FLAC to MP3

[Handruin]

I know that I can manually convert from flac to MP3, that part is easy. What I'm trying to find is if there is a tool that which will take a directory with FLAC files and convert them to MP3 while retaining the ID3 tagging, naming, structure, and create an appropriate playlist file for each album?

For example, I currently have

-Artist
     -Album
          -01 TrackName.flac
          -02 TrackName.flac
          -03 TrackName.flac
          -Artist name - Album name.m3u

The flac files have the ID3/meta data already in them. I would like to point a tool to the Artist folder and have it spit out a mirrored folder (to a location of my choice) of the exact same structure, but the files are converted to mp3 using the mp3 encoder of my choice (preferably LAME) with the quality settings I want. Does such a tool exist? If not, would such a tool be of interest to anyone else?

 

[Mercutio]

Formatfactory will do that. ConvertX should do that as well.

Formatfactory is great for Windows users. You can point it at a top level directory and it will do everything beneath that point if you ask it to.

 

[Handruin]

Thanks, I'll take a look at both of those to see if they do what I need. The website for Formatfactory doesn't list FLAC as one of its codecs. I'll give it a try anyway to see if it works. I'm googling ConvertX and I find the majority of hits for ConvertX to DVD. Is that the tool you're suggesting?

 

[Mercutio]

I'm sorry. I meant Xrecode.

There's an Xrecode 2 which I believe is widely available nagware, and an Xrecode 1, which is freeware. Good luck finding the freeware one.

Formatfactory absolutely does support conversion to and from flac, though. Honest.

 

[Stereodude]

Foobar 2000 can do it with the exception perhaps of making the playlists. It also loses album art while converting (all other tag data is kept). LameXP might also be worth looking at also. I haven't use LameXP though. I use Foobar and add the album art back with another program.

 

[sechs]

I would go with Foorbar, as well. I know for sure that you can replace the lame encoder with whatever version you like.