Basic easy use of WLAME.
WLAME is very simple to use when using the default and standard
usage. All you have to do is drag the .wav file on to the WLAME
icon, and away you go! The animation below demonstrates this.

In the above
demonstration, we see the test.wav file being dragged on to the
WLAME icon. This will result in a file called test.mp3, with a
192kbps Joint Stereo MP3 format.
The resultant window
looks like this:

Now that you can use the
basic features of WLAME, you may want to learn how to use the
advanced settings and operations. These have been described in the
section below.
Advanced usage:
WLAME may seem quite simple when using the basic operation mode,
but when using the advanced mode, you can see just how powerful
WLAME really is.
To use WLAME in advanced
mode, you need to understand how to use switches. This can be done
from the MS-Dos command line.
To start click
start->Run and type command, then click ok. If you have installed
WLAME into c:\wlame, then type "cd wlame" and press enter.
Now your ready to begin, the most basic operation could be typed in
like this:
"wlame test.wav"
This is the same as the
basic operation mode. However, if you want a different filename as
the output, to the input file then you'd type:
"wlame test.wav
newname.mp3"
That is really the basic
use of the WLAME advanced usage! Now you may want to use switches to
set different parameters for the MP3 file. For example to change the
bitrate, you'd simply type:
"wlame -b 128
test.wav newmane.mp3"
So all command line
entries should be typed as follows:
wlame
<switches> <in filename> <out filename>
Now that you
understand how commands are given to WLAME, here is a table of all
the switches and their usage.
Switch |
What
it does |
Usage |
--ABR |
Turns
on ABR mode. |
wlame
--ABR infile.wav outfile.mp3 |
-b<rate> |
Sets
the CBR/minimum bitrate. |
wlame
-b<rate> infile.wav outfile.mp3. Valid bitrates are:
32/40/48/56/64/80/96/112/128/160/192/224
/256/320
E.g/
"wlame -b224 infile.wav outfile.mp3" |
-B<rate> |
Sets
the VBR maximum bitrate. |
wlame
-b<rate> -B<rate> infile.wav outfile.mp3 |
-c |
Marks
the MP3 as copyrighted. |
wlame
-c infile.wav |
-GUI |
Emulates
the LAME screen output for LAME GUI's. |
wlame
-GUI infile.wav outfile.mp3
This is only required when being used with a LAME front-end
like razor lame. The usage of which has been described in the
frontend.txt file. |
-m<s|j|m|d> |
Sets
the output/input sound mode. |
wlame
-mj infile.wav outfile.mp3
If your input is stereo, then -ms and -mj simply set the
output mode. Files cannot be converted to mono at the moment,
so -md simply accepts the input as a mono file. The output
will not be correct if used with a stereo input file.
-md sets dual-channel. It is
not stereo! It can be used to provide sound in two different languages
down two separate channels, in mono. |
-o |
Marks
file as a copy. (Not orignal) |
wlame
-o infile.wav outfile.mp3 |
-p |
adds
CRC protection data to the file. Quality will be reduced
slightly, it used for streaming MP3's. |
wlame
-p inflie.wav outfile.mp3 |
-private |
Marks
the output file as private. |
wlame
-private infile.wav outfile.mp3 |
-PROG<1|2> |
Sets
the progress display. |
wlame
-PROG1 infile.wav outfile.mp3
-PROG1 is the standard progress
indicator.
-PROG2 is the statistics indicator. |
--resample
<rate> |
Sets
the output sample rate. |
wlame
--resample 32000 infile.wav outfile.mp3
|
-r |
Specifies
that the file is RAW. |
wlame
-r infile.raw outfile.mp3
This overides all default
settings, so you must specify the files' sample rate, and
sound mode. That is if the file is not 44.1Khz Stereo. |
-s<frequency> |
Sets
the samplerate of the input file. |
wlame
-s44100 infile.wav outfile.mp3
Valid samplerates for input
are:
32000/44100/48000. |
See
right |
--strictly-enforce-ISO |
Enforces
strict encoding to the ISO specifications. Sound quality will
be reduced slightly. |
-vbr |
Turns
variable bitrate on, using -b as the minimum rate, and -B as
the maximum rate. |
wlame
-vbr -b80 -B320 |
-V<0-9> |
Sets
the variable bitrate quality. Will also turn on VBR too. |
wlame
-V0 -b80 -B320
-V0 is the highest quality, and
-V9 is the lowest. |
As new switches are
developed, they shall be added to the online manual.
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