Hi folks I`m wanting to convert my music library to all mp3 I have some music that are (still) WMA(windows media format)there are a host of free ware availiable from google most of which say they are free from all trojans and malware... yeh right that got me suspicious !
I`m sure they are but I would appreciate the experience of anyone who has used one and are happy with it ? I trust you lot you know !!!!lol
If you have the original audio CDs it's better to start over from scratch and encode directly to MP3 since you'd be transcoding going from WMA->MP3 and losing quality in the process!
Thanks for the quick response...Glad I asked the question i`ve learnt some thing new !!
Some music is in wma format and no cd,but I take your advise about starting over to keep the quality
I`ve looked at my music folders and files and they are a mess !! thats what i was doing to try and sort everything looks like i`ve a bit of work to do !
I`ve looked at my music folders and files and they are a mess !! thats what i was doing to try and sort everything looks like i`ve a bit of work to do !
Some freeware music players can automatically sort your music folder for you, something to remember if the task is going to take a long time.
If you start ripping to MP3 I'd recommend reading the Hydrogenaudio.org forums, especially the Wiki articles such as what CD ripping programs to use and what LAME MP3 settings to use to get good quality rips and audio quality, and even become a member of the forum if needing specific help and advice since you'll get straight and correct answers.
Thanks Andavari,will take your advise and start by having a look at the Hydrogenaudio forum and i need to read up on wiki more computer/music terminology to understand,computer language must be the most up and coming word creator ever!!!
I use ffmpeg, but it's a command-line program and it has no /? flag....very effective for batch converting, though.
LAME can also be a batch converting program via the various frontends like those made by Speek for it, one could even use something like CDex with lame_enc.dll to batch convert to MP3 a set of already extracted WAV files if not wanting to mess around with or having to know the command parameters to run lame.exe.
Just out of curiosity why do you want to convert wma into mp3, most phones / media players can handle wma content??
I have a friend who we swap music we both think the other might like.i never look at the format,when he replies he always says have you this in mp3 !so I wanted to make all my music files in one format,isn`t mp3 the future !
don`t tell me now i need them to be in another format !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No offense intended, but MP3 is definitely not the future ; it was invented nearly twenty years ago.
I use WMA because that's Windows Media Player's native format, thus it will be supported in all future releases of Windows ; besides, there's a lossless WMA format, too
Anyway, once you've decided which format you want to use, converting all your music using ffmpeg, lame or another command-line encoder is quite easy.
The which format is better is a dead-end street really as everyone will have preferences. My main thing for a format is:
1. Quality.
2. Gapless playback.
3. Which OS and hardware will support it - undoubtedly a computer will most definitely always be needed to properly rip, etc.
I'm one of those "FLAC people" - buy a new CD rip to FLAC and archive it lossless on a DVDR just in case the original audio CD has issues. However my PC is filled to the brim with lossy LAME encoded MP3s use high quality VBR settings to sound transparent, i.e.; similar to the original audio CD. Why MP3? Well because just about anything can play the format, it's by far not the best however look at various formats that have died since it's time claiming they were "better", the format will be like a cockroach after a nuclear war still alive and kicking.That and if you look at the masses of people, if you give them any compressed audio format they in general will call it an MP3, doesn't matter if it's an OGG, WMA, AAC, etc., it's akin to calling any photo copied paper a Xerox.
I found this for you, it's a program called FreeRIP, Ranked #2, so you'll be happy with it
FreeRip is marked as adware!
Rather it's #2 ranked or #1 it isn't a secure ripper such as Exact Audio Copy or the paid for dbPowerAmp, secure ripping is definately the way to go in my book and both of these programs use AccurateRip so you can compare your ripping with what other people have to know you have a good rip without any ripping errors. There's also the excellent Cue Tools which is also a secure ripper, etc.