# LAME Basic Settings

This is the basic settings page for the LAME encoder. All major mp3 encoding settings are listed here.

### Bitrate Settings

constant Bitrate: LAME creates an output mp3 in which every frame has a constant bitrate.

average Bitrate: LAME chooses a bitrate in the near of the mean bitrate for every frame, taking into account how many bits it takes to encode a particular frame.

variable Bitrate: lets LAME encode every frame with a bitrate that stays between the minimum and maximum bitrate.

Bitrate / mean Bitrate / min. & max. Bitrate: lets you set the bitrate or bitrate range the LAME encoder should use.

free format Bitstream: normally LAME produces a mp3 bitstream where every frame has a certain bitrate. To override this and use any bitrate you wish, check this box. Only available for constant bitrate (CBR).
Note: most portable mp3 player cannot handle a free format bitstream mp3 file!

### Other Settings

MPEG Type / Output Frequency: lets you specify the output frequency of the mp3 file. As this frequency is tied to the MPEG type, you also may get another MPEG type.
Note: some players cannot handle MPEG2.5!
Note: choosing 48 kHz for ripped CD wave files (which normally have 44.1kHz sample rate) slows down encoding and decreases quality, due to resampling.

Algorithm Quality: lets you choose the quality (and speed) of the LAME encoder. At bigger quality values, some algorithms are switched off, which results in higher speed, but produces less quality. If unsure what to take, choose algorithm quality 2, the default.

Channel Mode: lets you choose the channel mode:
Stereo: every channel is encoded separately, although LAME may spend more bits on a harder to encode channel.
Joint Stereo: the two channels are compared and only differences in both channels are encoded. This saves some bits that can be used for better quality. Recommended when the audio file has little stereo separation.
Force Mid/Side: this forces LAME to use Joint Stereo on every frame in the mp3 file, even when it may not make sense.
Mono: LAME mixes all channels to one and only encodes this one.

nogap encoding: enables LAME's gapless encoding feature. Files encoded this way can be played back without a hearable gap, which is useful e.g. for continuous-mix-CD's. For Winamp 2.x a gapless output plugin is needed. Winamp 3.x supports gapless playback natively.

hide advanced settings: hides advanced settings pages. Most of the time these settings are already good enough, so these are skipped when this option is checked.

prepend RIFF WAVE Header: when checked, winLAME writes a RIFF WAVE Header before the mp3 file, the output file extension is ".wav". The resulting mp3 compressed wave file can be used in various applications (such as VirtualDub) that only can use wave files for input.

Possible next pages: LAME Advanced Settings, LAME VBR Settings, Encode Page.

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