Recommendations for FLAC to mp3 converter

I can't seem to find a decent audio converter program that can change some of the flac version music files on my system to mp3 for playing on my mobile phone. Anyone have any suggestions for one which is free and which doesn't convert just half the song?

 

foobar2000

 

Sorry for the long delay, but any other suggestions?

I'm not sure if I've worked foobar2000 correctly so hoping to cover my bases.

 

foobar2000 will not create mp3 files natively - you need to get the LAME mp3 encoder .exe from someplace (get the LAME bundle from http://www.rarewares.org, version 3.98.2, and it'll contain it), extract the files contained in the archive and then drop the lame.exe file (that's all you require) in the foobar2000\components directory.

Once that rather simple step is accomplished, foobar2000 is ready for FLAC to mp3 transcoding.

Load a FLAC file in foobar2000, right click on it in the playlist, choose Convert, then on the dialogue that pops up which should look similar to this:



That'll give you what is considered to be the "standard" LAME encoder settings: variable bitrate encoding with an average of ~192 Kbps, good enough for the overwhelming majority of listeners - we're talking about LAME here, the best mp3 encoder there is. But, if you're picky and you've just got to have better quality, click the button with the "..." beside the Output format drop-down selection menu and you'll get this:



Move the slider either one notch to the right (gives ~225 Kbps VBR) or all the way over which provides the very best VBR settings that LAME is capable of, with roughly a ~245 Kbps average encoding bitrate. Going higher is a huge huge debate that I'd prefer not to get into. Some folks just can't live with anything less than a solid (constant) bitrate of 320 Kbps which is the mp3 format maximum, but the file sizes are about twice as large as they are at ~245 Kbps (aka V0 in LAME preset parlance) and, as I noted above, just fine for the overwhelming majority of people.

There are other options in the Converter related to target destination, file name formats, etc, stuff you can work out yourself or find tutorials for.

MP3 encoding - more accurately "psychoacoustic modeling" I suppose - has come a very long way in the nearly 20 years since it was happened upon, and while today's encoders are far far better in terms of the quality of audio reproduction you'll get when the process is finished (the transcoding from CD content or FLAC as the case may be), LAME still stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Good luck...

 

Does LAME work with other players or is it specifically tuned to foobar and its conversion features?

 

I use the free version of Switch.

 

I use dBpoweramp for converting and ripping. It's not free though. But it does have a 30-day free trial period. Assuming you plan to just convert your files and will no longer need a converter afterward then I would recommend it. If you Google it you will learn that is a very respected audio converter (and ripper too). It does have a batch converter which is very nice if you are planning on converting a lot of files.

EDIT: Just a note, but dBpoweramp is actually a free converter and ripper, but you have to pay for a license to the MP3 codec sense it is patented audio codec unlike open souce codecs like FLAC or OGG. (i.e. It's still a good free program after the trial expires as long as you don't plan to use MP3s)

 

LAME works with any program that can "feed" it the data necessary, it's not tied to any particular one, no. Almost every CD/DVD audio ripper can work with command-line utilities, which LAME is as it doesn't have a native Win32 GUI version; there are front-ends for it, foobar2000 is one and there are many others.