AudioConverter

A simple CLI to convert a directory of audio files from one format to another. This CLI sits ontop of pydub and ffmpeg

Motivation

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.

Setup

Install ffmpeg

Go follow the pydub tutorial on how to set up ffmpeg on the various platforms.

Install CLI

pip install --upgrade AudioConverter

Usage

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

Experimental

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

Accepted Formats

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:

• .mp3
• .flac
• .aiff
• .mp4
• .m4a
• .wav
• .ogg

Supported Codec

• pcm_mulaw