convert audio files - flac ogg mp3 m4a

Convert files from different audio formats

Readin Baeldung and Lewis Diamond blog I have come up to this conclusion

ffmpeg

ffmpeg will parse conversion to an external interpreter.

• Best quality: ffmpeg -i sample1.flac -q:a 0 -map a output1.mp3
• Mid quality: ffmpeg -i sample1.flac -acodec libmp3lame -ab 320k output1.mp3
• Smallest size: ffmpeg -i sample1.flac -acodec libmp3lame -ab 128k output1.mp3

lame

will work faster, it does not need an external converter, does it directly.

• Best quality: lame --preset extreme sample1.flac output2.mp3
• Mid quality: lame -b 320 sample1.flac output2.mp3
• Smallest size: lame sample1.flac output2.mp3

batch

Using find -name "*.AUDIOFORMAT" we can parse the ressult to -exec and do audio conversion as noted before, depends on your preferences, for example:

• ffmpeg medium quallity adding .mp3 to the name preserves metadata: find -name "*.flac" -exec ffmpeg -i {} -acodec libmp3lame -ab 320k {}.mp3 \;
• ffmpeg better quality adding .mp3 to the name preserves metadata: find -name "*.flac" -exec ffmpeg -i {} -q:a 0 -map a {}.mp3 \;
• lame adding .mp3 to the name, does not preserve metadata: find . -name "*.flac" -exec lame --preset extreme {} {}.mp3 \;

best choice

• flac to mp3

find -name "*.flac" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "{}" -q:a 0 -map a "${0/.flac}.mp3"' {}  \;

• m4a to mp3

find -name "*.m4a" -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "{}" -q:a 0 -map a "${0/.m4a}.mp3"' {}  \;