UKC

I'd like to purge my music collection of wma files.

Can anyone reccomend a program (in Win7) that I can point at my music folder and have it automatically find and convert all my wma files to mp3, then delete the wma file.

In reply to Dan Arkle:

Try this
http://m.download.cnet.com/Free-WMA-to-MP3-Converter/3000-2140_4-10494267.h...

In reply to Dan Arkle:

Media Monkey? Generally very good at this kind of 'collection management' stuff, particularly if you have a lot of music. May need the premium version for batch conversion though - a steal at about $20 if memory serves.

Could be better options, but can vouch for this from years of use.

In reply to Dan Arkle:
You could try Audacity for batch conversions. I use it to convert FLAC to MP3.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

However if you have loads, and are not adverse to torrents, then why not download the MP3 versions of your music?


You could also fix your tags with the following too.

http://lifehacker.com/5511473/start-to-finish-guide-to-whipping-your-musics...

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

I have all my music tagged with appropriate artwork. I have also taken the time to get the volumes the same so that I don't have to keep lunging for the volume settings every time a song either randomly whispers or blasts my eardrums.

In reply to Dan Arkle:

dbPoweramp

In reply to Dan Arkle:

I'm having a play with Picard at the moment to see if it can tidy up my music collection. Over the years I learnt how to use MP3Tag by trial and error, and as such it got a few albums wrong with crazy title names. Just when I thought I was listening to a sweet Phil Collins, 'in the air tonight' I was rewarded with something way more sinister.

http://picard.musicbrainz.org/

I've got Picard wading through 17,000 or so songs and trying to fingerprint my collection.

Lets hope I don't bugger things up.

In reply to hamsforlegs:

Yes, MediaMonkey will do it, even the free version*. Import your music, sort by file type, select all the WMA files, and use Tools/Convert format to MP3. Set a suitable compression level; personally, I'd go for the maximum available, regardless of the original source quality. WMA is generally considered to be a more efficient format, so that a 128kbps WMA is roughly sonically equivalent to a 192kbps MP3.

Be aware that transcoding inevitably reduces audio quality, since you're introducing a second set of compression artefacts.

* MM comes with a '30 day trial of LAME'. Which is kind of a cheek, since LAME is free, and not developed by Ventis Media. But you can get aroung the limit when it expires, by deleting the lame_enc.dll file from the install directory, starting MM, trying to use LAME, closing MM and then downloading and installing lame_enc.dll from the LAME development site.

In reply to The Lemming:

I think there's a MusicBrainz plugin for MediaMonkey; part of its auto-tagging suite.

Some great advice guys,

Thankyou all very much.

In reply to captain paranoia:


I can't seem to sort by filetype. There is no column to select by, and it doesn't seem to be an option in the basic search (advanced search is paid app only).

What am I missing?

In reply to Dan Arkle:

You may need to add it as a column heading in the file browser view (set to view by detail, not artwork). I can't get to the PC at the moment to check, but it'll be a right click somewhere, probably on the column heading banner.

In reply to captain paranoia:

^^ this.

Without being at my own computer I can't be sure, but does the basic search include the ability to search by filename or path? If so, you can search for .wma and this will work too. May be a gold function though.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Success, it was that sneaky right click!

Its now chugging way, quietly cleansing 80gb of music from the horror of wma.

Thanks