Hello all,

System overload. So many options I don't understand half of it. So all I want to do is convert my .flac collection into mp3's so I can transfer the mp3's to my wife's media player. I currently have EAC and Foobar. Can I use one of these? If so could someone tell me exactly how to do it? I am NOT literate when it comes to this stuff. It's been so long since I've used EAC and foobar(besides just hitting play to listen to music)I've forgotten how to use/tweak them.

Also, is there a way to select my entire .flac collection to convert and just walk away? I don't want to manually select every song if I don't have to. What would be the best way to store them? I mean right now my .flac are just by album. When I click on my music folder I see all my .flac's by album. Can I do this with the mp3's or will it just list the songs? Hope this makes sense.

Thank you for any info...

ron

.........edit... I meant to say my .flacs are by artist. when I click on my artist folder i then see all albums by the artist. I would like to use this same setup for the mp3's.

ok I was able to convert but I cannot get the songs 'seperated' under the artist heading. It looks like this....C:>Music>Mp3s>Artist. But all the songs on the album are not listed seperately under the artist. For instance, If I click on Aerosmith Get A Grip it just plays the whole album. The songs are lumped together I guess under the Artist heading with no way to choose which songs I want to play. Again hope this makes sense.

Still not sure how to select the .flac collection and walk away with it all being organized either...

thanks again,
ron

Anyone? Is this not possible? To sum things up what I would like to see after conversion to mp3 is... artist>album(s)>tracks.

I see how to convert in foobar but I cannot get it to organize the way I want it to. It's just lumping all songs under the artist name.

I've searched all over on this site and cannot find the answer.

These mp3's will be just for a media player(sansa). Should I even worry about organizing them this way?

forgive my ranting...
ron

You will probably have better luck with using an application to transcode on the fly to your sansa instead of trying to mass convert then copy.

Mediamonkey (gold) can sync/transcode on the fly, as can many other applications like WMP and I think winamp as well. Foobar itself may be able to, but I've never checked if there is a mp3 player sync plugin/option for it.

Do you mean there is only one mp3 per album? Make sure you select "Convert to..." this will allow the most flexibility. Also make sure that in Preferences>Converter you edit the Output file name box or all of the tracks will just end up in the same folder (I think that is the default setting).

If you wanted to organize them by artist/album/tracknumber - title, you could use this titleformatting code in the Single Tracks output file name box:
I wouldn't try to do all of them in one shot, get the settings you like and then test out some tracks first. Make sure that the tags are supported by your player first. Foobar2000 uses ID3V2.4 by default, but will write ID3V2.3 in compatibility mode. (Under the Advanced Tab in Preferences)

Zoom,

Thank you! That is what I was looking for! I tested a couple different albums out and it worked perfect. That code you posted puts the tracks under the album and then puts the album under the artist. Thats what I wanted, thank you.

One more question before I start converting. Are there any special settings I need to set before converting? The lame setting is at 190kbps V2, fast. I have no idea what that means or if it should be changed.

Thanks again,
ron

Create a new "custom" setting use this option:



This should result in VBR files that are transparent to most people.

rohangc,

Ok, but what are VBR files and what do you mean transparent to most people? Just curious as I can usually make the changes if someone tells me how but I like to try and know what this stuff means.

ron

check recommended lame settings thread:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=28124

p.s. depending on DAP disk size, i would probably go with '--preset fast medium' (equals '-V 4 --vbr-new')

Heres my convertor setting, to give you another example

%genre%/$if3(%album artist%,%artist%,unknown artist)/$if2(%album%,unknown album) ['['%date%']']/$if(%tracknumber%,$if(%title%,$num(%tracknumber%,2).,__.) %title%,%_filename%)

looks like

Rock/PJ Harvey/Rid Of Me [1993]/02. Missed

and heres my mp3 settings (i cant tell the difference between V2, V3 and the original) in other words its transparent to me.

