Re-encoding MP3

[Jonny88]

Can anybody recommend a utility for resizing mp3 files (well) on suse. I used CDex for this under windows. Also, I'm currently ripping CDs with Kaudio creator, is there a better program for this?
Cheers

[Juan Pablo]

It depends on what you want, I personally like GRIP using cdda2wav as a backend, Sound Juicer is pretty good too

[Giles]

And in terms of resizing mp3 files, you'll want to use lame. If you're happy using the command line, just run

lame --decode FILENAME.mp3

which'll produce a wav file called FILENAME.mp3.wav, then

lame -b XXX FILENAME.mp3.wav

where XXX is the new bitrate you want. That'll produce FILENAME.mp3.wav.mp3, so you'll want to rename it to get rid of the surplus extensions.

If you don't want to use the command line, I'm sure there are some pretty front-ends around, but I dont use any, so I cant make a recommendation - search google.com/linux for "lame frontend" or something.

Giles

[Juan Pablo]

The problem with lame purely in the command line is that it remove the ID3 tag while encoding leaving you with a .mp3 file without an ID3 tag and this is not very nice if you are encoding for a low capacity ipod or something similar.

You will need a frontend if you want to preserve the ID3 tag, I like SoundKonverter *soundKonverter KDE-Apps.org but sometimes it doesn't work at all or gets very unstable. You can also use SoundConverter SoundConverter - GNOME Sound Conversion

[Jonny88]

Looking at that I think I might stick with KAudioCreator, as it looks like the most suited to me. Althought, I haven't tried out soundjuicer fully. As for resizing, Sound Convertor is the sort of thing I'm looking for, and it does the job I need, does anybody know of a more configurable program though? I'd prefer a little more control on the way the encoder is used (like the command line entry you can do in KAudio and CDex to give LAME exact instructions on what settings to use)

Thanks for the replies though, have got me off to a good start