A simple CLI to convert a directory of audio files from one format
to another. This CLI sits ontop of pydub
and ffmpeg
I have some old music in a lossless format. Now that I am constantly
jumping between computers, I wanted it to be converted in
a more universal format such as mp3
so that I can play it with
the simplest of players. I also wanted to avoid having
to stream my music on cloud platforms. Upon a cursory and naive scan
on the web, I found that existing scripts are defunct (again cursory)
or was not as simple as I would like it to be. I did not want to download
a GUI for a one time use or upload a directory of music online to have it
be converted on some server and download it again either. Instead, I wrote
this quick CLI to do it for me.
ffmpeg
Go follow the pydub
tutorial
on how to set up ffmpeg
on the various platforms.
pip install --upgrade AudioConverter
audioconvert [--verbose/-v] convert INPUT_DIRECTORY OUTPUT_DIRECTORY [--output-format/-o TARGET_FORMAT]
This will recursively search the INPUT_DIRECTORY
for files with music
extensions. Each file found will then be converted to the TARGET_FORMAT
and
placed in the OUTPUT_DIRECTORY
with the same name but updated extension.
The --verbose/-v
flag must be provided before the convert
command. This
will enable debugging logs and allow you to monitor progress.
For example - to convert the contents of the directory input/
, containing
files of type .m4a
and .flac
, outputting to directory output/
, converting
to type .mp3
run:
audioconvert convert input/ output/ --output-format .mp3
Audio can be passed to be converted to specific codecs. This is an experimental now feature
as it has no error checking that certain codecs are compatible with your desired output
audio format. Depending on ffmpeg
and/or pydub
, there may or may not be error logging.
To use the new experimental feature:
audioconvert convert input/ output/ --output-format .wav --codec pcm_mulaw
Due to not being super savvy with audio formats, I hard coded the extensions
that are searched for in the INPUT_DIRECTORY
and acceptable TARGET_FORMAT
.
Here is a list of formats I thought were popular: