r3mix.net

well i figured i’d keep a running journal offline since it might be awhile until i get my DSL connection back up. i was just playing around with LAME and found that it had this new option (–r3mix). so i looked into it and there’s a site that discusses mp3 encoder quality. what i read here was very informative because they have basically taken the trouble out of finding the right encoding settings for people like myself, who can tell the difference between a 128kbit/s mp3 and one encoded at 192kbit/s. when i had encoded my entire CD collection over a year ago, i played it safe and had LAME set to encode at “–preset CD” which, among other things, encodes the mp3 with an average bitrate of 192. i also forced stereo mode because previously, i could hear the difference between a joint stereo mp3 and one in stereo. turns out that i was using a really shitty encoder (xing), which gave me the impression that joint stereo was crap. but after reading r3mix.net, it seems like it’s actually a good thing, if you use an encoder like LAME. so what this means to me is that i can encode using the –r3mix settings and get smaller mp3 file sizes, which is important to me since i’ve filled up my 20Gig Phatnoise cart. i just re-encoded Pearl Jam’s Riot Act and have already saved 20Megs. nice.