[Gario]

Preferably free?

I'm using Audacity, which works well enough if 128, 160 or 192 Kbps is good enough, but there are a few tracks that I have which would benefit greatly from VBR compression. Anyone know of some (free) programs out there designed for that?

[Nutritious]

Originally Posted by Gario

Preferably free?

I'm using Audacity, which works well enough if 128, 160 or 192 Kbps is good enough, but there are a few tracks that I have which would benefit greatly from VBR compression. Anyone know of some (free) programs out there designed for that?

The newest beta version of Audacity (1.3.7) technically supports VBR, but I haven't been very impressed by it yet. Even if you set the Variable speed as "Fast" it doesn't seem to vary bit rate very quickly at all and doesn't have a very wide range of rates it will hit throughout the render.

This is one of the only things has kept me using my old version of Sound Forge still. You can try the Audacity beta to see if it works for you, though.

[Dj Mokram]

Try BONK. It's what I'm using all the time when encoding for WIPs & compos.
It's very manageable, pretty easy to configure, and the bitrate can be up to numbers decency forbid me to communicate.

[Yoozer]

Audacity uses the LAME encoder but does not expose all settings. Use RazorLAME and try -alt-preset extreme.

[Hy Bound]

I use Xilisoft Audio Converter. Theres a demo that works just fine, but only lets you convert 2 songs per instance. Its a very good encoder though.

[Gario]

Thanks for the help, everyone! I found something that works well from this, so the help is appreciated!