About the LAME encoder

## About LAME

LAME development started around mid-1998. Mike Cheng started it as a patch against the 8hz-MP3 encoder sources. After some quality concerns raised by others, he decided to start from scratch based on the dist10 sources. His goal was only to speed up the dist10 sources, and leave its quality untouched. That branch (a patch against the reference sources) became Lame 2.0, and not until Lame 3.81 (May 2000) the latest remainings of dist10 code were removed, making LAME no more only a patch.

The project quickly became a team project. Mike Cheng eventually left leadership and started working on tooLame, an MP2 encoder. Mark Taylor became leader and started pursuing increased quality in addition to better speed. He can be considered the initiator of the LAME project in its current form. He released version 3.0 featuring gpsycho, a new psychoacoustic model he developed.

In early 2003 Mark left project leadership, and since then the project has been lead through the cooperation of the active developers (currently 4 individuals).

Today, LAME is considered the best MP3 encoder at mid-high bitrates and at VBR1, mostly thanks to the dedicated work of its developers and the open source licensing model that allowed the project to tap into engineering resources from all around the world. Both quality and speed improvements are still happening, probably making LAME the only MP3 encoder still being actively developed.

### LAME features:

- Supports MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG2.52 layer III encoding.
- Encodes in CBR (constant bitrate) and in two types of variable bitrate, VBR and ABR3, as well as freeformat.
- Supports mono and stereo signals. Stereo signals are encoded by default with an advanced algorithm4 to maximize the quality.
- Tuned default parameters for optimum encoding.
- Fast. Encodes to -V 2 at 17 times realtime on a P4 2.8Ghz.
- Uses an advanced psycho acoustic and noise shaping model improved during years.
- Developed under the LGPL GNU license

1. See the results of several blind tests conducted by hydrogenaudio members.
2. MPEG1 sample rates are 32Khz, 44.1Khz and 48Khz.
   MPEG2 sample rates are 16Khz, 22.05Khz and 24Khz.
   MPEG 2.5 does not exist as a standard. It is an extension from fraunhofer that added the possibility to encode in 8Khz, 11,025Khz and 12Khz.
3. See Variable Bit Rate and Average Bit Rate (ABR).
4. The stereo encoding of LAME automatically switches between Mid-Side and simple-stereo to maximize the available bits while preserving the quality. More info in Mid/Side Stereo