LAME plugin is not working?

[melindamusil]

I am fairly new to Audacity so please bear with me...

Recently I downloaded audacity 1.2.6 for the computer at my church. This computer runs Windows 2000. It does NOT have any access to the internet- I installed audacity by downloading it on my computer and transferring it to the church computer via flash drive. I also installed (or at least attempted to install) the LAME plugin for MP3s.

Last Sunday we used Audacity to record the service and it seems to work beautifully. I got a lovely .wav file that works just fine. However, the LAME plugin is not working- Audacity asks for the location of lame_enc.dll, I locate and click on the file, and for a split second it seems to work but then it gives me an error.

I'm sorry that I don't have more information- since the computer is at church and I am at home, I don't have as much info as I would like. I'm only moderately concerned, since I can download NCH Switch to convert the wav to mp3. However of course I would like to understand the cause of the problem and if I can correct it.

So I just wanted to throw this question out there- are there any known errors with the lame plugin? Is it possible that the size of the recording is "too big" for lame to handle (it was about 45 minutes long and was 500mb as a wav)?

[kozikowski]

<<<are there any known errors with the lame plugin?>>>

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This almost always means you have a mismatch somewhere. I'm not as familiar with the Windows problems. I'm the Mac Elf. We may need to wait for one of the Windows Elves to arrive.

<<<I got a lovely .wav file that works just fine. >>>

That's excellent. Many people Save a Project and then get killed when Something Goes Wrong. They think they're saving a sound file.

We have people managing hours worth of capture. It makes our teeth hurt, but it seems to work. You need to be aware of the Windows 2GB and 4GB file limits. Also, I believe "WAV" will not support files over 4GB. If you're in 44100, 16-bit Stereo, each hour of uncompressed show takes up about 700MB. I routinely crank through two-hour shows with no problems (other than editing speed...).

Koz

[steve]

I locate and click on the file, and for a split second it seems to work but then it gives me an error.

As Koz said, probably not the right Lame version.
It will probably be easiest to just use Switch for now. The long awaited Audacity version 2 is due out very soon, so when it is released you can grab new copies of both Audacity and Lame.