-S --noreplaygain -V 3 --vbr-new - %d

I think you should check out the wiki for more detailed explanation of mp3 settings etc

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

ok thanks guys. I think I will go with the v4 vbr new. After reading the links you posted this should be fine for me. Converting to mp3 only for portable players as I have everything else in .flac for listening to at home. So what is the exact code for the v4 vbr new setting? I'm not quite sure after reading. I believe it would be ....lame.exe --preset fast medium %s %d. Is this correct?

thanks,
ron

forgive my incompetence,

I must have something wrong somewhere. Now when I convert it's not putting the song where it should go. I'm using the above code( %artist%/%album%/%tracknumber% - %title%)for output file. It was working at first but now it's not. I did download the latest version of lame but it seemed the same. I'm also still not sure how the code should be written for the converter to use vbr new, V4. Does anyone know whats going on? thanks,

ron

Make sure you are selecting the correct directory to put the files in. When you first click "convert to ..." it will bring up the folder selection dialog. Make sure you are chosing the correct folder here.

I can't think of any other reason it wouldn't work other than the files aren't tagged correctly.



To change this, go to preferences->converter. Click "add new" in the dialog and select MP3(LAME) from the drop down. Move the slider until it says "V4" inthe little box below the slider. Click OK. Click Save All on the preferences dialog.

Now, when you go to encode a file, the dialog will show this new preset.

still can't get things working...

I've been mass converting from FLAC to MP3 for a few years now...some things to check:

Are your tags in the FLAC files correct and consistent? For example, make sure that you don't have multiple artists under "Rolling Stones, The" and "The Rolling Stones" and "Rolling Stones" etc. This will make Foobar create separate folders for each one with the code you're using.

Are you having problems with Various Artists albums? I have a separate file name code I use for VA albums where I use "Various Artists" instead of %artist% for these. Remember that for VA albums there is an "%album_artist%" field in the tag. This means I have a separate folder for all Various Artists albums and then the album title/year is how I pick the ones I want.

Remember that the file names and folder structures used in Foobar are based on the tags (that is why it has the code looking "%" characters, etc.), so it's all about making sure the tag data is accurate. Or you may have found a bug in Foobar - are you using the current release or the current beta? I've had no conversion/tagging issues with the 0.9.4.5 release.

I spent a lot of time cleaning up the tags from Freedb to make sure the tagging and conversions would be consistent for my collection.

Does that help?

Digital Man,

I'm having trouble with individual songs. I am just trying to convert a single song and it still won't work. I checked everything you mentioned and still can't get it to work. I did get the latest foobar 9.4.5 but still doesn't work.

How can I tell if my tags are correct? I'm not sure how to check this. If I click the properties of a song the tag seems to be right to me. It has album name, artist, title, tracknumber info all there.

I did try the latest version of lame also. this also didn't help but not sure if I did it right. I just downloaded it and stuck it in the component folder in foobar. Its there anything else I'm supposed to do?

I'm stumped to say the least. It worked a few time then when I came back to the pc it wouldn't work anymore. I'm sure I did something but I don't know what.

Just so you know I was using the provided codes in this thread. This one for the encoder setting[lame.exe --preset standard %s %d] and this one for the output file [%artist%/%album%/%tracknumber% - %title%]. When I first used these settings it worked for a couple songs. I think I then tried changing the setting for the lame encoder to less quality and thats when it wouldn't work no more. Regardless, it ain't workin' now and I'm just stumped. If you have any more ideas I'd appreciate it.

If I can't get it to work is there a recommended converter?

thanks everyone for you help,
ron

Hi,

BonkEnc is a quite reliable program to use.

Normally I'd recommend Foobar, since it's probably the easiest to use audio player and converter frontend there is. However, if it doesn't work for you there's also lamedrop (http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lamedrop.php). I haven't used it myself, but it seems to be a decent tool for those who don't want to spend all day at the command prompt or aren't fluent in batch.


Edit: Or BonkEnc. Yeah, go with BonkEnc.