Fraunhofer : Fraunhofer IIS-A has been the main developer of the most advanced audio coding schemes, like MPEG Layer-3 (mp3) and MPEG-2 AAC (Advanced Audio Coding).
Lame : Following the great history of GNU naming, LAME originally stood for "LAME Ain't an Mp3 Encoder". LAME started life as a GPL'd patch against the dist10 ISO demonstration source, and thus was incapable of producing an mp3 stream or even being compiled by itself. But in May 2000, the last remnants of the ISO source code were replaced, and now LAME is the source code for a fully GPL'd MP3 encoder, with speed and quality to rival all commercial competitors.
Lame executable for Windows can be downloaded on this russian sites : here and here or on these ones : here and here
BladeEnc : BladeEnc is a freeware MP3 encoder. It is based on the same ISO compression routines as mpegEnc, so you can expect roughly the same, or better, quality . The main difference is the appearance and speed. BladeEnc doesn't have a nice, user-friendly interface like mpegEnc, but it is more than three times faster, and it works with several popular front-end graphical user interfaces .
Gogo : This is a very fast and optimized MP3 encoder for x86-CPU, which is based on LAME ver 3.88beta.
Gogo 3.xx executable for Windows can be downloaded on this russian sites : here and here on "some audio related programs" section.
Ogg Vorbis : Ogg Vorbis is a fully Open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for high quality (44.1-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel. This places Vorbis in the same class as audio representations including MPEG-1 audio layer 3, MPEG-4 audio (AAC and TwinVQ), and PAC.
MP+ : MP+ is a german college student's project to rewrite and make better mpeg audio. Well, he has most certainly succeeded. It is generally VBR, and produces files that are virtually identical to the original .wav (or cd). The bitrate is really varied depending on the complexity of the waveform. The beauty behind it, is its quality. Remember that.
Front-end software and rippers use to encode sound files:
CDex : CDex is a freeware application, which is able to extract audio tracks from a CD-ROM digitally, and save those files to disk as either regular WAV file or MP3 files. CDex can extract the data directly from an Audio CD, which is generally called an Audio CD Ripper or a CDDA utility. Of course you can do that also by recording through your sound-card. However, recording by sampling the signal with your sound card implies that the signal is first has to be converted to an analog signal by the CD-ROM, which is fed into the sound-card and digitized by the sound-card. In practically all situation the quality of the recording will be deteriorated (unless you have a CD-ROM that has a digital output of course). CDex on the other hand, is reading the digital audio data directly from the disc, which can be stored in either a WAV file or a MPEG (MP2 or MP3) sound file. CDex can also convert WAV files into MP3.
Audiograbber : Audiograbber is a beautiful piece of software that grabs digital audio from cd's. It copies the audio digitally-not through the soundcard-which enables you to make perfect copies of the originals. It can even perform a test to see that the copies really are perfect. Audiograbber can also automatically normalize the music, delete silence from the start and/or end of tracks, and send them to a variety or external MP3 encoders, such as Fraunhofers L3enc, or even use some MP3/WMA encoders internally for automatic creation of MP3's. Audiograbber can download and upload disc info from CDDB, the Internet compact disc database. You can even record your vinyl LP's or cassette tapes with Audiograbber and make wav's or MP3's of them. There are a lot more functions in Audiograbber, but to put it simply: Audiograbber has the most features one can wish from such a program!
Zlurp : Zlurp is an all-in-one CD audio tool. It rips, encodes, and tags CDs. Even though Zlurp encodes CDs on its own, you can also use a third-party encoder.
RazorLame : RazorLame is a front-end for LAME. It's OpenSource, just like LAME is. With RazorLame you can encode WAV files to MP3 files more easily. You can also decode MP3 files back to WAV again. You can even encode MP3 to MP3! It uses LAME for encoding and decoding, but provides an easy to use interface. It covers almost all features of LAME, including variable bitrates and provides support for batch encoding. It can be minimized to the system tray during encoding, and it has the option to shutdown windows when the encoding is finished.
