LAME and MP3-related Links

^{^} Free (open source) software which supports or uses LAME:

Multiplatform:

FFmpeg An awesome collection of codecs (libavcodec) for pretty much all popular audio and video formats.
fre:ac - free audio converter Yet another CD ripper, encoder & converter that uses LAME for MP3 encoding.
Traverso, a cross-platform Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).
andromeda (PHP and ASP) Dynamically presents collections of mp3s as streaming web sites.
getID3() (PHP) PHP5 script that extracts useful information from MP3s & other multimedia file formats. Reads LAME tags.
lameenc (Python) A Python module to access the LAME encoding functions.
rip (Perl) Script for ripping and encoding.
VideoLAN A powerful multimedia player and streaming solution for Win32, Linux, MacOS, BeOS...
Audacity Open source multiplatform audio editor.
jRipper (Java) CD ripper frontend.

UNIX and UNIX-like (Linux, MacOS X, BSD, Solaris, etc.):

k3b An exceptional CD burning and ripping frontend for KDE.
ripperX GTK frontend for rippers and several encoders featuring CDDB support.
T.E.A.R. frontend to LAME, cdparanoia and CDDB.
XMCD CD Player with CDDB and ripping to MP3 and OGG.
DLame Perl script to distribute the LAME encoding task among several machines in a network.
Strec Stream recorder - A perl wrapper for dsproxy, realplayer and LAME.
TCDR a menu-driven console frontend for CD recording and ripping that uses LAME to rip CDs into MP3 files.
DarkIce Live streamer for IceCast.
LiveIce Real time streaming of mp3s. Works with IceCast.
MuSE A mixing, encoding and streaming engine.
Flash For Linux a Flash-like development library.
ABCDE "A Better CD Encoder" - Shell script to automatize ripping, encoding and tagging process.
Arson - a KDE fronted to CD burning and ripping tools.

MacOS Classic:

DropMP3 includes LAME binaries.

Windows:

LameDropXPd OggDrop style drag'n'drop frontend.
DVDx DVD to VCD/SVCD/AVI(XviD...) one-step converter.
LAMEX An activex control for LAME, and a GUI. Source code only, includes LAME.
m3w A live mp3 streamer for the WWW. Works with LAME, icecast, soundcard input.
out_lame Winamp output plug-in. Create MP3 files directly from Winamp! (this functionality is built-in since Winamp 5)
RazorLame The RazorBlade front end now supports LAME.
winLAME The only *nice* windows UI for LAME, according to the author :-)
bbc2mp3 a tool for saving BBC "Listen Again" programmes as MP3 files.
Aaron's Sonar Mp3 Patch a Cakewalk Sonar plugin written in AutoHotkey.

^{^} Free (closed source) software which supports or uses LAME:

WinAmp (Win) probably the most famous audio player. Can rip CDs and encode files using LAME.
Foobar2000 (Win) an audio player with spartan interface but lots of components and an almost fanatical focus on audio quality.
Audiograbber (Win) CD ripper/encoder.
EAC (Win) Exact Audio Copy: High quality CD ripper.
ZLURP (Win, Mac) Ripper and encoder. Includes LAME binaries.
Wavosaur (Win) Free audio editor and batch processor.
Batch MP3 Audio Converter (Win) is a featureful LAME batch encoding and decoding frontend.
Batch MP3 Audio Concatenator (Win) is a batch MP3 file merger.
Hard Disk Ogg (Win) a line-in recorder that can encode directly to MP3, among other formats.
WORM MP3 Encoder (Win) MP3 encoder based on LAME with reported improvements.
Batch Slideshow Creator (Win) a program that creates slide show videos from sequences of images. Can use LAME to add a soundtrack.
iTunes-LAME (Mac) Integrates LAME into Apple iTunes, as an alternative to the default (rather poor) encoder.
LameBrain (Mac) LAME frontend for MacOS X.
SecondSpin (Amiga) ripper & encoder.

^{^} Commercial software which supports or uses LAME:

WaveLab (Win) digital audio editing software.
Tracktion WaveForm (Win/Mac/Linux) a sequencer that uses LAME to export to MP3.
Goldwave (Win) audio editor.
dBpowerAMP (Win) Rip and encode to/from MP3, WMA, Vorbis and other audio formats.
UltraISO (Win) ISO CD image builder, editor and extractor.
J. River Media Center (Win) a media center software that supports LAME for ripping, transcoding, and gapless playback.
Acoustica (Win/Mac) digital audio editor
AudioEdit Deluxe (Win) sound editor.
Blaze Media Pro (Win) audio/video converter, editor, CD/DVD burner, and more.
Audio Ease BarbaBatch (Mac) batch audio file converter.
Amadeus (Mac) manipulate, create and analyze sounds.
Text Aloud MP3 (Win) converts text into speech.
TotalRecorder (Win) universal sound recoder.
eJay DJ Mix Station / Dance eJay (Win) a variety of DJ software, using Gogo.
Easy CD-DA Extractor (Win) ripper/encoder, includes LAME binaries.
MP3 Observer (Win) MP3 file-manager, ID3 tag editor, playlist creator and CD-archiving tool.
Visual MP3 (Win) jukebox software with Karaoke support.
Flash Digger Plus (Win) a Shockwave Flash decompiler.

