In the "convert" mode of Monkey's Audio, after the temp wav file was generated, the CMD window just flash and disappeared, nothing happened.

I've tried mppenc version 1.14 and 1.1 final, it still don't work.

However, the encoder works well in the "mpc batch encoder", and in the same way to convert ape to mp3 in Monkey's Audio, there's nothing wrong with Lame encoder.

Could anyone Help me!

Indeed, that's exactly what I need. How do you batch convert APE files to MPC? What do you do about the tags?

This also means no --xlevel and tag stuff. v3.98 GUI can probably be designed to do this.

Use foobar2000 with Case's CLI encoder or Musepack Encoder component.

lack of time, make it short:
frontah is a great frontend and is able to do the job; and there are Speek's frontends 'multi frontend' and 'batchenc'.

You need the right ape-binary with pipe-support (ape 3.96b6 by Frank).
Have a look at frontah-page for instance.

The easy way is dBpowerAMP Music Converter and the Monkeys Audio and MPC codecs - tags preserved and an easy way of batch selecting folders/subfolders.

Use speek's Multi-Codec Frontend. You have to also download "mac.exe 3.97" at the bottom of the page to decode Monkey's Audio files, and when you start MultiFrontend for the first time, you need to tell it ("Locations" button) where mppenc.exe and mac.exe are.

Anytime you want to convert APE to MPC, just add the files to MultiFrontend, select Musepack & your preffered setting, and go!
(If you want to keep the tags when you go from APE -> MPC, download Tag.exe, also tell MultiFrontend where Tag.exe is, click down the "Add Tags" button, and in Tag Conf. select "Copy tags from source file")

I don't prefer to use dBPowerAmp, some of its components require registration/purchase, and I hate how it bogs down the right-click Windows menu.

Actually, I think, mppenc can encode from ape's as well as transfer ape tags directly if mac.exe (the version with stdout) is in path.
So mppenc --xlevel bla.ape should be enough.

Great frontend! It works
Thank you for your help

I'd also say dBpowerAMP. There's just one caveat though -


If you use dBpowerAMP, use Tag first to convert all tags to APEv1 (go to the root directory of your APE collection, and run tag --force apev1 --recursive *.ape), as dBpowerAMP currently doesn't read APEv2 tags from Monkey's Audio files (..).

[EDIT] If you want to convert files from multiple folders, right-click the root folder in Explorer, choose Search, and search for *.ape files. You can convert all files with the context menu, then. [/EDIT]



That never worked for me - I could never get Speek's frontends (MPC Batch Encoder or Multi Frontend) to add tags to my files, or copy them from input files. Yes, tag.exe was in the path.


Errm... well, the free version does everything I'd ever need for converting between formats. The only thing the Power Pack has that I'd really need is an option to shutdown the PC after converting (since my usual "hack" of letting the task manager execute a rundll32 call to shutdown Windows doesn't work in this case), but that's about it.


That can be turned off during or after the installation. But the context menu conversion is exactly what I like about the program, it's as easy as it gets.

Hey Frontah seems very good indeed. I have a few questions about it.

• How can we set a quality level higher than 7 for MPC ?
• How can I enter anything (I want replaygaining) in the Settings->Output->When all files are successuflly completed do this... ?
• How can I use the APE binary with pipe support just with Frontah but the latest version of mac.exe otherwise? Would copying modified mac.exe under Frontah directory do it?

And unfortunately it seems not to be working. I get "Integer Overflow" right from the start

Open frontah.dat with WinZip/WinRar, extract frontah_script.ini and place it in the same directory as frontah.exe.

Edit frontah_script.ini with notepad and look for the "[mpc]"-section. Change the value for "TrackbarMax" from 70 into 100.



Sorry, not implemented yet...



Rename it to "MACpipe.exe". Edit frontah_script.ini and replace all occurrences of "MAC.exe" with "MACpipe.exe".



I'll need more info in order to fix this, does it happen every time?

dBpowerAMP APE 3.88 going to beta either tonight, or in next few days.

dBpowerAMP Music Converter works great.
Is there a way to add --xlevel to the mpc converter?

Thanks,

It's there by default, and can't be turned off (idiot-proof). (Look at the encoder screen when it pops up... it states "SV7 + XLevel coding".)

Thanks vulcano.
Now I found out that the --xlevel switch stands in the configuration file "dBpowerAMP\Compression\Musepack mpc (CLI)\Options.txt"

That's odd, I've never had a problem. It's always worked flawlessly for me.

The only thing I can think of is maybe you didn't have the "Add Tags" button always depressed, or that you had a blank tagging scheme, but those should've been obvious... But since frontends only pass parameters, I can't see how MultiFrontend itself would be causing problems. Puzzling.

Another thing I don't like about dBPowerAmp & many other frontends is the inability to specify custom commandlines. Sure, it may be dummy-proof, but I know what I'm doing. Plus if new features are added, you have to wait for a new version rather than just instantly typing out the commandline.

It all comes down to personal preferences, I suppose.

me too
always with mpc

You could download the 'Generic CLI Encoder' for dBpowerAMP and pass any command line to any encoder.

Media Center and Media Jukebox have been able to do mass conversions like this for a long time. Now both formats are automatically given apev2 tags.

Another question:

I have a few large .ape files (whole cd was ripped/encoded as one file) that come with cue files..any easy way of encoding these as seperate mpc files other then using foobar?

Edit: Also possibly breaking the single .ape file into seperate .ape files that are tracks on the original cd?

correct... this to me seems to be the easiest way to do it.

Yeah, and this extrapolates to everything that is encodable by mppenc and has (can have) ape tags, eg wav's, shn's, flac's...