Digital music format conversion software?

[Dr Klawn]

Hi all!

 

Seems like many of you are more in tune to this stuff than I am... To make a long story short, I've got about 150 CDs+ worth of music in the Microsoft "WMA" format from my first trial of just using the laptop hard drive to store / play music.

 

So along comes a new Ipod... As usual, none of these companies like to be compatable with each other!

 

My goal is to just convert these all into MP3 files, so they'll be universal on all players and not restricted to the Microsoft / Apple, etc. proprietary hardware.

 

After an afternoon of internet searches, I can't seem to find a great solution for this. I'm trying the trial version of "tunebite", which is taking forever (over 45 minutes so far for 9 songs) and would be interested in quicker options. Free versions are always great (with a little $$ tossed to the developer), though I'd be willing to pay for the right solution. It took a long time to rip the CD's in the first place, so I'd rather not have to start over again...

 

Thanks for the help!

[smiller]

Most of the conversion programs are really just front-ends for a relatively small number of encoders. I like Foobar 2000, but there are a million similar programs. Foobar uses the LAME MP3 encoder which is widely regarded to be about the best available, and it is also relatively fast. Use -V2 -h --vbr-new as your settings (easily configured in Foobar) and you should be good to go.

 

Note that there will be some amount of quality loss when converting from one lossy compressed format to another, but seems that can't be avoided in this case. Unless you're very picky about such things the difference probably won't be audible. The fact that you're converting from one compressed format to another is also what is slowing down the conversion process as the track must first be converted to PCM and then re-encoded. Not much to be done about that either but at least you'll only have to endure it once.

 

My goal is to just convert these all into MP3 files, so they'll be universal on all players and not restricted to the Microsoft / Apple, etc. proprietary hardware.

That's the ticket, the MP3 format is the only one supported by just about every player and computing platform in existence. AAC is becoming more widespread but it's hardly universal at this point. And always avoid purchasing any music with DRM (digital rights management.)

[Arizona_oldguy]

Hi Matt,

 

I purchased a Muvo Slim, from Creative and it came bundled with several great programs, including a Media Organizer with the greatest little library management, play list etc, program. And it also came with a media converter that does all that you want in terms of changing the format of various audio files.

 

As far as I know you can only get it by buying a Creative Player, though I haven't really inquired of Creative. but even if you were to throw away the Muvo Slim mp3 player with radio, the software would be worth the purchase price. You can only use it on one computer, but it does what it does very well.

 

Glenn

[Charles Elms]

Just use the import folder function in itunes. It will convert from WMA to MP3(or whatever) for you. Do one album and then see if you like the sound. Otherwise, just rerip if you have the CD's.

[sgendler]

As has been mentioned, converting from one lossy format to another is going to produce a quality degradation, one that I inevitably find is quite audible, even over crappy earbuds, contrary to the earlier opinion.

 

But at the very least, don't trasncode your WMA files to the default iTunes format, which is AAC, and just as proprietary and unsupported on alternate platforms as WMA. If you want files that will play absolutely anywhere, you really only have one choice for lossy compression, and that is mp3.

 

Any of the aforementioned programs will transcode to mp3, but I suggest you play around with the encoder settings and make sure you get files that you can tolerate the audio quality on. Inevitably, recompressing an expanded WMA file is going to force you into a higher bitrate (and therefore larger filesize) than you have in the WMA files.

 

And just for the sticklers in the audience, it is probably worth pointing out that mp3 is also a proprietary format, but it is much more universally supported than WMA or AAC. If you truly want an open compression format, you need to be looking at ogg-vorbis, but of course, it is supported almost nowhere when it comes to portable players.

 

--sam

[smiller]

As has been mentioned, converting from one lossy format to another is going to produce a quality degradation, one that I inevitably find is quite audible, even over crappy earbuds, contrary to the earlier opinion.

Just FWIW I agree, and I personally I don't consider transcoding from one lossy format to another to give acceptable results. My opinion was based on the fact that most users don't seem to be all that sensitive to this, witness the number of people that find the audio quality of satellite radio to be acceptable. If you can stand that then you aren't likely going to be bothered by transcoding...

 

But to the OP... it wasn't clear whether this option exists, but if you can possibly re-rip from CD vs. transcoding your WMA files that would be a much better choice.

