Free Bulk FLAC to AAC encode tool
Apr 18th, 2011 by morpheus
I recently had to re-encode my whole music archive (FLAC files) to AAC (m4a) to put on my Windows phone 7 – at a bitrate lower than I keep them at on my desktop.
As there doesn’t seem to exist an AAC equivalent of tool like oggdropXPd, I had to write a script to do this myself.
I thought of sharing it as it might be useful to others as well.
This simple batch script will look for FLAC files in the given folder (and all sub-folders) and encode them to AAC (m4a) using Nero AAC encoder, whilst retaining all tags.
You basically just have to –
- Unzip the file and create a shortcut to AACEnc.bat on your desktop (or wherever you wish).
- Drag-and-drop any folder that contains FLAC files on this shortcut.
Notes –
- It uses the free Nero AAC encoder (included in the Zip file).
By default, any FLAC files will be deleted after they are encoded. Edit the script to change this behaviour (more specifically, delete line 16). Based on feedback, I’ve updated the script – It will no longer delete the original FLAC files.- The quality setting (decimal value between 0-1, 1 being the best quality) is configurable (more specifically line 2 in the script).
v1 Download it here.
p.s. – I’ve included the required freeware tools “flac.exe”, “NeroAACEnc.exe” etc. in the Zip file.
v2 Download it here.
This version asks you for the output location instead of automatically placing the encoded files next to the source flac files.
Please feel free to leave comments if you have any.
10 Comments on “Free Bulk FLAC to AAC encode tool”
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Seems to work pretty good, I think there might be a bit of quality loss, seeing as the sizes of my flacs changed, but im not sure that might just be the file type, im not too educated in these things. Might have been nice to know it would delete the flacs too. But, as it is, best converter out there I could find.
Wow I feel like a derp. Next time I’ll read the desc.
@Nex, AAC is a lossy format, so yes there will be a quality loss – whether or not the difference is discernible is open to debate.
If you’re really concerned about quality, you can change the setting on line 2 in the script to a higher value e.g.,
SET quality=0.7
I had just put in the default settings that worked best for me … 🙂
Also, I suggest you retain your FLAC files for backup/archival … atleast that’s what I do !
Genius! Exactly what I’m after, something that takes FLAC files, with tags, and batch-converts them to AAC.
Thank you so much for the script I had to modify it a little for it to work.
I was getting the following error.
Add the following line near the top of the file solved the issue.
SET PATH=%~dp0@stretchtiberius,
That error would be produced when the batch files is invoked directly (that is, if you drag & drop the flac folder onto the batch file directly).
If you create a shortcut to the batch file & drag-and-drop the flac folder to this shortcut, this error wouldn’t appear.
The reason being, the shortcut will set the required “path” using the “Start In” property !
The fix you suggested works too, of course. 🙂
Is there a way to set the output location?
Hello Chris,
Please try this version.
It will ask you for output location upon execution.
Out of interest, there is a super little GUI that does exactly the same thing and more – FLAC to Nero AAC including tags, WAV to AAC, AAC to WAV and also offers easy setting of LC-AAC, HE-AAC, HE-AACv2, VBR, ABR, CBR, etc, etc…
It’s been around since 2007 by digitalradiotech.co.uk, whose site is now gone, but it can be downloaded from digital-digest.com (use that site’s search to search for: Nero AAC UI). I’ve checked their archive by MD5 against my version from the original homepage, and it’s identical.
Ha ha … didn’t know that existed ! Thanks for that.
Searching for Nero AAC UI now also brings up this – http://sourceforge.net/projects/einstalkersgui/
Both seem to work very well.