inptu samplerate. In that case, LAME will not
- perform any extra computations.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- sampling frequency in kHz
- =======================================================================
- -s n
-
- where n = sampling rate in kHz.
-
- Required for raw PCM input files. Otherwise it will be determined
- from the header information in the input file.
-
- LAME will automatically resample the input file to one of the
- supported MP3 samplerates if necessary.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- silent operation
- =======================================================================
- -S
-
- don't print progress report
-
- =======================================================================
- scale
- =======================================================================
- --scale <arg>
-
- Scales input by <arg>. This just multiplies the PCM data
- (after it has been converted to floating point) by <arg>.
-
- <arg> > 1: increase volume
- <arg> = 1: no effect
- <arg> < 1: reduce volume
-
- Use with care, since most MP3 decoders will truncate data
- which decodes to values greater than 32768.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- strict ISO complience
- =======================================================================
- --strictly-enforce-ISO
-
- With this option, LAME will enforce the 7680 bit limitation on
- total frame size. This results in many wasted bits for
- high bitrate encodings.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- disable Xing VBR tag
- =======================================================================
- -t
-
- Disable writing of the Xing VBR Tag (only valid if -v flag is
- specified) This tag in embedded in frame 0 of the MP3 file. It lets
- VBR aware players correctly seek and compute playing times of VBR
- files.
-
- When '--decode' is specified (decode mp3 to wav), this flag will
- disable writing the WAV header. The output will be raw pcm,
- native endian format. Use -x to swap bytes.
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- variable bit rate (VBR)
- =======================================================================
- -v
-
- Turn on VBR. There are several ways you can use VBR. I personally
- like using VBR to get files slightly bigger than 128 kbps files, where
- the extra bits are used for the occasional difficult-to-encode frame.
- For this, try specifying a minimum bitrate to use with VBR:
-
- lame -v -b 112 input.wav output.mp3
-
- If the file is too big, use -V n, where n = 0...9
-
- lame -v -V n -b 112 input.wav output.mp3
-
-
- If you want to use VBR to get the maximum compression possible,
- and for this, you can try:
-
- lame -v input.wav output.mp3
- lame -v -V n input.wav output.mp3 (to vary quality/filesize)
-
-
-
-
-
-
- =======================================================================
- VBR quality setting
- =======================================================================
- -V n
-
- n = 0...9. Specifies the value of VBR_q.
- default = 4, highest quality = 0, smallest files = 9
-
-
-
- How is VBR_q used?
-
- The value of VBR_q influences two basic parameters of LAME's psycho
- acoustics:
- a) the absolute threshold of hearing
- b) the sample to noise ratio
- The lower the VBR_q value the lower the injected quantization noise
- will be.
-
- *NOTE* No psy-model is perfect, so there can often be distortion which
- is audible even though the psy-model claims it is not! Thus using a
- small minimum bitrate can result in some aggressive compression and
- audible distortion even with -V 0. Thus using -V 0 does not sound
- better than a fixed 256 kbps encoding. For example: suppose in the 1 kHz
- frequency band the psy-model claims 20 dB of distortion will not be
- detectable by the human ear, so LAME VBR-0 will compress that
- frequency band as much as possible and introduce at most 20 dB of
- distortion. Using a fixed 256 kbps framesize, LAME could end up
- introducing only 2 dB of distortion. If the psy-model was correct,
- they will both sound the same. If the psy-model was wrong, the VBR-0
- result can sound worse.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- voice encoding mode
- =======================================================================
- --voice
-
- An experimental voice encoding mode. Tuned for 44.1 kHz input files.
-
-
- =======================================================================
- swapbytes
- =======================================================================
- -x
-
- swap bytes in the input file (and output file when using --decode).
- For sorting out little endian/big endian type problems. If your
- encodings sound like static, try this first.
-