Why install Lame Audacity?
Why do you need lame? While Audacity can open .mp3s right out of the box, it cannot export in .mp3 out of the box. When you click on file>export and select mp3, it will tell you to download the Lame encoder. You might also get these errors:
Audacity needs the file lame_enc.dll to create MP3s.
The LAME_ENC.DLL File Was Not Found
Error loading lame_enc.dll
This application failed to start because lame_enc.dll was not found.
Newer versions and Lame
Good news: If you have the latest version of Audacity, Lame is built-in.
If you have an older version of Audacity, you will need to download lame and install it manually. See below…
Install Lame Audacity
If you don’t have an older version and still need to install Lame, download it below:
Here’s how to install Lame:
1- Again, If you have the latest version of Audacity, it’s built in. Nothing to do, it supportss .Mp3 right out of the box.
2- If you downloaded the Lame windows installer (orange button), simply open it and follow the instructions, it will install Lame automatically
3- If you downloaded the Zip version. Double click to open it. Most modern operating systems will allow you to open and extract a .zip file directly. Open the Zip file and extract the Lame_enc.dll to C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity.
You are free to install it wherever you want, this is for keeping things neat and tidy. The go in Audacity and click on Edit>Preferences (Shortcut Ctrl+P) and look for libraries. Click on Mp3 Library: Locate..
Then a box will appear. If you extracted the Lame dll where it was recommended, simply paste this location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\lame_enc.dll and click OK.
If you extracted Lame somewhere else, click browse and locate where you extracted it. Click ok and restart Audacity, done! You now have Lame installed and can export to mp3.
Verification Install Lame Audacity
This part is optional. If you need to verify that Lame was correctly installed, simply click on file>export and select .mp3. If the file was exported without any error, that means the codec was installed correctly. If it did not, of if you are getting an error, go through the guide above once again.