command-line audio converter: any recommendations?

[mcnach]

 

As the title says. I need it to be able to take a stereo mp3 (or wav) and convert it to a mono wav, 16-bit. If it can offer things like volume normalisation even better but really not necessary. Happy to use Windows or Linux.

 

If interested, this is why, in case some people may find this useful too.

 

My old band reformed a few months ago and added a couple new people, and we're taking this opportunity to write new material.

 

We tend to meet at the guitarist/singers place out in the middle of nowhere (almost) as he's got a nice setup with drums and PA and various amplifiers permanently set ready to go. We record the sessions with a little recorder in the middle of the room. Sound quality is suprisingly good for what it is.

 

We're trying various ideas and generally messing around with things, as we go, and I'm finding very useful to do the following:

 

Take the mp3 recording, and feed it to an app called Moises which does an amazing job at separating 'tracks' (it also recognised chords, song sections, and even transcribes lyrics... the lyrics part is not 100% but it's pretty good, you can also change key and various other things, it's an amazing app). I then export the individual tracks (as mp3, but could export them as wav too, sound quality is not crucial, considering the source).

Now, I like to import them into a Zoom R16 multitrack recorder. Yes, I could use Reaper or whatever on the PC, but I really like the R16 for a number of reasons I won't go into). I convert each track into a mono wav file, and it's got to be 16-bit, and the file name has to follow a particular convention too. Then it's ready to be shuttled into a new project in the R16. I use the R16 to practice: multiFX for bassguitar go into it, and I can use headphones or external monitors. That way I turn off my original bass (but can check it out for when I had a few cool ideas that I want to keep) and I can just jam along and work on various ideas.

 

I'd like to streamline the process by writing a little script that will take care of the file renaming, conversion etc. I just don't have an audio converter that I could run from the command line. A quick google reveals that there's quite a few options, and I don't mind at all paying for the right one. I'm just wondering if anybody has experience and can recommend a particular one.

 

I don't need anything fancy, it's the conversion from stereo mp3/wav to mono wav 16-bit (44.1 KHz preferably) that I really need. Anything else like EQ, normalisation, FX could be interesting but not really in the 'must have' list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jrixn1]

I'd imagine ffmpeg can do this.

[Saul Panzer]

I'll second ffmpeg, it'll change pretty much anything into anything via. the commandline, strip stuff from video or audio etc.

Loads of documentation out there, works on Linux and Windows and a quick google will probably give you a working script off the bat.

[mcnach]

 

Brilliant!!! 

It almost looks like ffmpeg would make me a coffee too, I haven't checked all the docs yet but after a quick scan it looks impressive, thak you! 

 

as simple as:

ffmpeg -i whatevertrack.mp3 -acodec pcm_s16le -ac 1 -ar 41100 whatevertrack.wav 

 

 

and I can easily add tags etc as well... great!