Name: iTunes-LAME Encoder
Rating: 4.35

Used to uses this before with Snow Leopard. In later Mac OS Versions it stopped working. Then I started to use XLD, what is great, too. No it works again with High Sierra and iTunes 12.7.3 on my Macbook Air! What a surprise! I have an older Lame version (3.97) installed and with that it works superp. Use this preset with Lame versions 3.97 and higher: -V2 --vbr-new --vcomment

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I've used/loved this for years. Just updated to Mountain Lion/iTunes 10. Now it hangs on "gathering information". Any help?

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Any update on this? Doesnt work with iTunes 9 or 10.

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Better with tags, but slower: I'm glad to see they've worked out the tagging issues. Now all the tags seem to make it to the encoded files, though some Unicode still gets mangled (accented Greek characters, so far, in my experience). Still, a definite improvement over 2.0.8, which just lost ~75% of tags! I do notice, though, that this version runs at about 40% the speed of 2.0.8 on my Core 2 Duo 2gHz Macbook. I thought maybe I had a PowerPC version, but Activity Monitor shows it as Intel. I used to get around 12x encoding with "--preset standard", and now I'm at 4.5x. Any ideas?

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This no longer works for me in iTunes 7.5 and Leopard on MacBook Pro. Not sure if it's an iTunes issue or a Leopard issue. Anyone got this working in these conditions?

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SUPERB!!! Finally this version of iTunes-Lame is working flawlessly with iTunes > 7.02. No lost tags anymore, no need to rewrite tags. Tags are already written as v2.4. Still recognizes own compiled lame binary. Just perfect. Works in Tiger and Leopard. Thank you so much!

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Are the tagging issues solved? (lost tag information with version 2.08 and iTunes > 7.02)

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where can I find the script that helps me open it from inside iTunes?

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iTunes-LAME is a fantastic program, but several months ago it started giving me problems. Would not import all of the tracks, or wouldn't put all the information (ID tags) into the tracks that would actually import. I think because iTunes seems to have an update every couple of weeks, it has changed enough that there are now compatability bugs with the last version of iTune-LAME... if it were brought up to date with the LATEST version of iTunes, the problem would probably be resolved. I MISS using LAME!

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http://sbooth.org/Max/ you won't need anything else. I once used to use iTunes-LAME... when it used to work.

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I used iTunes-LAME for years but I am having trouble for the first time. The AIF tracks have all the track information in them, including now, for the first time, Album Art. I am having trouble when the mp3 files are created, the ID3 tags are not making into most of the tracks. So the Album field is often blank, for example. My current theory that I cannot quite test at the moment is that the album art in the AIF file (which is a new feature of iTunes) is causing problems. Anybody else experienced this problem?

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Okay, I'm convinced. I had heard that the mp3 encoder for iTunes was not very good, and that LAME was essential. But I figured people were just being overly picky. Not so. I have one CD that is just not bearable using the iTunes encoder, even at 192. But have you ever tried to use LAME? Not exactly user friendly. The iTunes-LAME script is simple and it works; it's great! One question: this says it's v. 2.0.8, but when I open the script, it says v. 2.0.7. Am I missing something here?

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This is an essential script. I would gladly donate to keep the author in business and to see updates incorporating the latest preferred LAME builds. In the meantime, for those wishing to use iTunes-LAME 2.0.8 with LAME 3.97b2 (preferred build as of this writing), see: http://alpharuin.blogspot.com/2006/01/guide-itunes-lame-correct-way.html

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iTunes-LAME doesn't do one nice thing that iTunes does when using it as an encoder. If you're reencoding tracks already in your library, iTunes will preserve all the tags (including artwork) that aren't changed by the new CDDB lookup (including artwork) and then it will remove the original track. So you can easily rerip stuff at different rates without having to reenter tags and without having to remove the original tracks from your iTunes database. Also, I see horrible performance in the phase where it's updating id tags. I'm actually using a SMB share over the network, so it's probably doing individual file writes for each tag instead of batching hem together (just guessing here). It sort of negates any benefit I get to using multiple encoders and caching.

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is LAME still the best encoding option now that AAC is here?

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Love the Script, I use it all the time. 2 things I'd like to see in the next update though: 1) Being able to encode selected (highlighted) songs in a Playlist or the Library, instead of entire Playlists only. 2) Being able to encode directly from an Apple Lossless Audio encoded DVD-R. I make backups of my CD's and encode them in the Apple Lossless Audio format and burn them to DVD-R's. When I try to import these DVD-R's again using ITunes-LAME encoder, I keep getting the message, "Select a CD or File Playlist." It obviously doesn't recognize the encoding on the DVD-R. Overall it's one of the best iTunes scripts available and I would love to see these features implented in a future release.

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Writes files which have correct size and length but there is no data in them - just disk-space wasters. I have all the latest updates as of this post date.

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I would like to know how to retain album art for those songs that get encoded with LAME. Can you tell me how?

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#!/bin/sh if test $1 then for file in "$1"/*.aiff do lame -h -m s -b 192 "$file" "$(basename "$file" .aiff).mp3" done else echo >&2 "Usage: $(basename $0) /path/to/cd" fi

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I would like to know how to have a new playlist created when I encode...... I would love to have that feature but I don't see it.

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Just so great! Much faster with LAME 3.95 and the feature that creates a new playlist when u encode is back. I missed that one.

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I like the integration with iTunes, however there are a couple of bugs that will keep me using LameBrain for now. Firstly it only writes ID3v2 tags. There's no way to enable ID3v1 tags which sometimes are all that's needed. LameBrain writes ID3v1 and only ID3V2 if there is need. Secondly, for some bizarre reason it refused to name the "artist" folder it created according to the actual artist name. Instead it kept calling it ""Compilations". Again, no such trouble with LameBrain. I prefer the look of this app though as LameBrain isn't without bugs either, but these issues would need to be addressed :)

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Having lame encoding in iTunes is great. However there is ONE FATAL FLAW. If you don't have an internet connection, and import the tracks, you cannot get the CDDB info later on. If you use the built-in iTunes encoder this is possible... but not if you use iTunes-LAME! BUMMER. So get ready to type it all in by hand if you use this program without a net connection... *sigh*

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never use --r3mix, use --alt-preset standard. r3mix hasnt been used in years.

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Works flawlessly. The only thing that was keeping me from using iTunes was that it did not use Lame. Now iTunes can, and it is great because now ripping is sooooo easy. Use the lame flag "--r3mix" for brain-dead simple great-sounding rips.

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crack crack crack , that's what I hear. Nice GUI but it bugs a lot :-(

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Smoooooth with a capital smoo!

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This thing rawks! No copy of iTunes should be without it. I use this to downsample files to 56kbs for my shoutcast stream, and this 2.0.3 version will downsample any music file that iTunes can play. Get this script, and make a donation to this guy!

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Let's face it. A LAME '--alt-preset standard -Z' encode is going to beat out just about any other MP3 or AAC file you create, from any encoder. Sure, it's slower than the iTunes standard, but good things come to those who wait.

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