The MP3 Encoder is used to create MP3 files.
Simply select Riptastic! MP3 Encoder from the Encoder Selector before ripping.
The MP3 Encoder has several configuration options:
At right is the MP3 Encoder general configuration options.
Bit rate—The approximate bit rate used when writing MP3 files.
The "bit rate" simply means the average throughput used by a file.
The value is shown in kbps (kilobits per second).
For example, a one-minute file at 128kbps would be about 960,000 bytes
(128,000 bits/second * 60 seconds/minute * 1/8 bytes/bit).
Generally higher bit rates result in higher-quality and larger files,
while lower bit rates result in lower-quality but smaller files.
Compression ratio—This non-modifiable field is to give you an idea of the anticipated compression ratio for the given bit rate,
as compared to an uncompressed file.
Uncompressed CD digital audio has a bit rate of 1,411,200 bits per second.
So a bit rate of 128kbps would yield a compression ratio of roughly 11:1
(meaning the MP3 file would be roughly 11 times smaller in size than its respective uncompressed file).
The lower the bit rate, the higher the compression ratio (because low bit rates result in smaller files);
and the higher the bit rate, the lower the compression ratio (because high bit rates result in larger files).
Compression quality—This slider effectively controls the amount of time the MP3 Encoder will spend compressing.
A high quality setting results in higher-quality sound, but requires more time for encoding.
A low quality setting results in lower-quality sound, but encoding is faster.
Note that the compression quality setting generally does not affect the resulting file size or compression ratio,
but instead affects the compressed audio quality and the time required for encoding.
Advanced Settings—Displays the Advanced MP3 Encoder Options dialog described in detail below.
About—Shows information about the underlying Lame MP3 encoding engine.
Above is the MP3 Encoder advanced configuration options.
Mode—Selects the overall encoding mode to use, which can be one of the following:
Default—
Chooses Lame's default encoding mode, which is Variable Bit Rate.
Variable Bit Rate—
The MP3 Encoder tries to maintain the given quality in the whole file by choosing the optimal number of bits to spend for each part of your music.
The main advantage is that you are able to specify the quality level that you want to reach, but the final file size is unpredictable.
This option invokes Lame's newest VBR algorithm.
During the development of Lame 3.90, considerable tuning was done on this algorithm, and it is now considered to be on par with the original VBR algorithm.
It has the added advantage of being very fast (over twice as fast as the old algorithm).
Variable Bit Rate v3.90—
Use the oldest, most tested VBR algorithm.
It produces very good quality files, but is not very fast.
Average Bit Rate—
Maintains an average bit rate while using higher bit rates for the parts of your music that need more bits.
The result will be of higher quality than Constant Bit Rate, and the average file size will remain predictible, so this mode is highly recommended over Constant Bit Rate.
Constant Bit Rate—
The bit rate will be the same for the whole file.
Each part of the MP3 output will use the same number of bits.
Regardless of whether a particular musical passage is simple or complex, the MP3 Encoder will use the same bit rate, so the output quality is variable.
Complex parts will suffer a loss of quality as compared to simple parts.
However, the output size doesn't change and can be accurately predicted.
Average bit rate—Selects the average bit rate to use for encoding.
Please see the discussion of bit rate above.
Maximum bit rate—For non-constant bit rate modes, selects the highest allowed bit rate.
Minimum bit rate—For non-constant bit rate modes, selects the lowest allowed bit rate.
Stereo mode—Selects the stereo separation interpretation method to use, which can be one of the following:
Auto—
Chooses the most appropriate stereo separation mode automatically.
Joint (automatic)—
The MP3 Encoder will make use of a correlation between both channels.
The signal will be matrixed into a sum ("mid"), computed by L+R, and difference ("side") signal, computed by L-R, with more bits allocated to the mid channel.
This will effectively increase the bandwidth if the signal does not have too much stereo separation, thus giving a significant gain in encoding quality.
Joint (force always)—
The MP3 Encoder will force joint stereo on all frames.
It's slightly faster than joint (automatic), but it should be used only if you are sure that the input has very little stereo separation.
Independent (shared bandwidth)—
The MP3 Encoder makes no use of potentially existing correlations between the two input channels.
It can, however, negotiate the bit demand between both channels, i.e. give one channel more bits if the other contains silence or needs less bits because of a lower complexity.
Independent (split bandwidth)—
The two channels will be totally indenpendently encoded.
Each channel will have exactly half of the bitrate.
This mode is designed for applications like dual languages encoding (i.e., English in one channel and French in the other).
Using this encoding mode for regular stereo files will result in a lower quality encoding.
Enforce minimum bit rate—Check to enable enforcement of the minimum bit rate.
This may make files larger, but will make the playback bitrate more predictable.
This might be useful if your playback device or playback environment requires a minimum bit rate.
Allow bit rates > 320kbps—Check to enable encoding of files with bit rates greater than 320kbps.
Some playback environments may not support MP3 files with bit rates larger than 320kbps.
Disable psycho-acoustic processing—Check to turn off psycho-acoustic optimizations.
Roughly speaking, psycho-acoustic optimizations improve compression by analyzing the audio and removing those aural components that are too subtle for the human ear to discern.
Disabling psycho-acoustic processing will preserve the details of the original waveform more closely, but may increase file size or reduce overall quality.
Enable filtering—Check to enable the filtering options below.
Low-pass filter frequency—Determines the cutoff frequency for the low-pass filter, which attenuates high-frequency sounds.
Enter a numeric value manually or choose from one of the drop-down options.
Low-pass filter width—Determines the frequency range for the low-pass filter.
Enter a numeric value manually or choose from one of the drop-down options.
High-pass filter frequency—Determines the cutoff frequency for the high-pass filter, which attenuates low-frequency sounds.
Enter a numeric value manually or choose from one of the drop-down options.
High-pass filter width—Determines the frequency range for the high-pass filter.
Enter a numeric value manually or choose from one of the drop-down options.
Output sample rate—Specify the sample rate for output.
Copyright bit—Sets the MP3 output file's “copyright” flag.
Original bit—Sets the MP3 output file's “original” flag.
Extension bit—Sets the MP3 output file's “extension” flag.
Enable CRC checksum—Inserts checksum data into the MP3 file, which can help detect data corruption at the cost of reduced sound quality
(since bandwidth that would otherwise be used for sound data is instead consumed by the checksum).
Reset to Defaults—Resets all MP3 Encoder configuration options to their default settings.
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