[nirvanaxp]

I have lots of flac files that I have on my computer and ipod. Because my ipod is only 30gb, however, flac is not the most practical format for portable music. I need to re encode to something else. I am thinking LAME mp3s. What is the best way to go about doing this where i can select a directory of flacs and convert them to mp3 with the least hassle? I have tried audiohub for the mac but It didn't work well and gave bad sounding mp3s.

The manual way: Have the flac frontend convert from flac to wav, then have the lame encoder convert to mp3. Right? That's not so fun.

 

[nirvanaxp]

Anyone?

 

[Uncle Erik]

I don't know how helpful this will be, but I've been struggling with the same thing.

The CD collection has outgrown its rack, so I'm starting to look into partially going back to computer-as-source so I can rip the CDs and store them, just leaving SACDs on the rack. I'll rip lossless (of course) to feed a DAC into the rig, but I also have a 30GB iPod I want to keep using. My car came with a iPod control unit that I use all the time.

Problem is, I want lossless for the home rig while keeping lossy for the iPod. So far, it looks like I might have to use iTunes. I don't hate iTunes, but if there's a better solution, I'd love to hear it.

With any luck, someone who knows more will show up in this thread.

 

[CodeToad]

LameXP is a handy tool.

MuldeR's Homepage

 

[Rempert]

Foobar2000 is actually a nice front end for transcoding on Windows. I'm not sure what's out there for the Mac.

 

[Telix]

On the Mac, Max is a good tool for transcoding from FLAC to MP3. It's not perfect but that's what you get when managing audio on the Mac. There simply isn't the same assortment of high-quality tools as on PC.

 

[anoobis]

Well you're talking about batch processing, which immediately suggests commandline tools to me, not pointy-clicky GUIs.

My experience is mostly with linux. You may have some luck with windows batch files but I'd go with one of linux, cygwin or linux 'live' disc.

I can't speak for the quality of the encoding but if you're happy with lame, all the tools for doing:

for every flac in dir
{
flac -> wav -> lame
rm wav
}

will be there.

flac-> lame may even be possible.

It's probably heavy on the processing/time but at least it's automated.

sox may be another option but if you already have flac and lame, I'm not sure there's any advantage.

HTH.

 

[Telix]

This should be moved to Computer Audio, too.

 

[smallcaps]

i would also recommend Max. i was in the same boat as you and converted everything to ALAC. was easy peasy and it converted the metadata too.

Max from sbooth.org

 

[krmathis]

+1 on Max.
With MP3 settings on 'Transparent' or 'Best', or even AAC...

 

[mbd2884]

I love my Media Monkey.

Best way to organize my music so far.

Best setup with my ASIO bit perfect playback

Lastly, easiest to customize the encoding. I use Lame V0 245 with Monkey. It's great if you got a collection of music, whether it's .wav, .flac, .ape whatever. Just highlight, and press ctrl, shift, c. And convert to whatever format, level of quality/speed, ISO compliant, bit resevoir and so on. It's just too easy. There are plenty of plugins to be able to encode in every format imaginable.

Also automatically renames all your files. I have it set to Arist - Album - Track # - Title and Monkey does that. Simply the easiest way to convert, and organize my music.