Anyone know of a good MP3 program to resize (make smaller) some files

[soulbug]

I could not quite figure out which part of the forum to put this question in....

But does Anyone know of a good MP3 program to resize (make smaller) some files

I have multiply files i'd like to do in some kind of batch , so i can just input a directory of mp3's and let the program work its magic , leaving me with loads of MP3 files in MP3 format but smaller in Size....

TIA

[jman98]

WinLame is pretty easy to use - IF it works on your PC. It has issues running on some systems though. If it dies every time you try to use it you'll be better off to find some other program.

You do understand that what you propose to do will make your files WORSE, right? Re-encoding will ALWAYS result in a worse file. The more you shrink, the worse it will sound. You may not care but I just wanted to make sure you understand that.

[byteguy]

Here's a batch file that will work through an infinite number of directories and make a second copy that's lower bit-rate.

Make a directory like C:\downsample

Put this batch file in it.

@echo off
subst Y: C:\Input
subst Z: C:\Output
for /r Y: %%I in (*.mp3) do (
    md "Z:%%~pI"
    lame -q 5 -b 128 "%%I" "Z:%%~pI%%~nI%.mp3"
)
for /r Z: %%J in (*.mp3) do (
    tag "%%J" --fromfile "Y:%%~pJ%%~nJ%.mp3"
)
subst Y: /d
subst Z: /d
cls
exit

Find LAME.EXE (you probably already have it if you search your computer) and copy it to that directory

Get TAG.EXE from http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/tag/

Change the batch file to point to where your files are ("C:\Input" in this example)

Create a directory where it can put the new copies. ("C:\Output" in this example")

The "-b 128" sets the bit-rate to 128. Change to what you want.

The first loop makes copies with the new rate but you lose all the tag information.

The second loop uses the originals to get the tags (name, album, track, etc) and restores them to the new files. Cover art will be lost unless they recently fixed TAG.

Y: and Z: need to be unused drives. If you've set something to those already, just change the letters in the batch.

As always... test with COPIES and just a directory or two first.

[davexnet]

There's also LamedropXP, open it up and drop the files onto the window. Will create the new files in the same
directory as source. Uses the recent Lame - 3.98.4

[Baldrick]

LameXP.