I noticed there was no guide for this, and every time i asked how to do this on other forums, all i got was use foobar, or use dbpoweramp, well after being told that, i still had some questions, so now that i know how, i will share with all of you.

To start off i will make clear the difference between encoding, deconding and transcoding.

Encoding: taking audio from it's format on a cd or other audio source, and converting it to a compressed format, like mp3 or wma
Decoding: what happens every time you play an mp3 file
Transcoding: what we are doing here, taking one compressed or lossless format, and converting it to another

Tools:
foobar2000
encoder .exe file (for this we will use LAME 3.97)
audio files to transcode

Ok, first download the programs from the first to links i gave you and install foobar2000. Now that you have foobar2000 installed, extract the lame.exe to any folder, i chose C:\Program Files\foobar2000\encoder\

Now start up foobar, then click File, then Add Directory if you want a full cd, or Add Files... if you want just a few certain files.

When they load, they all will be selected, right click on any one of them, and go to convert, this will open the next menu.

Now you have a few options, you can convert to... if you want to choose a new folder to put them in; You can convert them to same directory, to just make the newly converted files in the same folder the other files were in (can cause problems if same extension. i.e. .mp3 to .mp3) you can convert all the files to a single file, great for trance mixes, or convert them to an album image with a cuesheet and chapters, if you know what that is, you shouldn't be reading this ;).

Then you will get a menu of what encoder you want to use, choose whichever one suits you, for this guide we will choose MP3 (LAME), 190 kbps, V2, fast (more information on what this means can be found here) at the right of that selection you will see a ... button, here you can change bitrate, and other various settings to your liking, we won't be doing that here as V2 is perfectly fine for most files and people.

Then you will need to direct foobar2000 to your lame.exe or other encoder.exe (You will only do this one time.) my lame.exe is in my foobar2000 directory, then under encoder then under lame.

Then select the directory you want the newly transcoded files to go into. I chose C:\My Music\


Now if you check the box i highlighted in red on the last step, it will open the folder you chose to put the files into for you, when this window closes, the process is complete and you can enjoy your new files however you like.

Thank you Matzuki

thank you for making nice guide :)

Thankyou...very nice guide and most helpful

works like a charm!! Thank You

Thanks man, great guide!

Thank You Very Much I have been using switch for awhile now and like it very much.

thank you very much :)

this will help me a lot

thanx

thanx maz......

Thank you very much.
A simple easy to follow guide for a novice like me.
I appreciate you taking yhe time to do this.
Once again, thank you.


Oops, sorry.
Didn't mean to quote your guide in my reply.
I told you I was a novice.