Audio Format Conversion

[bayswater]

Macfixit had an article on converting audio files to ringtone. Not so interesting, but they did it with the Terminal command afconvert. It looks like this command covers a very wide range of conversions in rates, formats, file types, etc. You can get a listing of what it does by entering afconvert -hf.

The article is at http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57 ... -terminal/

To give an idea, here's a partial paste of formats covered:

'3gpp' = 3GP Audio (.3gp) data_formats: 'Qclp' 'aac ' 'aace' 'aacf' 'aach' 'aacl' 'aacp' 'samr'
'3gp2' = 3GPP-2 Audio (.3g2) data_formats: 'Qclp' 'aac ' 'aace' 'aacf' 'aach' 'aacl' 'aacp' 'samr'
'adts' = AAC ADTS (.aac, .adts) data_formats: 'aac ' 'aach' 'aacp'
'ac-3' = AC3 (.ac3) data_formats: 'ac-3'
'AIFC' = AIFC (.aifc, .aiff, .aif) data_formats: I8 BEI16 BEI24 BEI32 BEF32 BEF64 UI8 'ulaw' 'alaw' 'MAC3' 'MAC6' 'ima4' 'QDMC' 'QDM2' 'Qclp' 'agsm'
'AIFF' = AIFF (.aiff, .aif) data_formats: I8 BEI16 BEI24 BEI32
'amrf' = AMR (.amr) data_formats: 'samr'
'm4af' = Apple MPEG-4 Audio (.m4a, .m4r) data_formats: 'aac ' 'aace' 'aacf' 'aach' 'aacl' 'aacp' 'ac-3' 'alac' 'paac'
'm4bf' = Apple MPEG-4 AudioBooks (.m4b) data_formats: 'aac ' 'aace' 'aacf' 'aach' 'aacl' 'aacp' 'paac'
'caff' = CAF (.caf) data_formats: '.mp1' '.mp2' '.mp3' 'AC-3' 'QDM2' 'QDMC' 'Qclp' 'Qclq' 'TS\x00\x02' 'TS\x00\x11' 'TS\x00E' 'WMA1' 'WMA2' 'WMA3' 'WMAL' 'aac ' 'aace' 'aacf' 'aach' 'aacl' 'aacp' 'ac-3' 'alac' 'alaw' 'dvi8' 'ilbc' 'ima4' I8 BEI16 BEI24 BEI32 BEF32 BEF64 LEI16 LEI24 LEI32 LEF32 LEF64 'ms\x00\x02' 'ms\x00\x11' 'ms\x001' 'ms \x00' 'paac' 'samr' 'ulaw' 'zaac' 'zach' 'zacp'
'MPG1' = MPEG Layer 1 (.mp1, .mpeg, .mpa) data_formats: '.mp1'
'MPG2' = MPEG Layer 2 (.mp2, .mpeg, .mpa) data_formats: '.mp2'
'MPG3' = MPEG Layer 3 (.mp3, .mpeg, .mpa) data_formats: '.mp3'
'mp4f' = MPEG-4 Audio (.mp4) data_formats: 'aac ' 'aace' 'aacf' 'aach' 'aacl' 'aacp' 'ac-3'
'NeXT' = NeXT/Sun (.snd, .au) data_formats: I8 BEI16 BEI24 BEI32 BEF32 BEF64 'ulaw'
'Sd2f' = Sound Designer II (.sd2) data_formats: I8 BEI16 BEI24 BEI32
'WAVE' = WAVE (.wav) data_formats: UI8 LEI16 LEI24 LEI32 LEF32 LEF64 'ulaw' 'alaw'

[mikehalloran]

Although much, if not all of that can be done in QuickTime Pro 7.6.6, this can be faster for those used to the process.

What the article doesn't mention is that you can copy and paste commands into Terminal. Much faster and more accurate than typing for many of us.

Thanks for posting that!

[bayswater]

What the article doesn't mention is that you can copy and paste commands into Terminal. Much faster and more accurate than typing for many of us.

Not copy and paste, but they do describe the process for dragging and dropping the relevant paths and files into Terminal. That's often even simpler than copy and paste.