[DavidEBSmith]

A couple of free solutions are MediaCoder and SUPER, which are basically fancy front ends for the same open-source software.

[Woodie]

My personal favorite is EAC (freeware). Also a front-end for LAME (IIRC).

[BigGalloot]

I just want to make sure that you realize that you can rip directly into MP3 format using Windows Media Player. Start Media Player then pull down the "Tools", select "Options", click on the "Rip Music" tab. There is a selection box labeled "Format" all you need to do is select "MP3" and Media Player will rip your CDs into MP3 files.

[Dr Klawn]

Thanks for all the posts!

 

I agree that the quality is rather lacking. The WMA files are from my first ripped batch of CD's prior to grasping that Windows defaults to their own format. I've got another 300 Cd's worth of stuff on MP3 ripped at 256 (lossless). The files are somewhat large, but I was trying to balance quality with bearable file sizes. Even at this level, the clipping is apparent, especially when played through our main stereo. Quality reminds me of cassettes is a way (without the hiss).

 

In any case, I've got a lot of time invested in the inital ripping of the disks that I'd rather not have to repeat. (It take about 20 min's per disk IIRC). I hadn't found or knew that Itunes could convert - that would be the best scenario rather than fiddling with things twice. I've noticed that having a large library of music takes a lot of time to manage if things need to change...

 

Thanks again for the help!

[Ken H.]

I agree that the quality is rather lacking.

Yeah, we're really loosing a lot of sounds forever in the quest for smaller files sizes and faster ability to move them about. But that's the, 'I want it now ' compromize we've apparently agreed to pay.

 

When I listen to XM radio I think "Yuck!" (about the quality, not the content). And that's with these 50 year old, grew up in the age of LOUD Rock & Roll, ears!

[steveknapp]

Yeah, we're really loosing a lot of sounds forever in the quest for smaller files sizes and faster ability to move them about. But that's the, 'I want it now ' compromize we've apparently agreed to pay.

 

Forever lost? Ken, did you forget your meds today? Or are you just practicing what you learned in drama class?

 

Oh my god, society is collapsing and we're loosing this music FOREVER! DOOM DOOM!

 

Get a grip man!

[smiller]

Yeah, we're really loosing a lot of sounds forever in the quest for smaller files sizes and faster ability to move them about.

There has been a lot made of that concern, and perhaps something to it when it looked like 128 kbps was becomming some sort of standard, but... consumer preference seems to be on the road to fixing things. DRM is near dead, Amazon sells all tracks at 256 kbps, and CDs remain for anyone who demands a 'lossless' alternative. It's true that eventually CDs will probably go away in the face of online distribution, but if consumers contine to demand quality there will likely always be a higher-tier alternative. In fact once the Redbook CD is gone and we are no longer locked into that standard it may well be replaced with a format that provides even better quality.

[DavidEBSmith]

Yes, forever. Music is doomed. And it's all the fault of digital media.

[sgendler]

One (slightly expensive) option is to send the original 150 disks off to musicshifter to have them ripped for you. They turn orders of that size around pretty much overnight. They send you empty spindles. You put your disks on the spindles and send them back. They return them along with DVDs of ripped tracks or a hard drive. You can even send them your own hard drive if you want. Everything is tagged well and you can pick bitrates and settings to your liking. You can also get lossless and lossy copies of everything, so you can transcode from the lossless copies at a later date, if necessary. There are other companies that do the same thing, but when I was shopping several years back, they had the best options and prices. A company I worked for since then used them to rip tens of thousands of CDs for their online music store, and my assumption is that they just use previously ripped copies when you send them a disk they already have, so you can probably get near instantaneous turnaround now.

 

I paid less than $1 per CD, which was well worth it, considering how much of my time I would have had to spend to do it myself.

 

In fact, when I did it, I re-ripped every disk I had just so that I had lossless copies of everything and totally consistent settings on all my lossy tracks. I never bothered to unspindle the returned disks. I'll never listen to them again, barring catastrophe (and I've got backups of my backups, so it'd have to be a pretty major catastrophe in 2 states). I stream the lossless files to every stereo in my house and use the lossy versions in my portables. Granted, I could have bought a lot of new music for the money I spent, but having access to every disk I own over the network has proved itself to be more than worth it. I now listen to disks that I had all but forgotten I owned (in a collection of about 2500 disks).

 

--sam