WASHINGTON: These days, it's easy to accumulate digital audio files. It's not so easy, though, to feel like you're in control of what you have.
You might find FLAC or APE files mixed up in your MP3 collection, for example, and folders full of audio files that are disorganised and badly in need of sorting. How can you gain control over this digital mess? Read on for some answers.
Q. I downloaded some files in the FLAC and APE formats, and Windows Media Player won't play them. Any suggestions?
FLAC and APE are both lossless audio encoding formats, meaning that, unlike MP3, FLAC and APE files should retain the full tonal spectrum of the original audio source. The FLAC format has been around for some time now, as has APE but because FLAC and APE files are very large compared to the compressed MP3 format, they haven't been as popular.
However, with hard drive storage now relatively inexpensive and hard drive sizes having grown exponentially over the past couple of years, the popularity of FLAC has increased.
Unfortunately, as you've discovered, Windows Media doesn't support FLAC or APE natively. Nor do many other media players. You have a couple of options, though. First, you could visit the FLAC site (http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html) and download the 'FLAC for Windows with installer' or Monkey Audio (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html), which is behind APE, to install their downloads.
The FLAC download will install a converter, not a player. You can use that to 'decode' the FLAC files, which essentially means turning them into WAV files. Windows Media Player can handle those. WAV files are also lossless, so you won't lose any quality. You'll also be able to burn WAV files to a CD, if you wish to do that, since most CD burning software can deal with that format.
The APE page leads you to some commercial software. A better solution, however, may be to find a media player that will play both FLAC and APE files directly, without the need to convert them first. The free, open-source VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc) fits the bill.
VLC is arguably the most highly regarded of the free media players available today. It can play not only the majority of audio files in distribution today but also handles video files, DVDs, web streams, and much more. It can, in effect, take the place of your Windows Media Player.
You might find FLAC or APE files mixed up in your MP3 collection, for example, and folders full of audio files that are disorganised and badly in need of sorting. How can you gain control over this digital mess? Read on for some answers.
Q. I downloaded some files in the FLAC and APE formats, and Windows Media Player won't play them. Any suggestions?
FLAC and APE are both lossless audio encoding formats, meaning that, unlike MP3, FLAC and APE files should retain the full tonal spectrum of the original audio source. The FLAC format has been around for some time now, as has APE but because FLAC and APE files are very large compared to the compressed MP3 format, they haven't been as popular.
However, with hard drive storage now relatively inexpensive and hard drive sizes having grown exponentially over the past couple of years, the popularity of FLAC has increased.
Unfortunately, as you've discovered, Windows Media doesn't support FLAC or APE natively. Nor do many other media players. You have a couple of options, though. First, you could visit the FLAC site (http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html) and download the 'FLAC for Windows with installer' or Monkey Audio (http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html), which is behind APE, to install their downloads.
The FLAC download will install a converter, not a player. You can use that to 'decode' the FLAC files, which essentially means turning them into WAV files. Windows Media Player can handle those. WAV files are also lossless, so you won't lose any quality. You'll also be able to burn WAV files to a CD, if you wish to do that, since most CD burning software can deal with that format.
The APE page leads you to some commercial software. A better solution, however, may be to find a media player that will play both FLAC and APE files directly, without the need to convert them first. The free, open-source VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc) fits the bill.
VLC is arguably the most highly regarded of the free media players available today. It can play not only the majority of audio files in distribution today but also handles video files, DVDs, web streams, and much more. It can, in effect, take the place of your Windows Media Player.
Q. I have a bunch of MP3 files that I need to create M3U playlists for. Is there a tool that will do this?
For those who don't know, M3U playlist files are essentially text files that list the names of audio files in a particular folder or directory. Many audio players - both software-based and hardware players in car and home stereo systems that can play MP3 files directly - can read M3U files, when present, to know the order in which MP3 files should be played.
No one wants to create M3U files by hand, so if you have a bunch of MP3 files on your hard drive, preferably sorted into folders, a utility that automatically creates the M3U files is essential.
There are many such utilities on the web. A simple, open-source tool that works well is Oplisker (http://sourceforge.net/projects/oplisker). Install this little app, start it up, visit the Tools menu to determine how the program should create the M3U files, select the path or folder in which your files are stored, and click OK. Oplisker will scan your MP3 files and, in a snap, generate your M3U files.
Then just double-click your M3U files, and your default media player should begin playing your files.
Q. Can you recommend a good, all-purpose audio converter?
There are plenty on the market, and which one you choose should depend upon your particular needs. If you want to convert standard audio CDs to MP3 or WAV files, you can't go wrong with the venerable AudioGrabber (http://www.audiograbber.org), which used to be a commercial product but is now free.
AudioGrabber works with the free, open source LAME MP3 encoder, so download a copy of that from RareWares (http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php), unzip it, and place the 'exe' file in the AudioGrabber folder.
The open source CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net) is another excellent option. CDex can 'extract' the audio from a CD as one file - useful for ensuring that you don't miss a note on those CDs that feature one track bleeding into another.
If you'd like to convert one audio file format to another, there's hardly a better tool available than dBpoweramp Music Converter (http://www.dbpoweramp.com), which will convert audio to many different formats and use all of the processing cores available in your computer to do the job relatively quickly. Foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org), designed primarily as a media player, can also convert files from one format to another.
For those who don't know, M3U playlist files are essentially text files that list the names of audio files in a particular folder or directory. Many audio players - both software-based and hardware players in car and home stereo systems that can play MP3 files directly - can read M3U files, when present, to know the order in which MP3 files should be played.
No one wants to create M3U files by hand, so if you have a bunch of MP3 files on your hard drive, preferably sorted into folders, a utility that automatically creates the M3U files is essential.
There are many such utilities on the web. A simple, open-source tool that works well is Oplisker (http://sourceforge.net/projects/oplisker). Install this little app, start it up, visit the Tools menu to determine how the program should create the M3U files, select the path or folder in which your files are stored, and click OK. Oplisker will scan your MP3 files and, in a snap, generate your M3U files.
Then just double-click your M3U files, and your default media player should begin playing your files.
Q. Can you recommend a good, all-purpose audio converter?
There are plenty on the market, and which one you choose should depend upon your particular needs. If you want to convert standard audio CDs to MP3 or WAV files, you can't go wrong with the venerable AudioGrabber (http://www.audiograbber.org), which used to be a commercial product but is now free.
AudioGrabber works with the free, open source LAME MP3 encoder, so download a copy of that from RareWares (http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php), unzip it, and place the 'exe' file in the AudioGrabber folder.
The open source CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net) is another excellent option. CDex can 'extract' the audio from a CD as one file - useful for ensuring that you don't miss a note on those CDs that feature one track bleeding into another.
If you'd like to convert one audio file format to another, there's hardly a better tool available than dBpoweramp Music Converter (http://www.dbpoweramp.com), which will convert audio to many different formats and use all of the processing cores available in your computer to do the job relatively quickly. Foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org), designed primarily as a media player, can also convert files from one format to another.
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