Fast MP3 converter?

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
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Jagwah
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Joined: 16 Jan 2015

29 May 2021

I have a ton of .wavs that I would really like to convert to mp3 for backing up purposes.

Currently I use Audacity for this and one at a time it takes a minute or two to complete the process.

Just wondering if anyone knows of any software that might do these conversions quickly or if there may be some type of batch process to speed things up?


Cheers!

avasopht
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29 May 2021

VLC player.


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Jagwah
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29 May 2021

joeyluck wrote:
29 May 2021
I use Max. macOS only though.
https://sbooth.org/Max/
I'm just not a mac kinda guy ;)
avasopht wrote:
29 May 2021
VLC player.
Wow I am really glad I asked, lightning fast and it is my go to media player and literally always has been, thanks for sharing!! :thumbup:

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Aosta
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29 May 2021

I use free audio converter :)

https://www.freac.org/
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Goriila Texas
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29 May 2021

https://www.presonus.com/products/Audio-Batch-Converter

Does almost everything glad to have it in my main DAW but you can buy as vst.

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orthodox
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29 May 2021

dbPoweramp is good for batch processing, they distribute conversion jobs to the CPU cores available, so you may have 8/16 files being converted at the same time.
foobar2000 is good too, but tricky to set up.

That's for Windows, don't know much about Macs.

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jam-s
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29 May 2021

Jagwah wrote:
29 May 2021
I have a ton of .wavs that I would really like to convert to mp3 for backing up purposes.

Currently I use Audacity for this and one at a time it takes a minute or two to complete the process.

Just wondering if anyone knows of any software that might do these conversions quickly or if there may be some type of batch process to speed things up?
For a real backup I'd rather use FLAC instead of mp3 converting to FLAC might also be faster, but of course it will take more space in the end.

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Jagwah
Posts: 2549
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

30 May 2021

Thanks guys those batch processors look insane, however VLC media player really came through for me here, the speed at which you can convert multiple files is insane and just what I needed, thanks for your input all the same!
jam-s wrote:
29 May 2021
For a real backup I'd rather use FLAC instead of mp3 converting to FLAC might also be faster, but of course it will take more space in the end.
I would not have thought FLAC conversion to be faster as it's a bigger and less compressed format but I don;t know about it, anyways the goal here is smaller size so mp3 is the go, cheers.

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fullforce
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Joined: 18 Aug 2018

30 May 2021

Jagwah wrote:
29 May 2021
I have a ton of .wavs that I would really like to convert to mp3 for backing up purposes.

Currently I use Audacity for this and one at a time it takes a minute or two to complete the process.

Just wondering if anyone knows of any software that might do these conversions quickly or if there may be some type of batch process to speed things up?


Cheers!
I bought Movavi once and I still use it.
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dan_g
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30 May 2021

i use lamedrop for my mp3 conversion. quick drag&drop also works for batch conversion.
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integerpoet
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30 May 2021

Jagwah wrote:
30 May 2021
I would not have thought FLAC conversion to be faster as it's a bigger and less compressed format but I don;t know about it, anyways the goal here is smaller size so mp3 is the go, cheers.
Compression performance can be counter-intuitive. The statistical analysis to achieve a smaller file size might take more time, depending on the CPU and how much smaller you want it. Or writing a larger file might take more time, depending on how much larger and the target disk.

But from my perspective disk space is vastly less important than sound quality, and FLAC is lossless, so it would be what I choose for a backup every time. For other purposes I might choose MP3 but that one decision is only the start of a long list of trade-offs in configuring an MP3 encoder.

Honestly I would have thought the ease with which you can set up a batch conversion would have counted for something as well because if you have enough files you won't want to sit around waiting for the conversion anyway.

Here's the MP3 converter I've been using…

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mp3-encod ... 7696?mt=12

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Jagwah
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31 May 2021

integerpoet wrote:
30 May 2021
Jagwah wrote:
30 May 2021
I would not have thought FLAC conversion to be faster as it's a bigger and less compressed format but I don;t know about it, anyways the goal here is smaller size so mp3 is the go, cheers.
Compression performance can be counter-intuitive. The statistical analysis to achieve a smaller file size might take more time, depending on the CPU and how much smaller you want it. Or writing a larger file might take more time, depending on how much larger and the target disk.

But from my perspective disk space is vastly less important than sound quality, and FLAC is lossless, so it would be what I choose for a backup every time. For other purposes I might choose MP3 but that one decision is only the start of a long list of trade-offs in configuring an MP3 encoder.

Honestly I would have thought the ease with which you can set up a batch conversion would have counted for something as well because if you have enough files you won't want to sit around waiting for the conversion anyway.

Here's the MP3 converter I've been using…

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mp3-encod ... 7696?mt=12
Thanks for explaining. It depends on the situation, what I'm doing here is coming from what James Bernard recommended many moons ago which is to bounce down to audio whenever you finish a session, that way you can audition your Reason files quickly and easily. So I have a big catalogue of my own unfinished work, and it's all divided up into folders that each represent a few months work. If it was just one big folder containing all of it a batch processor would be great but honestly VLC works perfectly for this. I have all my Reason saves backed up, and these audio bounces are too useful to leave, so along with my Reason files I will back all these up as mp3s to save space (they are only for auditioning) on flash drive, and they get stored at mum's house which works a treat.

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challism
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31 May 2021

A lot of people don't realize it, but VLC (Video Lan) can be used as a converter. I use it to convert to MP3 all the time. It will do batches. Does a great job and it's free. Video Lan is also an excellent video player because it will play anything, regardless of format. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
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integerpoet
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31 May 2021

Jagwah wrote:
31 May 2021
they are only for auditioning
Ah. Earlier you wrote "backing up", which is probably what raised some eyebrows. For auditioning, MP3 is perfect.

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