I am running XP and Aiudacity 2.0.3 installed from a downloaded exe file.
I am not familiar with Audacity but I am very familiar with mp3 manipulation
My collection is massive and almost solely 320 bit rate. This discussion is not about which bit rate is the best, I made my choice years ago and I stand by my decision as HD space is cheap.
I would however like to send some friend some music collections and I’d like to batch re-encode a large variety of mp3’s most of which are 320 but some 256 files also included. On my first attempt I opened a 200+ music folder in Audacity and it started opening new instances so fast it was like the old porn popups
Can I re-encode files from 320/256 down to 160 in Audacity and can I do them in batches?
I’ve never done any batch processing with Audacity, but it might be easier with a “conversion” program, rather than with an audio editor. Try [u]TAudioConverter[/u] (FREE!!!) or [u]XRECODE[/u] (The link is to a older FREE version of XRECODE.
XRECODE II is no longer free.)
With either of those programs, you can just drag-in a bunch of files and click “Start” (after configuring the output format and output location).
Problem solved. I found a software called AmoK ReEncoder and it took roughly 45 minutes to re-encode 220 songs roughly 2.2 gigs.All you need to do is point the software to Lame, set parameters and set an output file.
So far everything sounds good now I’ll compare the before and after waves with Audacity.
PS Thanks for the reply, this waiting for a mod to approve a post is crazy
Moderator note: “this waiting for a mod to approve a post” is to stop the forum from being inundated with spam - most of it advertising, but some obscene and some downright dangerous - leading to Trojans and other computer infections. The elves work hard to keep this a sane, safe, family-friendly corner of cyberspace. We have forum elves working around the various time-zones of the world so it doesn’t usually take too long for a post to get approved.
Can I re-encode files from 320/256 down to 160 in Audacity and can I do them in batches?
A couple of comments -
If you choose the ABR mode (average bit rate) You can set a target of 160kpbs and LAME will use a higher bitrate when needed and a lower bitrate when it’s less critical. I think that’s a 2-pass process so it might take a little longer, but it should result in better quality.*
Or you can try VBR V4. According to HydrogenAudio, that should give you a bitrate around 165kbps. But you are targeting quality, not bitrate/file size so the actual average bitrate for any given file will depend on the sound in that file.
Joint Stereo (the default setting) will also give you the best quality for any given bit rate.
As you probably know, you may not get the same quality transcoding from 320 to 160 as you would if you encode the original uncompressed audio directly to 160kbps.
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The quality of a higher bitrate setting (or a higher quality setting) is only “better” if you can hear a difference in a [u]blind ABX test[/u]. If 160kbps and 320 kbps both sound identical to the original uncompressed CD (which they sometimes do) you can’t say 320 is better…
