I don't encode music much. I rip all my music into mp3 format. I used musicmatch to encode some audio files but musicmatch made my computer wicked slow.
My favorite .mp3 encoder is LAME. It's the basis of mp3 and is probably integrated into most programs that don't suck. Yeah, I use the real tools
I love my good ol' Winamp 3 with SpyAmp Professional Skin. I've used it for years and it's great since it's a small program that loads quickly, has a great simple navigation, and more than enough features. Itunes is too bulky for me, and playing albums/playlists and such doesn't work well for me there.
Winamp's great. Uses minimal memory, and is very simple. I would recommend upgrading your Winamp 3 to 5.2 or whatever's newest, as some files can exploit security flaws in Winamp 3. Winamp 5 has the new skin when you set it up, juts goto preferences and select original skin. Then it's back to good old Winamp 3 again, except more secure.
But winamp rips it in m4a format which can be quite a hindrance. EDIT: unless you have purchaded Winamp pro
But winamp rips it in m4a format which can be quite a hindrance. EDIT: unless you have purchaded Winamp pro [/b][/quote] AACs (m4a) are a godsend to the digital music industry if more players would play them. You get better quality from smaller files than MP3s, plus, unlike MP3, its an open format (technically, royalties must be paid to the creater of the MP3 format, but obviously, they're not). The only flaw with AAC is that not that many players support them.
I don't encode into mp3, I rip at AAC file format. I love it for the size and also the quality. Eventually more audio players will play AAC file type music.
So is .AAC smaller than .MP3? If only my Nitrus supported .AAC [it only supports mp3 and wma I think]
AACs (m4a) are a godsend to the digital music industry if more players would play them. You get better quality from smaller files than MP3s, plus, unlike MP3, its an open format (technically, royalties must be paid to the creater of the MP3 format, but obviously, they're not). The only flaw with AAC is that not that many players support them. [/b][/quote] Yeah thats true.I prefer mp4 as well.It give better quality than mp3 files and my iPod supports it as well