SupraS

Does anyone know a good FREE program to convert files from mp3 to wma? I've tried a few but they mostly seem to be ones you have to pay for... =/

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Tipstaff

dbPowerAmp is pretty good. You can get it HERE. If you are looking for other free converters you can look HERE too.

-Tip

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aaronbond

transcoding is bad. especially from MP3 to WMA

Tipstaff

True, but if your source is an MP3 that you've downloaded off a pay site (yeah.. right), then the only thing you can do is re-encode if you want WMA. But, hey.. what can you do... it's not like these pay sites will start selling APE compressed audio files.

Man.. that'd be sweet if they did.

-Tip

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Callandor

With Power Converter, you can not only convert MP3 to WMA, you can do the opposite if you wish too. I'm sure it's in the free app list that tipstaff suggested, I just thought I'd give it a little highlighting coz me and my friends have found it to be one oft he best free ones.

And the thing about converting lower bit rate MP3s to WMA is that you'll get very low quality WMAs coz most converters can only convert into a certain quality WMA that's usually higher than most quality MP3s you get flying around, like 128kbps max or something, but then with MP3 it's like 64kbps, so you convert a 64kbps MP3 to a 128kbps WMA coz that's it's minimum bit rate for WMAs when converting, your MP3 sounds horrible coz of the missing 64kbps.

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e v o

just curious, but why would you want to convert to wma?

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Callandor

Plenty of reasons, like WMA takes up less space for the amount of quality it offers and so you can have more music stuffed in a WMA disc than MP3, WMA can sound better on Windows Media Player, and some programmes/apps require you to use music in WMA format (mostly the M$ ones) so that you can do whatever audio editing they were required to do with the.

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e v o

fair enough, i guess i'm just not the biggest fan of wma/wmv

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Tipstaff

Me neither.

Moneky Audio (APE format) is by far the best codec out there. Just wish there was more device support for it.

-Tip

Edit: Just realized I'm too tired, and should never have posted this.. LOL.. forgot the difference between lossy and lossless. LOL

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dj_stick

APE and WMA Lossless are close enough to lossless compression
they remove *silent* frequency bands, therefore lowering the bit rate at that instant

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Tipstaff

Lossless WMA? Ok.. now my interest just got peaked at the wrong time of the day.. like.. bed time should not be the time to have read that. Now I'll be up for a couple more hours at least trying this out...

-Tip

Edit: soab.. see that.. if you don't use Windows Media Player cuz it's such a crappy player you never get to notice the setting under "Rip Settings" that says "Format to Windows Media Audio Lossless".. damnit..

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Son_of_Thunder

um...windows movie maker is free, and it can convert quite a few audio formats into WMA

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germanjulian

wma does not sound much better then lame mp3 at any normal bitrate (not extremly low or high), its a myth like acc at 128kpbs is better then mp3... its not.
as said above transcoding is BAD!
and monkey audio does not get RID of anything, the term lossless means lossless... ie when you compress you wav to ape and then from ape to wav you get the same file. Its like winrar for music but a lot more complicated joining the stero channeles etc. when it can. but as I said its lossless.

http://members.home.nl/w.speek/comparison.htm

oh and wma sucks, i would not recommend it aac aint that great too. stick with mp3 or go with ogg if you want lower bitrate and better sound quality and support.

if you dont believe me fair enough but read here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php

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Tipstaff

dBpowerAmp Music Converter 11.0 is still my top choice for anything. Not only will it do file converting, but it also does CD Ripping too.. and to any format (and if I wasn't so blind I would have noticed the "Windows Media Audio 9.1 Lossless" codec selection!!) as well.

The great thing about this program is that currently they are working on an ALAC codec (Apples Lossless Audio Codec) which is what Apples iTunes uses. Anyone that has heard music on an iPod will know, and can tell you how it sounds. This is, by far, the best lossless codec out there (even beats APE in my opinion). If they ever get that working.. well.. it would just be too cool.

-Tip

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germanjulian

I gonna come with a stick now........... ITS LOSSLESS AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

when you play it back on your computer or ipod what happens that it is decoded from its compressed format back into a WAV file so your soundcard can work with it. the same is true for mp3, ogg, mpc etc. the player plays it and converts it on the fly to a nice WAVE in digital format so your soundcard can work with it.

anyway no ideal how good apple lossless is but the best lossless audio compressor is wavpack and ape you cannot argue about it but it that way:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=29655

and apple.. well its apple. it will work with apple for apple blah blah

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Tipstaff

waLOL... okok.. know what.. I can't disagree with you.. WavPack is the best, but I tell you.. ALAC does give it a run for it's money. If anything I can see support for this format taking off in other portable units. Problem with WavPack is that it's got zippo hardware support (same can be said for APE though.. however FLAC does). If that was to ever change for either APE or WavPack.. well.. I'd be all over device in a heart beat.

Of the three that I regularly use I find APE to be the most usefull though. For now, at least for me, I'll have to stick with it for archiving and what not.

-Tip

BTW German.. I got it.. LOL.. I'm too tired.. and when that happens I forget the difference between lossy and lossless. Plus I misread things.. so.. bed time. LOL.

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germanjulian

lol I know but in the first page when I read this lossless format sounds better and apples sounds better its like WOOT ..... you know how forums are. one guy says something and the noobs or people who dont know better believe it and suddenly we have people saying this lossless codec sounds better then that one... lol

yep I cant wait for the apple lossless codec.. but as we see with aac files hardware support is only for apple players not everyone I dont think lossless will take off anytime soon. Everyone still uses mp3, plus 95% of the people including me do not need lossless audio on a portable player even with my £100 er6i headphones. I cant hear a difference between lame standart and a wav on my mp3 players (sss)...

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Callandor

The HIGH Mat CD format in WMP10 is quite ok, it allows you to burn WMA's into some kind of high-capacity audio disk that can hold like 100 tracks, good if you don't have a player that plays WMA discs as well as the more common MP3 discs that most players do, but have a stupid little brother who likes downloading and backing up your music in WMA instead of MP3 using WMP instead of WA.

Only problem is if you wanna burn MP3s, it has to convert them to that funny HIGH Mat format readiness too (apparently WMAs need no conversion) before you can burn your disc and then it has errors 500 out of 5 times with converting the MP3s and you can't stop it once it's already started burnign, it just gives you the time remaining and nothing more, no progress bars, nothing, just a word "succes" or something popping up from time to time on random tracks in the burning list as it's burning, and "error" coming up by the MP3 files in the list.

Crappy really.

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pr0digal jenius

try a copy of Steinberg WaveLab...it should be able to convert just about anything(mind you it isn't free, btu there is a demo)

Callandor

Yeah, I have a poster of that program in my room from a Cubase workshop I once attended...it is a very good program for converting things indeed.

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pr0digal jenius

I like the new version (WaveLab 5)

dj_stick

i'm more partial to Soundforge for wave-shaping

but for batch MP3 - WMA conversion, get the WMP Bonus pack, it comes with a converter that does that (and only that).

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madbiker

I have to pay for my proggie, but it's pretty good and deals with protected media - called SoundTaxi
But it brings cool results!