Topic: Flac -> MP3?

[slouchiec]

I never thought I'd be saying this since I was involved in some of the very first 24bit recording of phish and any other bands for that matter in the live music scene and we were all about maintaining the resolution, but all I really listen to is my Ipod anymore and my computer and for the speakers I am listening on MP3 is plenty high on the res.... So with that being said, what should I use to convert Flac to MP3?
Thanks!!

[T.J.]

i use foobar2000 to convert my 16bit flac files to mp3 for use @ the gym. it's extremely easy: load all the files into foobar, highlight them all, right click and select "convert." i select the highest quality. it will ask you where you want save them. i have a specific folder on my desktop for all the mp3s. it only takes a couple minutes for a standard two set show and it won't delete your original flac files.

from there i just drop them into itunes and sync the ipod.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

I use the "Format > Convert Encoding Format" on Trader's Little Helper...

Terry

[stevetoney]

^ Are either of the above better than...say the converter that itunes uses to convert stuff to their AAC format?  That's what I use and honestly, I can't say anything negative about the 80GB of music that's in AAC format on my ipod other than I'm only half full so I need to get more music on my ipod...60 days worth just isn't enough!

[T.J.]

^ Are either of the above better than...say the converter that itunes uses to convert stuff to their AAC format?  That's what I use and honestly, I can't say anything negative about the 80GB of music that's in AAC format on my ipod other than I'm only half full so I need to get more music on my ipod...60 days worth just isn't enough!

does itunes convert from flac to AAC? i've done it with wav files, but never with flacs. do you just add it the flacs to your library in itunes and select convert to AAC? i might have to give it a try...

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

^ Are either of the above better than...say the converter that itunes uses to convert stuff to their AAC format?  That's what I use and honestly, I can't say anything negative about the 80GB of music that's in AAC format on my ipod other than I'm only half full so I need to get more music on my ipod...60 days worth just isn't enough!

does itunes convert from flac to AAC? i've done it with wav files, but never with flacs. do you just add it the flacs to your library in itunes and select convert to AAC? i might have to give it a try...

You can set iTunes to convert to AAC or MP3.  However, iTunes doesn't recognize FLAC, so it won't do FLAC>MP3/AAC conversion...

You could FLAC>WAV with whatever, then WAV>MP3/AAC with iTunes though...

I've heard AAC is a "better" format (quality vs size) than MP3, but I use MP3 since its a lot easier to handle (car CD player, my generic MP3 player, friends, etc...)

Terry

[T.J.]

^ Are either of the above better than...say the converter that itunes uses to convert stuff to their AAC format?  That's what I use and honestly, I can't say anything negative about the 80GB of music that's in AAC format on my ipod other than I'm only half full so I need to get more music on my ipod...60 days worth just isn't enough!

does itunes convert from flac to AAC? i've done it with wav files, but never with flacs. do you just add it the flacs to your library in itunes and select convert to AAC? i might have to give it a try...

You can set iTunes to convert to AAC or MP3.  However, iTunes doesn't recognize FLAC, so it won't do FLAC>MP3/AAC conversion...

You could FLAC>WAV with whatever, then WAV>MP3/AAC with iTunes though...

I've heard AAC is a "better" format (quality vs size) than MP3, but I use MP3 since its a lot easier to handle (car CD player, my generic MP3 player, friends, etc...)

Terry

gotcha. thanks terry. i didn't think itunes recognized flacs....guess i'll stick with the way i've been doing it. no need to go flac>wav>AAC. i'd imagine the flac tags wouldn't convert using this method anyway.

[terrapinj]

i use dbpoweramp - LAME encoding

I don't recall details (they can be found here) but you must always do 16bit > mp3 for some reason 24bit >mp3 doesn't encode right

[Craig T]

i'd imagine the flac tags wouldn't convert using this method anyway.

correct.

I love tags.  Everybody please tag your flacs and use my format for album:  yyyy-mm-dd - venue - city, state/country.

