Don't know where to put this, so I"ll put it under software.

I have an external drive where I've archived my CD collection at 320 kps to maintain the sound quality. I want to reduce the bit rate to something like 64 or 128 kps in order to put them on my MP3 player, since it's only 1 GB in size (it's a flash drive) and I can't afford 12+ MB size songs. The only way that I can think of converting them to a smaller size is to burn a CD, then turn around and rip it at the lower bit rate back to my drive.

Can anyone tell me an easier way to compress them without having to burn a CD?

http://ariya.pandu.org/articles/reducing_mp3_bitrate.htm

Try that

Thanks, Spike. Much appreciated! I'm not sure by reading the link if it takes MP3's and reduces them without having to burn to CD and back again, but I"ll install it and take a look.

It converts MP3's to Wav, and then converts them back to MP3's again.

Of course, it'll create them at the bitrate you tell it too

CDex is a decent program you might find useful.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos/

:unch: Funny that you sent me that post, because I found that link last night as I was googling around. Thanks for posting though. I haven't tried it yet, when I get some time to sit in front of this and experiment I'll give it a whirl. Thanks again!