The 4 best audio converter tools for Linux
Do you need to convert some music files on your Linux PC to a different audio format? Unsure of what tool to use to do the job? We can help! Here are 4 of the best audio converter tools for Linux!
1. SoundConverter
SoundConverter is an audio transcoding tool for the Gnome desktop environment. It has a very easy to understand UI, and supports audio conversion for all modern formats, including OGG, ACC, MP3, FLAC, Wave, and many others. Also, SoundConverter can transcode video files to audio.
The SoundConverter application has a lot of positives, but its best feature is how fast it can convert audio files. Thanks to multi-threading support, it can take full advantage of multi-core CPUs for one of the fastest audio converter tools on Linux!
Notable features
- Supports video-to-audio conversion.
- It has a wide variety of supported audio codecs, even obscure ones.
- Multi-core CPU support makes the conversion process very fast!
Download – SoundConverter
SoundConverter is widely available to all modern Linux operating systems via software repositories. However, it is also possible to get the app’s source code from the official website.
If you’d like to install the SoundConverter program on your Linux PC, the best way to go about it is to head over to Pkgs.org. Once on Pkgs.org, look through the list of Linux distributions and click on the one you use. From there, it will display information on how to install SoundConverter.
2. Gnac
Gnac promises to be a very simple, easy to use audio conversion tool for Linux. It has a basic user-interface and is primarily targeted at users who aren’t media experts.
The app has support for most modern audio formats and can convert to them. Additionally, it has an excellent file queuing system, which allows users to convert batches of audio files all at once.
Notable features
- Extremely easy to use graphical interface is perfect for newbies on Linux looking to convert audio files.
- Excellent queue feature makes it very simple to convert multiple sound files at once.
- Gnac supports a wide variety of modern audio file formats.
Download – Gnac
The Gnac audio converter tool is available in Arch Linux, Debian 8, Fedora 29/30, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. To install it on any of these Linux distributions, head over to this page here.
Gnac is quite easy to install on quite a few modern Linux distributions, thanks to the community’s willingness to keep releasing new packages. However, please keep in mind that Ubuntu Linux (after 14.04), as well as Debian Linux, do not have Gnac packages available. Instead, to use the app on these operating systems, you must download the source code from SourceForge and build it yourself.
3. Fre:ac
Fre:ac is an open-source audio converter for Linux that can also double as a CD ripper. With it, users can convert their favorite audio files on Linux to any of the modern formats, like MP3, FLAC, AAC, WAV, etc. Fre:ac also has support for freedb, and can automatically add ID3 tags to audio files, making things much easier.
There are a lot of excellent audio converters on Linux. However, if you need more than just an audio converter and want integrated CD ripping support and audio tagging, Fre:ac is the app for you!
Notable features
- Fre:ac not only converts audio files, but it can extract audio from CDs, and save them in a variety of audio formats.
- The app supports automatic ID3 tagging for audio files.
- Fre:ac is in the Snap and Flatpak stores making it one of the easiest audio converters to install on the Linux platform.
Download – Fre:ac
The Fre:ac audio converter, unlike the other Linux applications on this list, is not in any operating system software repository. You won’t find a downloadable DEB or RPM file of it anywhere. Rather, the developer has chosen a more modern approach and uploaded it as a Snap package to the Snap store, and as a Flatpak on Flathub.
If you’d like to try out Fre:ac on your Linux PC, enable Snap packages or Flatpak support. Then, open up a terminal window and enter one of the commands below to get Fre:ac working.
Snap package
sudo snap install freac --beta
Flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
sudo flatpak install flathub org.freac.freac
For more information on the Fre:ac Snap package, click here. Or, to learn about the Fre:ac Flatpak, click this link.
4. FFMPEG
FFMPEG is a powerful, command-line media transcoding suite for Linux, Mac, Windows, and other operating systems. It can handle any modern audio format very easily and is often used as the backend for music players, and even some graphical audio converter tools.
The FFMPEG app is not for beginners, as it is a command-line tool. However, it is incredibly versatile and very scriptable. It has dozens of options that other audio converter tools on Linux lack, including the ability to convert audio to video, compression, and even streaming support. Suffice it to say; if you need a powerful audio converter on Linux, you need FFMPEG.
Notable features
- FFMPEG is highly scriptable and can be automated with Linux bash scripts, python programming, and many other languages.
- FFMPEG not only supports audio converting, but it can also handle video files.
- FFMPEG is very powerful and has dozens of advanced features that power users will love.
Download – FFMPEG
As mentioned earlier, FFMPEG is in everything. From your most-used Linux music app to your favorite Linux video player, and even some of the sound converter tools on this list. For this reason, FFMPEG is incredibly easy to install, even on some of the most unknown Linux OSes.
To get your hands on FFMPEG, head over to their official website. They have detailed instructions on how to get the absolute latest for every Linux distribution. Or, check out Pkgs.org, as they have downloadable packages for all modern OSes.
Conclusion
In this list, we went over some of the best audio converter tools on the Linux platform. What is your favorite audio converter tool for Linux? Tell us in the comment section below!
For linux a good bash script that convert most HQ audio files can be found in : https://github.com/peterpt/ConvAudio/
Pretty simple script and it is recursive , just point to a directory where all audio folders are and script will the the job .