^{^} LAME Binaries:

Windows:

RareWares offers several compiled LAME versions, including modified versions featuring special functionality.

Linux:

Ever since the MP3 patents expired, most Linux distros provide LAME from their online repositories or installation media. Otherwise, you can still locate installation packages at search engines such as pkgs.org or RPM search.

MacOS X:

KJams has a QuickTime component, which allows you to export audio from QuickTime and related apps to MP3 using LAME.
The FINK project provides LAME binaries compiled for MacOS X.

Etc.:

OpenCSW provides up-to-date binaries for several versions of Sun Solaris, both SPARC and x86 architectures.
Michael Perlz provides RPM packages with AIX binaries for several versions of LAME.
LAME Binary Distribution Point - outdated, but with compiles for several obscure systems like HP-UX, Irix, VMS, Tru64, etc.
For those of you that just won't give up on your Amiga, check The Amiga Alternative Audio Page or Amiga.SF.

^{^} Other MP3 Encoders:

George Kotorlis created a multithreaded version of LAME called fpMP3Enc based on his multicore framework Fiber Pool.
GOGO-no-coda MP3 encoder A forked version of LAME with many key routines rewritten in assembly (I.E, it's much faster). Uses the NASM assembler.
FhG MP3enc 3.1. The gold standard of encoders. All other encoders strive to sound this good. Demo version only encodes up to 30 seconds.
Update: according to several listening tests, LAME already surpassed FhG encoders in quality at most bitrates. :-)
FhG l3enc. The older brother of MP3enc. Very slow, but with quite decent quality.
FhG Fastencc this "free" encoder was created with libraries stolen from Fraunhofer. It is the faster brother of MP3enc, and also the only FhG encoder to offer VBR encoding. The stereo encoding is buggy and quality is not on par with MP3enc or LAME.
BladeEnc One of the first free encoders for Linux. Development stopped at version 0.94.2. Quality is not satisfactory. Compiles for a myriad of platforms are available here.
Xing MP3 encoder Good quality and very fast encoder. It is now the MP3 encoder used in Real Player, and has been recently released under an Open Source license (the speed tweaks are still limited to Windows though, because they are written in MASM)
QDesign MP3 encoder Horrible quality. Only listed here for completeness.
Shine is a featureless, but clean and readable MP3 encoder by Gabriel Bouvigne of LAME fame. Great as a starting point or learning tool. Also probably the only open source, fixed point math MP3 encoder.
dist10 - the MPEG (ISO) reference MP1/2/3 encoders. Bad quality, very slow and buggy. Good as a starting point, maybe?
ReallyRareWares is an online museum preserving obsolete and forgotten encoders for several audio formats, including old LAME versions and obscure MP3 encoders (most of these encoders are simple compiles of the dist10 MPEG reference sources with minimal tweaks, though).

^{^} MP3 Encoding Web Sites:

Hydrogenaudio - Public discussion forum focused on psychoacoustic audio compression, featuring an MP3 section.
MAZ Sound Encoders and other audio software.

^{^} General MP3 Web Sites:

Great site for technical information: www.mp3-tech.org
RareWares - audio coding-related download site featuring several audio formats besides MP3.
HydrogenAudio's Wiki is a repository of knowledge on audio-related matters.
HydrogenAudio's list of recommended LAME settings to produce best quality encodes at several bitrates.
cd-rw.org - The CD-R and MP3 resource
MPEG.ORG Many pointers and resources.

^{^} MP3 Related Software and Hardware:

mpg123 is a fast, featureful and accurate MP1/2/3 decoder that is actively developed and licensed under the LGPL.
A favorite Linux ripper: cdparanoia (also, GNU's libcdio, a multiplatform port of CDparanoia)
How to figure out which codec was used to make that mp3? Use EncSpot
The MAD decoder 24bit and licensed under the GPL
Maate looks like a very sophisticated MP3 analysis package. They also have a good description of MP3 frames.
A nice .wav file viewer and editor: sweep
mptrim: Trim silence and adjust volume of mp3 files.
mp3check: A program to check integrity of mp3 files.
Mpcut: X11 mp3 frame editor.
mp3asm: A program to cut and paste mp3 frames.
MP3Splitter: Win32 MP3 splitter with frame statistics.
jchopwave: Source code to a utility to split up .wav files.

^{^} MP3 Encoding directly from line-in:

mpegrec: Linux/Win32 line-in/mic MP3 recorder (requires LAME).
MixMP3 for Windows - by Dmitry Lesnikov
Messer for Windows - by Dariusz Sieradzki

^{^} Patent Information:

By April 23rd, 2017 all relevant software patents applying to MP3 compression technology had expired. MP3 is now considered to be a patent-free format, and licenses are not being collected anymore. Anyone is free to implement the specification and distribute the implementation.

Some information from the source themselves: Fraunhofer IIS
A more accurate portrayal of the situation can be found on www.mp3-tech.org

If you know of some interesting software supporting LAME that is not featured here, or if you spot a broken link, please contact the webmaster.
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