Midwest Geek

I did not create the process, however I did re-write a lot of it to be a bit more clear. This will allow you to convert about 200-400 songs per hour, depending on your machine specs. This does still convert the songs in an analog fashion, just at a higher speed, like a high speed dub machines for tapes.

1. Download and install Virtuosa v5.0 you can get it here
   http://www.download.com/3000-2167-10018979.html
2. Download the lame 3.97a7 zip file found about halfway down this page:
   http://www.filemirrors.com/search.src?file=lame3
   note: get the lame 3.97a7 zip folder that is about .58mb, if there is more than one, just pick one
3. Open up Virtuosa system folder, and look in the plugins directory for a folder called MpgL3 folder, you should see a lame dll file in there.
4. Unzip the lame 3.97a7 file you downloaded, and simply over-right the one in the MpgL3 folder with the one from the zip file.
5. Close everything out and start up Virtuosa 5.0
6. Import the tracks you want to convert by clicking on the Add button at the bottom of the screen and add the files from your directory. I have found that I get errors if I try to add more then 614 files at once, however if I import 500 and then add an additional 500, they import just fine.
7. Select all the songs with in the Virtuosa database, simply right click and choose “Convert to”. An options box will appear, change the output format to mp3 then hit advance. Use the constant bitrate and set your bitrate to whatever you want. I use 128 and it works, I haven’t tried it with any other bitrate.
8. Check the box support ID2v2 tags (Using only ID 2 tags you tend to lose some date, but you will keep, title, group, and album). Hit the checkmark to ok, and then hit the next checkmark and give it some time to start up. Once it starts up it is smooth sailing. Don’t get frustrated if it don’t start right away, as the more songs you have highlighted the longer it will take to start up.

2 Additional items to note:

When the conversion starts, don’t bother using you machine, this is very resource intensive. I am running on a AMD 2.7, 1 gig of RAM in Dual Channel Mode with Twin Raptor drives in RAID, and it drags it down to a crawl.

When right clicking the highlighted area and hitting convert and replace, this will automatically replace your wma to mp3 in its original folder. Now I have heard that there is some kind of problem with Napster in doing that, it might mess up the Napster program. So I would recommend making a new folder and when you right click the highlighted area to convert and replace, instead of convert and replace use the option convert and convert them to the new folder you made.

They have done a wonderful job at making sure those of use who like to get as much free stuff as possible, continue to do so. As you may have heard on Slashdot and various other new sources, Napster has been cracked, or in my opinion, social engineered.

They have a two week free trial, that allows you to download and either play or copy to a portable MP3 player. If you download a free song from them, then use Winamp, or your favorite media player to play the music, you can then record the music using several different programs (like tunebite) to make a copy of the song into an MP3 with out DRM.

I have downloaded and re-encoded about 10 songs to try it out. I figured that I only real loss, should it not work, is just a few hours of time. When it worked I then spent the next few hours filling up my queue with songs to download and re-encode. Since I cannot find out how many songs I have in my queue, I am going to guess that I have around 10,000 or so. I figure at best, I will at least double my collection of MP3’s over the next two weeks.

While I have zero intentions of sharing them with anyone, I will keep them for my own personal use, and I will enjoy them.. Thanks Napster!

For anyone wanting to try this out, you can use the following link http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips832.html Should you choose not to use WinAmp, just use Windows Media Player and Tunebite to make your MP3’s

Enjoy!