Thursday, 02 May 2019
What do I need to create my own MP3 files?
To convert conventional WAV files to MP3 files you need an MP3 encoder program. A large number of these programs are available for downloading on various web sites.
The BladeEnc encoder works very well. It is a DOS program. To see a list of the program’s command line options, after installation just type in the program’s name with no parameters or switches. Version 0.94.2 of BladeEnc operates very considerably faster than Version 0.72 did.
Because of the huge amount of processing required, encoders take longer than real-time to encode. In other words, a track lasting three and a half minutes might take more than seven minutes to encode on a 233MHz computer, although this time depends on the computer’s processor clock speed and whether other programs are running at the same time. BladeEnc allows you to specify its priority. High priority settings will make encoding run faster but will seriously impinge on the speed of other programs being run at the same time. Low priority settings will allow other programs to operate at near-normal speed but make encoding take considerably longer. BladeEnc allows a batch of files to be encoded automatically using a wildcard filespec such as *.wav, which is extremely useful. BladeEnc continuously displays the predicted remaining time for the conversion of the current track and the entire batch.
It would appear that DOS MP3 encoders are much faster than those which run under Windows. A Windows encoder that I tried took fifty minutes to process a three and half minute track compared with about seven minutes for BladeEnc V0.72. The same file took about three minutes to encode with BladeEnc V0.94.2.
After testing the encoded MP3 files, be sure to delete the corresponding WAV files from your hard disk, in order to reclaim huge amounts of space.
So far I have been unable to locate any programs which provide facilities for editing MP3 files (cropping, volume adjustment, etc) although this would seem an obvious requirement. Software supplied with almost all soundcards provides facilities for performing such operations on WAV files – consult your soundcard software printed or electronic documentation for details.
