PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

I was doing some "export audio mixdown..." yesterday evening, and fo a change tried out the .mp3 export option (from Cubase SL).

I was quite surprised to notice the message "20 remaining mp3 exports available - please purchase the mp3 export pack from steinberg" (or something like that).

I thought that was a bit cheeky, really - I've brought a product from them and certain features stop working after a while until I give them some more money? Fat chance. Like there's not enough free wav->mp3 converters out there... Don't hold your breath, Steinberg.

Royston (using free mp3 converters...)

This will be to get a license to use the *official* mp3 convertor. Maybe SX includes a licensed version but SL doesn't?

Yeah, that's a possibility...I'm just using musicmatch for the time being.

I want to upgrade to SL 2.0 as-soon-as-I-can-afford-it, but have no plans to convert to SX yet...I'm pretty aware of the differences between the two programs, and don't really have any need of the extra bits that SX gives you. Perhaps SL 2.0 will have the 'mp3 licence'?

Royston

In Cubase, export as .wav and choose (Lame) mp3 encoder The exported files might be .wav files, you can just rename them to .mp3.

Sonar (Cakewalk) does the same thing. If you want MP3 encoding capabilities, you have to pay an extra $30 to buy that plug-in.

But, as mentioned, there are free alternatives out there.

And the free alternatives do a great job as well.