Thanks Kevin.
I did a good bit of research this afternoon and apart from finding that SourceForge is down for maintenance I discover the most current release of LAME in a zip archive that contains the lame_enc.dll and lame.exe file along with about a dozen htm files that have everything you ever wanted to know about LAME.

Once I'm satisfied that this is the real deal I'll create an entry in the Utilities thread for MP3 and discuss the five MP3 options available.
1. Pay Cakewalk $10 and be done with it
2. Use Aaron's MP3 patch (it only provides 3 entries for ID3 tags which is pretty limited for those that need it)
3. Roll your own using the latest LAME library with your own tailor made registry entries etc
4. If you're not on the latest Sonar but have paid for the Cakewalk encoder, you miss out on the latest LAME stuff which was updated in Cambridge. There is a more upto date TTSLAME available for those who want more choices. All you have to do is backup your current file and replace it with the newer one. Easy.
5, if you own Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 - Contact Cakewalk customer support with your serial number and they'll organise a copy of the unlock key, free of charge as you've paid for it with your purchase of PA9
6. Make your MP3s outside of Sonar

I'll put them in some logical order and label all the files accordingly including any necessary information. I'll write up some additional encoder reg files so folks can have more choices. How does that sound?

FYI - If you own/owned PA9, contact support and they'll hook you up.
 
 

I forgot. So that's a 6th option to put in The Complete Story; SONAR & MP3

Sounds fantastic, thanks for the great effort!

If you don’t want to buy the Sonar MP3 encoder
DownLoad lame for 32bit & 64bit
http://www.digital-digest.com/software/LAME_MP3_Encoder.html
For 32bit
Create: a “Lame” directory in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Lame
UnZip a copy of the 32bit Lame.exe and Lame_enc.dll into the new Lame directory
—————-
Load Sonar 32bit – Go Utilities/External Encoder Configuration Utility.
Or outside of Sonar open
C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\EncoderConfig.exe
 
Click New: & Enter a the following
 
Friendly Name: Lame High Quality Stereo 320
Source Format: Wave
Description: Lame High Quality Stereo 320 using the inbuilt “insane” preset (You can write anything in here)
Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Lame
Command line: (Copy and paste the whole line)
Lame -m s –alt-preset insane –tt “%T” –verbose –ta “%A” –ty “2015” –tc “%C” %I %O
Select: Modal Encoder
Select: Save source file if you also want a copy of the .way file created in the process
SAVE IT!
—–
For 64bit
Create a “Lame” directory in
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Lame
UnZip a copy of the 64bit Lame.exe and Lame_enc.dll into the new Lame directory
 
Load Sonar 64bit – Go Utilities/External Encoder Configuration Utility.
Or outside of Sonar open
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\EncoderConfig.exe
 
Click New & Enter a the following
 
Friendly Name: Lame High Quality Stereo 320
Source Format: Wave
Description: Lame High Quality Stereo 320 using the inbuilt “insane” preset (You can write anything in here)
Path: C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\Lame
Command line: (Copy and paste the whole line)
Lame -m s –alt-preset insane –tt “%T” –verbose –ta “%A” –ty “2015” –tc “%C” %I %O
Select: Modal Encoder
Select: Save source file if you also want a copy of the .way file created in the process
SAVE IT!
—–
*** Exports the highest quality 320Kb/s Mp3 possible, embeds the track name, the author as ‘Contributing Artists’ and Copyright as 2015.
NB: You have to change the copyright in the Lame Command Line every year!
MORE HERE http://lame.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/lame/lame/doc/html/switchs.html

I'll be honest im not the smartest person and i'm really struggling with this peoples. i'd welcome any suggestions. I dont see why my mp3 encoder has been working up until now, i've only been using this program a few months? i paid for the cd etc but now im going to have buy purchase the lame encoder? it didnt even tell me it had "ran out?" in the first place so its a bit confusing to be fair. ive tried the creating a new one as adam had suggested, i have the lame decoder, i found the file so it was in my things.... but how on earth do you then activate it?
thanks in advance :-)