Improvements to LAME encoder integration within Winamp

[nbinns]

Improvements to LAME encoder integration within Winamp

The main reason I bought Winamp Pro 5.541 is that it uses the acclaimed LAME MP3 encoder and makes use of the Gracenote CDDB database for obtaining track data for tagging. However, I have a few suggestions for improving the integration of LAME within Winamp.

1. Please could you adopt the LAME user interface guidelines as suggested by its developers (http://lame.sourceforge.net/lame_ui_example.php), as this would make adjusting the various settings easier to understand - currently Winamp seems to have a confusing number of settings such as Quality presets, VBR Q values and Modes with several different types of VBR. It's not clear how all these settings relate to each other, or whether certain settings are ignore based on the choice of other settings. The default LAME VBR setting is now --vbr-new.

2. Please could you turn on the LAME option switch (--replaygain-fast) that adds track Replay Gain to the LAME tag as seen by a tool such as LameTag (http://phwip.wordpress.com/home/audio/). This is the default setting for the encoder. I assume Winamp has been configured to use --noreplaygain as there is no RG track gain information stored in the LAME Tag.

3. Please could you provide official Winamp up-to-date compiled LAME encoder binaries on your website, so that it's possible to use Winamp with the latest non-beta release of LAME without having to wait for a new Winamp update. I assume it would just be a matter of replacing (using Windows Explorer) the current installed copy of lame_enc.dll in the Winamp\Plugins directory with an updated version.

4. Finally, would it be possible to provide an 'Advanced' option for the LAME encoder that would allow knowledgeable users to adjust/apply most of LAME's options. I would envisage a simple text box that would allow the various LAME option switches to be applied. I understand this level of complexity runs counter to my first suggestion to simplify the interface, but as long as it is clearly indicated that this is for advanced users only and that you should refer to the LAME website for configuration options (http://lame.cvs.sourceforge.net/*che...tml/index.html or the recommended LAME settings page on the Hydrogenaudio Wiki at http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME), it shouldn't be a problem.

Best regards.