Audio converter

[Opulent]

This is an area many of you are probably much more adept at...
What is the best tool(or one you are very satisfied with) to convert audio to mp3s? and to be able to edit the wav or mp3 file.
Musicmatch Jukebox or what?
TIA

[FirebrandX]

For me, it's hands down gotta be Goldwave. A superb program that has been one of the most useful tools I've ever installed on my hard drive.

[GS-1719]

I prefer DB power amp for conversions.

[AndrewB]

Goldwave.

[Bloodshedder]

Goldwave is what I use. And you'll want LAMEWIN32 from their Downloads page to encode MP3s, if you don't already have the LAME DLL.

[Naked Snake]

Yes, Goldwave is what I use too for sound editing. I can do precise editing with it.

[Amaster]

Also Golwave. Although if you want to do more serious editing, you might want to consider Soundforge and Acid 2.0 (both by a company called Screenblast). These will allow greater control over effects than Goldwave, and IIRC they have tutorials to boot. However theyre a little harder to use.

[Lord FlatHead]

Goldwave.

[Opulent]

thanks guys, that was just what I wanted. :)

[Reisal]

google @ SCMPX

[Remilia Scarlet]

I say GoldWave. It's what I use to record my music, as well as edit sounds. I would say Sound Forge, but it's alot more expensive and I, personally, don't like it quite as well.

[Lüt]

For MP3 encoding you want none other than LAME. It's --alt-preset settings are spectacular.

Both GoldWave and SoundForge are decent WAV editors, but the most powerful and professional editor you'll find is Cool Edit Pro/2K, though it has a considerably steeper learning curve than the former mentions.

[Julian]

Lüt said:
For MP3 encoding you want none other than LAME. It's --alt-preset settings are spectacular.

Screw MP3s, go for oggs.

[nxn]

The Reverend Julian said:

Screw MP3s, go for oggs.

Couldn't have said it better.

[Lüt]

The Reverend Julian said:

Screw MP3s, go for oggs.

The OGG format needs a LOT of work before it even comes close to reaching its potential. As long as it's gonna be in development for a long time, you'll be continuously updating your OGGs from their WAV source every time a new version of the encoder comes out.

On the other hand, MP3s have been perfected with LAME's --alt-preset settings. Being the kind of person who would rather do great work at a moderately easy level rather than mediocre work at an advanced level, I stick with MP3s.

The good thing about OGG is all the potential it has. The thing that sucks about OGG is that it claims to have VBR and it really doesn't. It's all ABR, the whole dang thing.

When you tell it 128kbps and it hovers between 100 and 150 guess what, that's ABR, not VBR.

OGG needs to expand beyond ABR, in fact, it needs to become a fully functional sound format period.

deadnail suggested these formats to me previously:

OGG type 1: Uncompressed - Like wav, but laid out in the exact same format as audio on a CD instead. Plus you can still tag 'em.
OGG type 2: Losslessly compressed - isn't monkey open source?
OGG type 3: ABR - what ogg is now.
OGG type 4: Two pass VBR. No quality settings and it goes over the original song twice to make sure it has the lowest possible bitrates with the highest possible quality. No settings to make it idiot-proof, and if it could directly compete with --alt-preset extreme, it's all I'd use.
OGG type 5: True CBR - for streaming.

Any OGG without the type bit would be assumed as type 3 for compatibilities' sake.

OGG could be the only format we need; open sourced and always competitive.

If the OGG Tarkin video codec followed the same setting scheme, it could be easy to encode a video with specific bitrates... instead of the ABR making a 4x cd dvd rip skip. Even Ogg Vorbis' 1.0 current CBR settings wander a bit (and sometimes a lot, depending on the quality of the input WAV).

I'll give OGG at least 2 years before I seriously consider using it as a standard format.

[FirebrandX]

Not to mention that ogg is not as well established as mp3. Guys that say to use ogg are very similar to someone telling you to use Beta instead of VHS. You discover the quality is better, but nobody supports it.

[Lüt]

OGG's establishment will come with time. It's one of those gradual progressions where cumulative efforts on the part of audiophiles everywhere will be required to help OGG take its rightful position as the successor to MP3. Still, I don't find that the format is mature enough to take that position yet.

[Fredrik]

For converting WAV or CD audio to compressed audio, look no further than CDex. It's perfectly free, has a nice and non-bloated graphical interface, and features the latest & best codecs. Including vorbis and LAME.

You discover the quality is better, but nobody supports it.

At least for my purposes, Winamp is enough.


By the way, if you want perfect sound, use FLAC.

[læmænt]

Lüt said:

The OGG format needs a LOT of work before it even comes close to reaching its potential. As long as it's gonna be in development for a long time, you'll be continuously updating your OGGs from their WAV source every time a new version of the encoder comes out.

Uh, that's dumb. You don't have to update them if you don't want to. The point is, it's _already_ better than mp3.

[Colusio]

When I needed it, cooledit was on version 1.2. Later tried the 2.0 version but didn't have any clue how to use it. Only use it for recording lp's and audio tapes. ('cassettes'). For ripping cdex. Flac sounds interesting.