[Todd R]

i use dbpoweramp - LAME encoding

I don't recall details (they can be found here) but you must always do 16bit > mp3 for some reason 24bit >mp3 doesn't encode right

What's wrong with 24>mp3 encoding?  I've done that alot and never noticed a problem.

[terrapinj]

i use dbpoweramp - LAME encoding

I don't recall details (they can be found here) but you must always do 16bit > mp3 for some reason 24bit >mp3 doesn't encode right

What's wrong with 24>mp3 encoding?  I've done that alot and never noticed a problem.

i'll try to find the thread - but there was a big discussion here about it a while ago

[slouchiec]

Thank you everyone!!

[Colin Liston]

I use dbpoweramp - LAME encoding also.  But you have to buy a license to be able to convert to mp3.

[BC]

i use foobar2000 to convert my 16bit flac files to mp3 for use @ the gym. it's extremely easy: load all the files into foobar, highlight them all, right click and select "convert." i select the highest quality. it will ask you where you want save them. i have a specific folder on my desktop for all the mp3s. it only takes a couple minutes for a standard two set show and it won't delete your original flac files.

from there i just drop them into itunes and sync the ipod.

X2
download lame.exe and rip @ highest quality setting.

[busterr]

I also use Foobar2000(with LAME) for all my flac/shn/wav/etc>mp3 conversions, but I also use Foobar to sync with my Ipod...there is an older plugin called foo_dop that works like a champ. Itunes is/was way over-bloated and caused me nothing but problems, I had to reinstall my OS to completely get rid of it .

Regarding 24bit>mp3 I don't think there is an issue at all..at least currently, I believe the LMA does this, and I have done it many times with Foobar/LAME, I have yet to notice anything out of the ordinary compared to 16bit>mp3.

[SmokinJoe]

for command line geeks...
flac -d -c somefile.flac | lame -h -b 320  - somefile.mp3

I started off by stealing this snippet from an archive.org derivation log file...
/usr/bin/flac --silent -d -c /tmp/derive/brew2008-09-26.lsd2-sbd-mix.flac16f/brew2008-09-26_remix_d2t05.flac | /usr/bin/lame --quiet --disptime 10 -b64 --resample 22.05 --ta "The Brew"  --tt "Faces jam"  --tn "17"  --tl "2008-09-26 - Paradise Rock Club"  - /tmp/derive-brew2008-09-26.lsd2-sbd-mix.flac16f-MP3/tmp.mp3

[Jamos]

surprised that I'm the only one here using xACT to do this on my mac.

xACT uses LAME, and I usually set it to the highest VBR setting...which ends up being around 256k most of the time.

So far, I've dropped about 750 gigs of FLAC & SHN files onto xACT (usually about 30 or 40gigs at a time), and it's produced every file without a hitch...
Highly recommended.

[rjp]

i use foobar2000 to convert my 16bit flac files to mp3 for use @ the gym. it's extremely easy: load all the files into foobar, highlight them all, right click and select "convert."

I've found that it works for 24-bit FLACs as well. It seems that MP3 and Ogg Vorbis files don't have a specific bit depth - foobar2000 doesn't display a bit depth for either file type, and when I sort my library by sampling rate and bit depth, the lossy files come out with a "?" for the bit depth.

[todd e]

i use dbpoweramp - LAME encoding

I don't recall details (they can be found here) but you must always do 16bit > mp3 for some reason 24bit >mp3 doesn't encode right

QFT - at least the LAME encoding so you can improve the settings.

[F.O.Bean]

I use Xilisoft to do FLAC>MP3 encoding!

[Ed.]

I use dbpoweramp to go from flac>mp3 with LAME.

I use this guide when I rip cds...and use the v0 setting.
http://www2.firehose.us:81/~jiggafellz/eac/index.html

[pmonk66]

I use foobar as well to convert lossless to lossy for ipod purposes!