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Encoder: LameMP3
A managed wrapper for the Lame MP3 Encoder. On Windows and MacOS, AudioWorks includes libmp3lame version 3.100. On Linux, the system-installed library is used.
Lame is considered the highest quality MP3 encoder available. MP3 is probably the most common and supported audio format in existence, but is technologically inferior to newer lossy formats such as AAC (which reaches acceptable quality at lower bit rates).
The default settings aim for perceptual transparency, rather than a specific compression ratio. These defaults therefore differ from the reference encoder (lame.exe on Windows), which uses a constant bitrate of 128 by default (largely for legacy reasons). The reference encoder also writes ID3 version 1 tags by default, while AudioWorks only writes a version 2 tag (since support is nearly ubiquitous in 2018).
Default: 3 (9 = lowest quality / smallest files, 0 = highest quality / largest files)
Sets the desired quality level, with lower numbers meaning higher quality (and larger files). 3 is generally considered transparent to most listeners, on all but the most problematic samples. Ignored if BitRate is also specified.
Default: none (8 = lowest quality / smallest files, 320 = highest quality / largest files)
Sets a desired bit rate (in kilobits per second) rather than a quality level. By default this sets the average bit rate, which means that individual frames may be larger or smaller as needed. To force a constant bit rate, also set ForceCBR to true.
Default: false (Accepted values: true, false)
Enabling this setting forces each and every frame to be encoded at the same bit rate. This almost always negatively affects sound quality, but may be necessary in certain specialized cases. Only valid when used in conjunction with BitRate.
Default: none (Accepted values: Track, Album)
Applies ReplayGain adjustments directly to the encoded audio, attenuating or amplifying as necessary. Useful when you want to affect playback on a device that is not directly ReplayGain-compatible. When amplifying, the gain will never be increased beyond digital full scale, to avoid clipping. Ignored if ReplayGain metadata is not present.
Default: 2.3 (Accepted values: 2.3, 2.4)
The ID3 tag version to use. 2.3 is the most compatible. iTunes writes version 2.4 tags by default, but can read both. Windows Explorer supports version 2.4 tags as of Windows 10 version 1703. Ignored if there is no metadata to write.
Default: Latin1 (Accepted values: Latin1, UTF16)
The text encoding used within the ID3 tag. Latin1 is an 8-bit (extended ASCII) character set (interpreted as Windows-1252 by convention) suitable for metadata in the Latin alphabet. UTF16 is a 16-bit encoding that supports almost all characters, but may not be supported on all devices. Ignored if there is no metadata to write.
Default: 2048 (0 = disabled, 16775369 = maximum)
The amount of padding (in bytes) added to the beginning of the file. Padding allows for the later addition of metadata without having the re-write the entire file. 2048 bytes matches iTunes' behavior. The entire tag cannot exceed 256 MB, including padding, so the provided value will be reduced if necessary. Ignored if there is no metadata to write, as an ID3 tag must contain at least one frame.