Outkast's "Hey Ya"

Billboard Charts, Top Hip Hop, 2004 Winter.

I've tried playing it in Napster, and it works fine.. I'll try WMP once I get home from work.

That would suck if it were the case..... I hope they havent shut out my winamp method. I use it to transfer my (bought and paid for) napster files to my old non-wma9-supporting player.

I have also noticed that most of Eminem's Encore CD has recently changed from being all downloadable to almost every song a "Must Buy". I downloaded all of it less than a week ago, and I checked back yesterday and only a few songs are downloadable. Hopefully Napster isn't starting to change a lot of the music over...

Is it confirmed that there is a way to re-encode the files in Winamp at faster than 1x speed? I have been using output stacker/lame encoder and it's been working great (thanks warlock). I have converted nearly 3 GB to MP3. However, if there is a way to speed up the process, I would love to know about it. Thanks.

If you're using the LAME encoder, you don't need Output Stacker.

You can speed things up by using multiple instances of Winamp.

Both of these have already been mentioned earlier in the thread.

Looks like i'm not the only one with the same problem.. someone else in another blog on the same subject has the same "Acquiring License" issue:

Everyone should take a look at Replay Music 2.0

http://www.replay-music.com/index.php

This will work with napster, real rhapsody, etc. It will even tag the songs! Works like a charm! It is quite steep though in price but comes with a free trial (25 trial downloads). Check it out...

I just downloaded a new song and it seems to work fine still...

@ZeroSignal - I had the same problem as ganryu... when I don't use Output Stacker and just use the Lame encoder it freezes up my Winamp. Can anybody tell me where to get the latest version of the Lame encoder?

The link for the lame encoder is in my post on the previous page.

Sorry, but I meant for the 3.97 Alpha 7 lame_enc.dll file, not the Winamp plugin.

Ganryu where did you get yours? I can usually find this stuff but for some reason i'm having a tough time today.

.

I found out that out_lame 1.63 (with the latest lame_enc.dll) still crashes for me, but only if I load multiple winamp instances at the same time.

I've given up trying to get it to work, and decided to use output stacker instead. It doesn't seem like just the lame plugin alone is faster (or significantly faster) than real time anyways, and I just turn the winamp volume down... Not a big deal.

Google's your best friend

I just googled for "3.97 Alpha 7", and I got this as a first link: http://www.rarewares.org/mp3.html

Hmm... still doesn't work without Output Stacker, evern with one instance of Winamp... oh well. Thanks anyway.

Anybody see the Napster CTO's reply? He seems to think the method involves looping the sound...did anyone tell him this performs bit-level copying, resulting in a transcode rather than an audio loop?

For people that are using multiple copies of winamp:

Instead of using output_ds for the first plugin, you can also use output_null (a plugin from the winamp site) and it then plays, but silently. Works just fine for me.

http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=28451

(Null Output Plugin page)

But it gets worse. I bought the Velvet Revolver CD (the real deal factory copy) from Best Buy for $12.99. And when I tried to rip it, it turns out that it is 'unrippable' and only has premade tracks on it in, you guessed it, WMA format. So if you have an IPod, you're out of luck w/o resorting to crazy means to make them mp3. To make matters worse, I was on Itunes and saw the velvet revolver cd for $9.99. So basically I paid too much money for a cd with music I can't use on my Ipod.

Talk about getting screwed. So much for having all the rights to the music by buying a cd! Now we have to worry about picking and choosing which format to purchase music in depending on whether we want to load wma files onto a compatible portable player, or use an IPod.

There has to be a better way for the music industry to deal with the digital music age...

Well this is annoying. First time I ever thought of trying Napster out and guess what? I can't sign up because I live in New Zealand. If someone could contact me (PM) and sign me up for a 14 day free trial I'll be very thankful, it appears you can sign in if you already have an account so I would be able to take it from there.

Now lets say you got all these wav files piling up, what is the best way to make some fresh new MP3s outta these (other than winamp, it's busy making wav's ) some great freeware?
thanks everyone on advance

I've noticed Dietmar's Output Stacker has been removed from the WinAmp plug-ins page, and it's been a pain to find it elsewhere (using Google). I finally found it using Yahoo.

The link was found on www.tech-recipes.com and it was posted by AlextheBeast. Thanks Alex!

New download link for output stacker:
http://marv.kordix.com/Output_Stacker.exe

KingCatDaddy

Guys - you're absolutely missing this. The easiest, and FASTEST WAY to do this (time is of the essence since you have 14 days free trial of napster and 14 days free trial of Virtuosa) is to do the following:

1) DOWNLOAD EVERYTHING YOU CAN OFF NAPSTER.
2) DOWNLOAD VIRTUOSA.
3) SET VIRTUOSA WMA-->MP3 TO 128 Kbps, 44.1 kHz MP3 encoding.
4) DEPENDING ON YOUR SYSTEM, ENCODE 50-100 SONGS AT A TIME.

This is lightyears ahead of the realtime/streaming recording to wav/mp3, and the output quality will be substantially better. If you try and encode at 192, it will not work. 160 occasionally works, but 128 is a LOCK. It's money!

My system is like 2.6ghz, 1028ram, etc., and I was able to add 400+ wma tracks, go to sleep, and let virtuosa do its thing. When I woke up, I had 400+ mp3s, free and clear of DRM.

Forget about everything else: I've tried everything else, from unfuck to the recording software - all of which worked, but absolutely nothing works as easily and quickly as Virtuosa.

VIRTUOSA DOWNLOAD

NAPSTER TRIAL LINK

GET TO IT!!!

Not sure that I can agree... Why will 192 and 160 not work? You're forced to use CBR encoding? Is any kind of bandpass filtering being done? What do the filenames turn out like? Is the tagging done for you? What encoding technology is being used? Franhaufer? Xing? Lame? There are significant differences... Seems like the Winamp method is still using a bit-level copy. Either way, you're forced into transcoding... And with the out_lame plugin, at least I know what is happing as far as the encoding scheme. Plus, I'm a registered Napster member, too, so time isn't as crucial for me.
Sorry, but the details on Virtuosa seem too hidden to me (so far). I have yet to fully try it myself, though, so I could be mistaken. Seems like the LAME encoding will be higher quality in the end, though, which is what I want, even if it requires extra time. All depends on your end goals, though.

Virtuosa sounds promising: http://www.virtuosa.com/faq.htm#mp3convert

I don't see "MP3 Upgrade" under the file menu. Also, 3 questions below in the FAQ mentioned above it states this:

DRM problem: secure Wma file unable to convert.

"I am trying to convert WMA files to MP3 format. I was able to do that with the trial version of Virtuosa but now I get an error message that says: "Virtuosa cannot convert or copy the existing song... the source file has been secured!""

The wma (Digital Rights Management => drm) protected file you bought legally is copy-protected, that is why you are not allowed to convert it. Otherwise it would allow users to distribute protected files freely (wma/drm) by converting them into mp3, which is an unsecure file format.

This is not Virtuosa’s fault at all, but it is due to the way wma/drm works. You will not find any player/jukebox on the market allowing that, because of the agreements with the DRM technology providers and the music content providers. A previous version of Virtuosa did allow this, but it was due to a bug and we had to correct it in order respect our agreements.

Does this proggy work or not? And must you add your own codec to try to attempt wma to mp3 conversion?

cheers

quadhog