How to make presets for winLAME

In this document will be explained how to make new presets for winLAME. This page is for LAME experts only. If you don't know about the internals of LAME, please use the standard presets that winLAME already has. They are already very good.

General file format

Presets are stored in winLAME in an XML file. The presets.xml file is installed and searched in one of the following locations, in this order:

{Documents and Settings-Folder}\{username}\Application Data\winLAME
{Documents and Settings-Folder}\All Users\Application Data\winLAME

The general format for the presets file looks like this:

<presets>
  <facility name="facility name">
    <preset name="preset name">

      <comment>
        preset comment visible in preset description
      </comment> 

      <value name="value name">value</value>
      <value name="value name">value</value>
      [... more values ...]

    </preset>

    [... more presets ...]
  </facility>

 [... more facilities ...]
</presets>

If the file is not valid or wellformed, or doesn't meet the structure shown above, the presets page won't appear in winLAME. If there is no list of presets for a specific facility (=output module), the presets page doesn't show up either, since there's no need to show the page.

This is a list of available facilities:

Facility Name Output Module

lame LAME mp3 Encoder

oggvorbis Ogg Vorbis Encoder

wave Wave Output

aac libfaac AAC Audio File Encoder

wma WMA Audio File Encoder

LAME mp3 Encoder

Here is a list of possible values, descriptions and their default values for the LAME encoder:

Value Name Description Default Value

lameNoGap when 1, LAME encodes multiple files as they were one, resulting in mp3 files that can be played back without gap. 0

lameWriteWaveHeader when 1, a RIFF Wave header is prepended to the encoded file; the extension changes to ".wav". 0

lameHideSettings when 1, winLAME hides all settings pages for LAME 0

lameEncodeQuality Encode quality; 0: fast, 1: standard, 2: high 1

lameMono when 1, input is encoded as mono 0

lameQualityOrBitrate decides between quality or bitrate settings; 0: bitrate mode, 1: quality mode 0

lameBitrate Bitrate for ABR or CBR Mode; in kbps; only used when lameQualityOrBitrate is set to 0 192

lameQuality Quality value, from 0 to 9; only used when lameQualityOrBitrate is set to 1 4

lameCBR when 1, CBR mode is used instead of ABR 0

lameVBRMode LAME VBR mode, 0: standard, 1: fast 0

Note that winLAME sometimes has other default values than the LAME command line tool.

Facility Name	Output Module
lame	LAME mp3 Encoder
oggvorbis	Ogg Vorbis Encoder
wave	Wave Output
aac	libfaac AAC Audio File Encoder
wma	WMA Audio File Encoder

Value Name	Description	Default Value
lameNoGap	when 1, LAME encodes multiple files as they were one, resulting in mp3 files that can be played back without gap.	0
lameWriteWaveHeader	when 1, a RIFF Wave header is prepended to the encoded file; the extension changes to ".wav".	0
lameHideSettings	when 1, winLAME hides all settings pages for LAME	0
lameEncodeQuality	Encode quality; 0: fast, 1: standard, 2: high	1
lameMono	when 1, input is encoded as mono	0
lameQualityOrBitrate	decides between quality or bitrate settings; 0: bitrate mode, 1: quality mode	0
lameBitrate	Bitrate for ABR or CBR Mode; in kbps; only used when lameQualityOrBitrate is set to 0	192
lameQuality	Quality value, from 0 to 9; only used when lameQualityOrBitrate is set to 1	4
lameCBR	when 1, CBR mode is used instead of ABR	0
lameVBRMode	LAME VBR mode, 0: standard, 1: fast	0