What is the best FLAC converting software out there?

Posted by: burdell1

What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 14:57

I just want to convert it from FLAC to Mp3 and possibly burn it to a disc for a permanent copy
Posted by: mlord

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 15:55

flac -d -c infile.flac | lame --preset standard - outfile.mp3
Posted by: petteri

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 16:04

Under Windows I've used poikosoft's Easy CD-DA Extractor to do conversions. Works well for me, including burning to disc. Not free though...
Posted by: Roger

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 16:12

Quote:
flac -d -c infile.flac | lame --preset standard - outfile.mp3


Which also works fine on Windows. I wrote a console front end to it in C# which also copies tags[1] across. You can find it here.

[1] Well, currently only the ones that I care about.
Posted by: mlord

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 17:07

...and while we're discussing transcoding...

I regularly now record some of our favourite CBC Radio shows off the net for later listening. But they annoyingly are transmitted in 32kb/s Microsoft streaming audio (.asf), which the Empeg doesn't grok.

So here's my transcoding script:

#!/bin/sh

while [ "$1" != "" ]; do
wma="$1"
fname="${wma%.*}"
wav="${fname}.wav"
mp3="${fname}.mp3"
echo "Transcoding \"${wma}\" to \"${wav}\":"
/usr/bin/mplayer -vo null -vc dummy -ao pcm:waveheader "${wma}" -ao pcm:file="${wav}" || exit $?
echo "Transcoding \"${wav}\" to \"${mp3}\":"
lame --preset 64 "${wav}" "${mp3}" || exit $?
echo "Transcoding done, removing \"${wav}\""
rm -f "${wav}"
shift
done


If anyone is interested, Randy Bachman ("American Woman", "Takin' Care of Business", etc..) has a Saturday show from 7:05pm through 9pm. Great show.

Cheers
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 17:14

I didn't realize that The Guess Who was a Randy Bachman band.

But that's not the point of my post. In finding out, I went to the All Music Guide and looked at the entry on Randy Bachman. Amongst the list of similar artists are a number of bands you'd expect, like Three Dog Night, but then there's a whole list of things you wouldn't, like Pigface, KMFDM, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, and Ministry. WTF?
Posted by: mlord

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 17:36

Quote:
WTF?


Yeah.. WTF??

Randy has a great soothing voice, with a twinkle hiding behind it. And he's been telling these great stories of hanging out with various other international rock stars from the 60s and 70s. Eventually he's gotta run out of new stories, but since last June he's been entertaining us every Saturday.

Kinda surreal watching Hockey Night in Canada, with Randy's show as the soundtrack..

Cheers
Posted by: petteri

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 17:40

Thanks for the Bachman reminder! Sirius now carries the CBC I've forgotten to record his show! I'm going to the Sirius tuner now...
Posted by: Robotic

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 17:43

Quote:
I just want to convert it from FLAC to Mp3 and possibly burn it to a disc for a permanent copy

Breaking news-
Burned CDs are nowhere near permanent.
Just a heads up for ya.
Posted by: mlord

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 17:49

Quote:

If anyone is interested, Randy Bachman ("American Woman", "Takin' Care of Business", etc..) has a Saturday show from 7:05pm through 9pm. Great show.



They also have an experimental Ogg stream, but at only 16kb/s and no service guarantees. Someday..

Can also be heard on Sirius.
Posted by: ricin

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 18/01/2006 20:38

Foobar2k works quite well under Windows for that sort of thing.
Posted by: Dylan

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 19/01/2006 21:09

Quote:
I just want to convert it from FLAC to Mp3 and possibly burn it to a disc for a permanent copy


I like dbPowerAmp.
Posted by: Folsom

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 20/01/2006 04:04

I also like dbPowerAmp, but be careful about using the latest LAME. If you want to use the latest LAME, you have to use the LAME.exe plugin instead of the LAME.dll since the latest dbPowerAmp doesn't know the latest command switches. I like to run multiple instances of dbPowerAmp at the same time, but if you try this with the LAME.exe plugin, you get corrupted files. I found that I can only run one instance at a time.
Posted by: tahir

Re: What is the best FLAC converting software out there? - 20/01/2006 10:05

dbPowerAMP is good for me too, converts anything to anything and actually points you to the right codecs if you need them.