LAME development began around mid-1998. Mike Cheng started it as a patch against the 8hz-MP3 encoder sources. After some quality concerns were raised by others, he decided to restart from scratch based on the dist10 sources. That branch (a patch against the reference sources) became LAME 2.0, and only in LAME 3.81 the developers finished replacing all dist10 code, making the encoder no longer only a patch.

The project quickly became a team effort. Mike Cheng eventually left leadership and started working on tooLame, an MP2 encoder. Mark Taylor became leader and released version 3.0 featuring gpsycho, a new psychoacoustic model he developed.

LAME is meant to be a recursive acronym, in the GNU tradition, meaning LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder (technically true when it was a patch that depended on the dist10 sources to encode anything, but nowadays it is indeed a real MP3 encoder). But other allusions exist, for instance, "lame" is the French word for blade.

Nowadays LAME is considered the best MP3 encoder for variable and mid-high bitrates, mostly thanks to the dedicated work of talented developers like Takehiro Tominaga, Naoki Shibata, Gabriel Bouvigne, Robert Hegemann, etc. And development is still going on.

The LAME home page is located here.


Date: 2006-09-24
Version: 3.97
Interface: Command line
Platform: DOS
Download: lame397d.zip - 238kB
Kindly contributed by Zachary Jelesoff

Date: 2002-12-01
Version: 3.93.1
Platform: Win32
Download: lame3.93.1.zip - 190kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2002-11-16
Version: 3.93
Download: lame3.93.zip - 189kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2002-04-14
Version: 3.92
Download: lame3.92.zip - 188kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2001-12-29
Version: 3.91
Download: lame3.91.zip - 180kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2001-12-21
Version: 3.90
Download: lame3.90.zip - 367kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2001-12-24
Version: 3.90.1 - HydrogenAudio Fork
Download: lame3.90.1.zip - 367kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2001-07-05
Version: 3.89b
Download: lame3.89.zip - 171kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2001-03-25
Version: 3.88b
Download: lame3.88.zip - 363kB
Kindly contributed by Sebastian Mares

Date: 2000-09-25
Version: 3.87a
Download: lame3.87.zip - 188kB

Date: 2000-08-06
Version: 3.86b
Download: lame3.86.zip - 175kB

Date: 2000-07-03
Version: 3.85b
Download: lame3.85.zip - 111kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2000-06-30
Version: 3.84b
Download: lame3.84.zip - 166kB

Date: 2000-05-19
Version: 3.83b
Download: lame3.83.zip - 160kB

Date: 2000-05-11
Version: 3.82b
Download: lame3.82.zip - 107kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 2000-05-08
Version: 3.81b
Download: lame3.81.zip - 140kB

Date: 2000-05-06
Version: 3.80b
Download: lame3.80.zip - 188kB

Date: 2000-04-06
Version: 3.70
Download: lame3.70.zip - 129kB

Date: 2000-04-06
Version: 3.69b
Download: lame3.69.zip - 129kB

Date: 2000-04-04
Version: 3.68b
Download: lame3.68.zip - 128kB

Date: 2000-03-27
Version: 3.67b
Download: lame3.67.zip - 128kB

Date: 2000-03-21
Version: 3.66b
Download: lame3.66.zip - 130kB

Date: 2000-03-17
Version: 3.65b
Download: lame3.65.zip - 129kB

Date: 2000-02-20
Version: 3.63b
Download: lame3.63.zip - 124kB

Date: 2000-02-09
Version: 3.62b
Download: lame3.62.zip - 124kB

Date: 2000-01-14
Version: 3.61b
Download: lame3.61.zip - 136kB

Date: 2000-01-09
Version: 3.60b
Download: lame3.60.zip - 133kB

Date: 2000-01-04
Version: 3.59b
Download: lame3.59.zip - 131kB

Date: 1999-12-13
Version: 3.58b
Download: lame3.58.zip - 99kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 1999-11-22
Version: 3.57b
Download: lame3.57.zip - 96kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 1999-11-19
Version: 3.56b
Download: lame3.56.zip - 98kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 1999-11-11
Version: 3.55b
Download: lame3.55.zip - 96kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 1999-11-01
Version: 3.50
Download: lame3.50.zip - 95kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()

Date: 1999-10-21
Version: 3.35b (DLL only)
Download: lame3.35.dll.zip - 104kB
Platform: IBM OS/2
Download: lame3.35.OS2.zip - 145kB
Kindly contributed by 384kbps

Date: 1999-10-12
Version: 3.34b
Download: lame3.34.zip - 131kB
Kindly contributed by 384kbps

Date: 1999-09-29
Version: 3.30b
Download: lame3.30.zip - 364kB
Kindly contributed by 384kbps

Date: 1999-09-21
Version: 3.29b
Platform: IBM OS/2
Download: lame3.29.OS2.zip - 193kB
Kindly contributed by 384kbps

Date: 1999-08-15
Version: 3.24b
Download: lame3.24.zip - 363kB
Kindly contributed by 384kbps

Date: 1999-07-19
Version: 3.20
Download: lame3.20.zip - 81kB
Kindly contributed by getID3()