Grip : Grip is a Unix gtk-based cd-player and cd-ripper. It has the ripping capabilities of cdparanoia builtin, but can also use external rippers (such as cdda2wav). It also provides an automated frontend for MP3 encoders, letting you take a disc and transform it easily straight into MP3s. The CDDB protocol is supported for retrieving track information from disc database servers.
MP3 players :
WinAmp : WinAMP is an excellent, highly-customizable audio file player, CD player, and MP3 encoder. WinAMP plays MOD, WAV, VOC, CD audio, and MPEG layer 2 or 3 files. You can customize its appearance using different "skins" that are available from the author's Web site. WinAMP includes a spectrum analyzer, a CD audio decoder, an MPEG decoder, and a digital equalizer. It supports playlists and it can retrieve track information from the Internet CDDB database. It supports downsampling and downmixing. It lets you transcode WAV, MP3, MOD files (and other audio file types) into WMA.
Sonique : Sonique is an audio player and MP3 encoder with a unique, highly-configurable, windowless interface. Sonique offers an aesthetically pleasing and customizable interface combined with a very cool animated menu system. The interface can be customized with "skins". Other features of Sonique include: a built-in graphic equalizer, customizable visualization modes, online support for downloading new music, and a built-in playlist editor and MP3 decoder. Numerous audio file formats are supported, including MP3, MP2, MP1, MPX, IT, WAV, WMA, MOD, XM, S3M and CD Audio. This latest version offers improved MP3 playback, an updated MP3 decoder, support for the Ogg Vorbis file format, a full 8-bit ASCII character set which is supported by the system font, and much more.
FreeAmp : FreeAmp is an MPEG audio player. The compact interface offers all the standard controls, including seek, shuffle, and replay. Playlists are supported and can be easily created using drag and drop. FreeAmp can play MP1, MP2, MP3 and MPP audio file formats. It supports several streaming modes, including HTTP, SHOUTcast, and RTP.
XMMS : XMMS is a well-designed Unix CD, IceCast, MOD, MP3, and WAV player. XMMS (X MultiMedia System) features a spectrum analyzer, an oscilloscope, several time displays, support for plug-ins, an equalizer, and the ability to save to WAV format. It also includes docking applets for AfterStep, Gnome, and Window Maker; WinAmp 2.0 skin support; and a playlist editor.
Audio Utilities :
SoX - Sound eXchange : SoX - Sound eXchange is a command-line utility which lets you play, record, and convert between various audio file formats.SoX supports the following sound file formats: AIFF, AU, AVR, HCOM, IRCAM, MAUD, SND, RAW, HOC, WAV, WVE, and others. You can also apply various effects to your sound files during the conversion, such as channel averaging, band-pass and band-reject filters, single- and multiple-echoing, flanger, chorus, high- and low-pass filters, and more.
Spectrogram : Spectrogram is an advanced dual channel audio spectrum analyzer. Spectrogram provides either a scrolling time-frequency or a spectrum analyzer scope display in real-time for any sound source connected to your sound card. Spectrogram provides unlimited recording and playback of the sounds from the audio spectrum display. It can provide very high spectrum analysis resolution of wave files with a wide choice of frequency bands and frequency resolution in either linear or logarithmic frequency scales. Spectrum data logging capability is also provided. You can also perform spectrum averaging of noise reduction and detection of weak signals. Provision is also made for flexible recording, printing and scanning. Spectrogram is ideal for any purpose related to sound spectrum analysis including: analysis and identification of biological sounds, human speech, and musical performances; tuning of musical instruments; evaluation of home audio systems; HAM radio audio reception and tuning; and analysis of radio interference including atmospheric electromagnetic effects.
MusiCutter : MusiCutter allows you to split mp3 into parts of specified length without need to decode and reencode them. It gives you also informations and statistics about VBR encoded mp3.
EncSpot : EncSpot is a freeware application that will guess which encoder your mp3 files were encoded with as well as displaying other information. It also reports on the files' quality and displays a bitrate histogram for VBR files. It uses a familiar Explorer user interface.
