Sound File Converter

[PelletAR]

I'm using Linux and I'm very new to this. And not very computer literate. I have a whole bunch of songs in WMA and I would really like them in MP3. I paid for the songs and my husband really doesn't like downloading so that's not a option. I would really be upset if there were no way to get these back. I've tried to read a couple of sites but I don't understand any of it. Some people said to get Audacity but that program doesn't even open WMA...not even to import. If anyone can help me...you would have to spell everything out. For instance...On another site, someone said something about a text file and editing it...or something. I had no idea what that meant...HELP PLEASE!

[D-cat]

Looking through Synaptic, I have a couple of suggestions depending on the files' use and possibly a correction.

If you're trying to put the files on a hardware MP3 player, you can probably use VLC to convert each file one at a time.

If they're only for playing on the computer, then there's audacious (not audacity) which will play wma files, or there's a program called dir2ogg which will convert all the audio files in a given directory to the vorbis ogg format, which almost all Linux players and some others outside of Linux can play.

[PelletAR]

Looking through Synaptic, I have a couple of suggestions depending on the files' use and possibly a correction.

If you're trying to put the files on a hardware MP3 player, you can probably use VLC to convert each file one at a time.

If they're only for playing on the computer, then there's audacious (not audacity) which will play wma files, or there's a program called dir2oog which will convert all the audio files in a given directory to the vorbis oog format, which almost all Linux players and some others outside of Linux can play.

I was getting it to put on a player that doesn't play WMA. My husband says VLC is a player? How would you convert with it.? BTW, just to let you know my level of computer knowledge...I had to ask him what Synaptic was...

[Segfault]

Hopefully this is not the case, but some WMA files may be copy-protected.

@D-cat - there is a typo in your post, it's OGG Vorbis, and dir2ogg.

[D-cat]

@Segfault: Thank you, corrected. I guess my brain was in primate mode. ;P

Okay, I just found something else that might be of interest: nautilus-script-audio-convert and soundconverter. I don't know how they work, but one might do the job for you.

As far as VLC, it's not just a player, it's also a restreamer, which can in turn save said stream to a format of your choosing, incl. mp3. I have not had very good luck as far as quality mp3's out of it though, just noting that it can be done.

Edit:
Most packages will require lame and/or libmp3lame to be installed in order to convert to mp3. Many of these converter packages list as a recommendation, so it may already be installed or installed with the program, but it's not a given. Lame is a command line program that encodes raw or wav files to mp3.

[rokytnji]

I wrote a short tutorial for using Sound Converter. In my tutorial I wass changing OOG sound files to MP3.

Sound Converter can be installed using your Synaptic Package Manger under the Administration Menu Tab. In Synaptic just use the search button to find soundconverter.

Yet Another Technology Site: Sound Converter

[D-cat]

Looking at that I would also like to make a note that some hardware MP3 players do not deal well with VBR. I personally use 192kpbs CBR with high quality mode (the slightly extra time is so worth it) when ripping CDs, but tend to take the quality of the source into consideration when transcoding other formats.