Convert .mp3 / .wma / .wav / format : Ubuntu (6.06.1 / 6.10)

By | 2006/12/18
16 Comments

I was spending some time in the Ubuntu Forums this evening and thought I would share a few questions that I ran into. For those of you looking for a high-level tutorial this isn’t it, but its a good tip for anyone.

If you need to convert audio formats there are a few options for you. I have long used soundconverter to go between just about any format out there. I recently even converted a very large .mp3 collection to .ogg.

To install soundconverter simply use:

Applications > Add/Remove > Search:"soundconverter"

sudo aptitude install soundconverter

I hope this helps. Now that you’ve got a converter why not switch your .mp3 over to the FOSS .ogg format? 🙂  Note: you may need the appropriate codecs to read / convert these audio formats.  You might want to check out my previous post How to install multimedia codecs.

16 thoughts on “Convert .mp3 / .wma / .wav / format : Ubuntu (6.06.1 / 6.10)”

  1. Fragwolf

    Really usefull program! nice one

  2. Jason

    How do I add the option to convert to .wma? It does not give me that option when I installed like you said..

  3. Tom

    Thanks for the info. I had a .wav form of my late mother I converted to .mp3. Then I combined it with her eulogy using Audacity and burnt it to CD. Works better than trying to find the correct settings in Amarok.

  4. Fred Bulah

    I too am having a problem using the SoundConverter command line to comvert .mp3 to .wma.

    The command line:

    soundconverter -b -m “audio/x-ms-wma” -s .wma STE-001.mp3

    Produced the error:

    SoundConverter 0.9.4
    using Gstreamer version: 0.10.12, Python binding version: 0.10.6
    using gnomevfssrc
    xingmux element not found.
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File “/usr/bin/soundconverter”, line 2429, in
    main()
    File “/usr/bin/soundconverter”, line 2425, in main
    cli_convert_main(args)
    File “/usr/bin/soundconverter”, line 2315, in cli_convert_main
    c.init()
    File “/usr/bin/soundconverter”, line 996, in init
    encoder = self.encoders[self.output_type]()
    KeyError: ‘audio/x-ms-wma’

    Any ideas anyone?

    Thanks in advance.

  5. Duane

    Thanks, this was extremely helpful to me!!! I had downloaded some mp3’s, but when I played them on my mp3 player they had a strong echo. Strangely enough, I converted my mp3 downloads to mp3’s using the converter and it cleaned them up. I copied them over onto a CD and now they are fine on my mp3 player. As a footnote, I am running Kubuntu Hardy. THANKS!!!

  8. eric

    my sound converter required me to install gstreamer in order for conversion from wav to mp3 to take place. But when I try to convert wav to mp3, a blank mp3 file is produced. when I try to play the mp3 file with mplayer I get an error saying 'file contains no data'. can anyone help?

  11. Matt

    Sound Converter works great through the GUI in Ubuntu, with only one downfall – it doesn't keep the ID3 tags. I have since looked around and found the app 'SoundKonverter' which ticked all the boxes for me. Sure it's a KDE app and requires the extra packages but it's well worth doing if you've already tagged all your files! SoundKonverter is available through Add/Remove or through terminal:
    #> sudo apt-get install soundkonverter.

  12. bagheera

    thx, that is what i was looking 4

  13. b4ndit

    soundconverter can be found in applications -> add remove search for soundconverter, it works like a charm and you avoid console 🙂

  14. SilversleevesX

    Thanks Matt for recommending SoundKonverter. I’m using it now, and while a bit slow on my “chocolate-in-your-peanut-butter” Ubuntu 9.04 (with heavy doses of KDE 3/4 installed already), it seems to be working better than WinFF or charging along on the command-line with FFMpeg did/would have done.

    Cheers.

    BZT

  15. The_Shep

    nice one, just what i needed

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