Hi Scott. I use Goldwave for doing just the same task. I have my collection ripped in lossless WMA format but create copies from those masters in MP3 format at lower bit rates for using with portable players. Goldwave is shareware but can be used for free for some considerable time until you're ready to buy. It has a batch converter that will allow you to choose the lower bit rate and save to a separate folder. You can also adjust the volume of your files so they're all pretty much the same volume at the same time.
As mentioned, using a lower bit rate will lose some of the top and bottom end of the audio spectrum and will make the overall sound just a little more closed in but this is subjective based on what kind of player you'll be using to listen to the end result. 192kbps gives good results particularly with portable players and computers. If listening through a good hi-fi you might not want to go below that 320kbps or even go one step further and use a lossless format. Someone mentioned raising the bit rates on files during this thread. This would be a complete waste of time and space as once you've thrown away the music that makes up the higher bit rates, you can't get it back. Think of it in terms of a pint glass full of beer and an empty half pint glass. You can pour the pint into the half pint glass until it's full and then throw away the other half. Now if you pour that half pint back into the pint glass, the pint glass is as big as it was originally but you only got half the beer! Changing formats between MP3 and WMA or any other format is not advisable. Music on computers is nothing more than math. The computer has no comprehension of what it's encoding and how good it's sounding, it applies the same algorithm each time when encoding and decoding. However, each format will have it's own specific algorithm and these will decide which parts of music are kept or thrown away when encoding. Therefore, a WMA encoder may throw away part of the music that an MP3 encoder may keep and vice versa. The only exception to this is when converting from lossless WMA to MP3 as there was none of the audio spectrum thrown away when encoding to lossless WMA and so nothing to lose if converting to any other format to create a copy. Regards. Kevin E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Blanks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "PC audio discussion list. " <Pc-audio@pc-audio.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 4:31 PM Subject: converting mp3 from one bitrate to another > Hi folks, > > Forgive my ignorance about these things, but I am still new to the audio > side of things. I've begun ripping my cd's to 320kbps mp3. Now, I want to be > able to make smaller mp3's from these files, say 192kbps mp3's. I have > winamp pro, Windows Media Player, and real player 10 on my system. Will any > of these programs allow for the conversion? If not, is there a free program > for changing bitrate? And again, if there isn't a free alternative, what is > the best and of course, most accessible program. > > Thanks, > Scott > > > > _______________________________________________ > PC-Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... > http://www.pc-audio.org > > To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > This list is a service of MosenExplosion.com. To see what other lists we offer, visit us on the web at http://www.MosenExplosion.com _______________________________________________ PC-Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... http://www.pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This list is a service of MosenExplosion.com. To see what other lists we offer, visit us on the web at http://www.MosenExplosion.com
