Absent asterisks

**Langstracht** · February 28th, 2014

I have long used this command:

Code:

mkdir temp && for f in *.wav; do lame --vbr-new -V 3 "$f" ./temp/"${f%.wav}.mp3"; done

to convert .wav files to .mp3.

And successfully. I believe.

Running the script results in the display of dynamic histograms - populated by asterisks. But not always. Sometimes there are percentage (%) symbols, ranging from one to perhaps a dozen, instead.

Does anyone know why that happens. What that means. And what, if anything, should I be doing about it ...

TIA

**Yellow Pasque** · February 28th, 2014

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=19499

**andrew.46** · April 9th, 2014

It is the smallest and most pedantic point but I believe that the option --vbr-new is only required if you are using lame 3.97 and earlier (although not all earlier versions had access to this option). For lame 3.98 and above the 'new' vbr method is the default. Version can be seen:

Code:

andrew@ilium~$ lame --version | head -n 1
LAME 64bits version 3.99.5 (http://lame.sf.net)

Now if only there were an award on these Forums for being pedantically correct.....

**Langstracht** · April 12th, 2014

So! The correct command is:

Code:

mkdir temp && for f in *.wav; do lame -V 3 "$f" ./temp/"${f%.wav}.mp3"; done

??

that said, does that have anything to do with my '%' "problem"?

**Yellow Pasque** · April 12th, 2014

Did you read the link in my previous post? I thought that answered it, which is why you gave no response..

**andrew.46** · April 12th, 2014

Originally Posted by Langstracht

that said, does that have anything to do with my '%' "problem"?

Absolutely nothing

. I suspect that Temujin has given you the best answer for this issue...

**Langstracht** · April 13th, 2014

Yes I read the link.

Not that I was any the wiser.

Not sure why the post was a 'personal guess' as opposed to a 'fact'.

And, my reading of it was that any one file would produce either '%' OR '*'. That is not what I had.

Consequently I continue to wonder whether I have a problem or not.

**andrew.46** · April 14th, 2014

Originally Posted by Langstracht

Not sure why the post was a 'personal guess' as opposed to a 'fact'.

Probably because the documentation is not all that comprehensive and sure knowledge of the fine details of mp3 encoding is not held by that many people. I could find no further mention of the use of these symbols via Google and a grep through the source was not helpful as the symbols are very common.

Consequently I continue to wonder whether I have a problem or not.

I suspect not unless you have noticed anything particularly odd with the resulting file. As suggested in Temujin's link you could experiment a little with lame's mode setting but I suspect the existing sane defaults are your best friend with lame...

**Langstracht** · April 14th, 2014

Probably because the documentation is not all that comprehensive and sure knowledge of the fine details of mp3 encoding is not held by that many people. I could find no further mention of the use of these symbols via Google and a grep through the source was not helpful as the symbols are very common.

The paucity of information was what prompted me to post to the forum ...

If this %age thing IS causing a problem then I haven't identified it. So I guess I'll just keep calm and carry on. Regardless one might say. And tag this thread solved.

Thanks for taking the time.