LAME --alt-preset extreme

What was --alt-preset extreme?

LAME 3.90 introduced a heavily revised --alt-preset system. At the time, these were more than simple bundles of command-line switches: the presets included internal psychoacoustic and encoding tunings intended to improve difficult samples and make quality behaviour more consistent.

--alt-preset extreme was the higher-bitrate VBR choice above --alt-preset standard. Contemporary recommendations commonly described it as roughly 220–270 kbps, often averaging around 250–256 kbps, although the actual bitrate depended on the source and LAME version.

The name itself also has history: when the unified preset system was introduced, extreme replaced an earlier xtreme spelling.

Why is it still all over the internet?

The preset arrived during the period when Exact Audio Copy, command-line LAME and carefully tuned MP3 ripping guides were extremely popular. Many tutorials copied the same recommended commands, so --alt-preset extreme became embedded in forum posts, EAC setup pages, archived FAQs and personal ripping guides.

Those pages can still rank today even though the command style has moved on. That is why you may encounter --alt-preset extreme when following an otherwise useful old CD-ripping guide.

Where does --r3mix fit?

Before the --alt-preset family became the usual recommendation, --r3mix was one of the best-known LAME settings on the web. It came from the r3mix community and effectively provided a convenient alias for a longer recommended command line, which is why it appears in many very old ripping guides and forum posts.

It belongs to an earlier generation of LAME recommendations than --alt-preset standard and --alt-preset extreme. When LAME 3.90 arrived, the newer alt-presets were developed and promoted after extensive listening tests and difficult-sample tuning, and they largely displaced --r3mix in enthusiast recommendations.

Later LAME documentation kept --r3mix as an alias for -V3. That is the useful modern translation when you encounter the old switch, but—as with the alt-presets—it should not be read as a guarantee that an old --r3mix encode is bit-for-bit or tuning-identical to a current -V3 encode.

Is --alt-preset extreme exactly the same as -V0?

In current preset terminology, yes: current LAME documentation maps --preset extreme to -V0, and --alt-preset remains as a compatibility alias for --preset.

Historically, do not assume identical output: the old alt-presets were developed as specially tuned modes, and LAME's VBR engine, psychoacoustic model and implementation changed across releases. If you need to reproduce an old encode exactly, you need the historical encoder version and its original settings.

What should you use today?

For a current generic or mainline LAME build, use:

lame.exe -V0 input.wav output.mp3

If you are using the current Cole Williams LAME fork and specifically want this site's maximum-quality recommendation, use:

lame.exe -V0 -b 192 --vbr-min-strict --bitrate-boost=3 input.wav output.mp3

That cVBRb command is a modern fork-specific recommendation; it is not another spelling of --alt-preset extreme. For the reasoning behind the current recommendations, see Best LAME Settings and the MP3 bitrate guide.

Using an old --alt-preset extreme EAC guide

If an old Exact Audio Copy guide tells you to place --alt-preset extreme in the additional command-line options, you do not need to preserve that old spelling with a current LAME build. Use -V0 for the modern generic-LAME equivalent.

-V0

The rest of an old EAC guide may also be outdated, so it is better to use the current Exact Audio Copy LAME guide for executable paths, external compression setup and current examples.

--alt-preset extreme: quick questions