BladeEnc   v.0.91

Minimum System Requirements: Windows 95/98/NT  x86

BladeEnc (a.k.a. Blade's Mp3 Encoder), one of the better known encoders available, is a 32-bit command-line program for the creation of mp3's from 32, 44.1 or 48 Khz .wav or .aif files. Although based on the same ISO compression routines as mpegEnc, the user can anticipate approximately the same or even better quality encoding. The most notable difference being the appearance and speed. While BladeEnc is nearly three times faster than mpegEnc, it doesn't have a nice, user-friendly interface, but it does support several popular front-end graphical user interfaces (one of which is included below, next to the Download link for this program). Some of the key features include: easy to incorporate into BAT files and shell scripts, batch encoding (it will encode any number of samples in a row), stereo or mono output (will downmix to mono "on-the-fly"),  input samples can be auto-deleted  after encoding, and both 8 and 16 bit samples are supported. Wildcards are also supported (eg. you can encode all .wav files in a directory by typing "*.WAV"), full support for pipes and redirection is offered and flags like private, original and copyright can be set. The BladeEnc supports the following bit rates: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, and 320 k/Bits.  The program's task priority,  which is by default set to LOWEST, can be set from the command-line so that your computer will still operate effectively while encoding. To turn your .wav or .aif files into standard 128 Kb stereo .mp3 files, you simply drag and drop them onto BladeEnc.exe. The resulting files are subsequently placed into the same folder as their corresponding source files.This program is freeware so it won't cost you a penny to try it! *Note: these are both  .zip files and will require Winzip or NetZip ( which is available for download at the bottom of our Software Downloads Page ) to open and install on your system.

BladeBatch 2.99c (Graphical Front-end for BladeEnc)