Converting FLAC to ATRAC

[pomj]

I have quite alot of albums ripped to flac that I would like to convert to ATRAC advanced lossless or some other format that my sony can read. Which program is best to use?

[rocklegend_]

I have quite alot of albums ripped to flac that I would like to convert to ATRAC advanced lossless or some other format that my sony can read. Which program is best to use?

There is a great program called Audio Converter.try googleing it.The only problem is that it doesn´t convert to Atrac.Blame Sony for that.What you can do is Convert to WAV with Audio Converter and then to Atrac with Chronicstrage (SS).It´s a long process but it´s gonna be the only way to get your music to Atrac.Oh and by the way Audio Converter converts to every format that there is except Atrac.Way to go Sony.......

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

It'd be dead simple if you just wanted to create lossy ATRAC files for transfer, then it'd be hello to something like MediaCoder - last time i looked, it featured FLAC AND ATRAC3 conversions.

Just mentioned that in case a similar case, but wanting lossy ATRAC files, occurs to someone else.

Next option, assuming it still exists.... :-

Highly expensive and overkill, for this purpose, and that'd be Sound Forge (or whatever Sony, since grabbing it, have called it). There's a free plugin for ATRAC handling (inc Lossless) and i vaguely recall FLAC supported (dont quote me on that, i dont think the virtual scorched fur can take much more flaming these days).

Somewhere in between, for simple file conversion, there used to be (available standalone and for use with SF) a product called Batch Converter from Sonic Foundy and i assume it carried over to the Sony side of the buyout too.

A lot cheaper than SF, and it should (all things being equal) support the ATRAC plugin mentioned earlier.

Alternatively, and now we are at least three paws into piecemeal conversion :-

1. Burn Audio CD's to RW's, from FLAC remembering to use CD-TEXT (which SonicStage reads on CD-TEXT enabled discs) and reuse to discs (aka burn, import to ATRAC LSL using SS, wipe/reuse RW).

2. Alternatively, use any good convertor (i tend to favour dBPowerAmp, but MediaCoder is there and a nice do-all alternative) to :-

i) Arrange copies of the FLAC files, arranged nested by the tag info (so you can fill in missing info based on where the files ended up on the hard drive), but ensure the filenames read something like [artist]-[track] (leave out the [ and ], those just are field representations for example, if using dBPowerAmp to define layout using 'Arrange Files' plugin).

ii) Batch convert the FLAC copies, again assuming the use of dBPowerAMP for consistency, to WAV (generating same filenames in .WAV) - writing these to same location as source file and deleting the conversion copy FLAC's (not the original set), so you end up with .WAV's with the equiv filenames.

iii) Import these one album/disc worth at a time and use SS's facility (i forget what it's called) to lookup track info based on the filename (this is why i suggested the filenaming arrangement i did) - and what it can't ID or gets wrong, you can correct in SS's Db and when that's done, set SS to batch convert the whole damn lot (and it'll take time) to ATRAC Lossless where it'll write the dB held tag info to the resulting ATRAC LSL files.

3) The simplest option short of reripping or doing all the previous conversion mess mention above in my post, is to bit the bullet and convert to a LSL format that is importable directly (WMA Lossless for sure, maybe Apple Lossless.. but i wont swear to that one).

In your shoes, i'd go with option 3, as typically i find people with a desire to import/transfer FLAC collections have a huge personal library and a direct LSL-->LSL conversion and import to library is often the least painless option short of native re-ripping in SS.

Time isn't an issue for me, these days, so i would personally use whatever version suited my needs if i had to do a non-supported import. But like i say, i can go for unwieldy options, as i have lots of time to kill (literally).

Be Cool Always, and dont let it get yer down.

'Tom Kat'