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Topic: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC (Read 13021 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

I have Foobar and have just finished cleaning up about 2500 albums (1000 odd artists). Now I want to convert the whole folder to FLAC since most portable media players (I only have Fiio M3Pro and M6) cannot read WavPack files.

I believe Foobar has a method to do so but I cannot find it in the menus.

It has taken me months to clean up the artwork and some broken tags (in most cases using FreeDB, but also entering data manually in a few). How much of this metadata will I lose when I convert to FLAC?

Thank you in advance.

P.S. I did try to search but could not find a valid answer that plainly listed all the steps required.


Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #1
You can find a few guides with a search, like this one, for example. The principle is always the same, no matter the formats involved.
Note: that guide doesn't include folders in the destination, but you can add them (like: %album artist% - %date% - %album%\%track% - %title%).

Do a few tests (convert just one or two albums) and tweak the settings before converting everything to see if it works as intended and the metadata is preserved. You'll probably want to include ReplayGain scanning (if you haven't scanned them already) and copy the cover files (mind the extensions: jpg, png, jpeg, ...). It depends on how you personally want your files organized, really. I don't think Foobar can copy non-audio files from subfolders, though (like artwork/scans/booklets), so you might have to do that separately.

The crucial thing IMO is to have consistent tags, especially when it involves albums with various artists or for example classical music, where the composer/performer can make things more complicated.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #2
Do you have a directory or subdirectory structure with no other audio files than WavPack only?

 

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #3
Note: that guide doesn't include folders in the destination, but you can add them (like: %album artist% - %date% - %album%\%track% - %title%).

Do a few tests (convert just one or two albums) and tweak the settings
You'll probably want to include ReplayGain scanning (if you haven't scanned them already) and copy the cover files (mind the extensions: jpg, png, jpeg, ...). It depends on how you personally want your files organized, really. I don't think Foobar can copy non-audio files from subfolders, though (like artwork/scans/booklets), so you might have to do that separately.

The crucial thing IMO is to have consistent tags, especially when it involves albums with various artists or for example classical music, where the composer/performer can make things more complicated.

Thanks for replying so quick.

I have my albums (including classical) organised as X:\WV\artist\album\songname.wv
I'd like my FLAC files to be organised as X:\FLAC\artirst\album\songname.flac

For classical albums, I have tried to be consistent and use "Composer Name" for Artist. The Artists name I have included as "Performer". So if Andre Previn \conducted the London Symphony Orchestra for Vivaldi's 4 seasons. Artist was Vivaldi, Album was 4 seasons, and the Performer was Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra.

It makes a lot of sense to try 1 album at a time and see how it goes.

What is Replaygain Scanning? I don't know if my files are replay gain enabled or not?

I assumed the album art or cover art included in the metadata would transfer to the FLAC file.  I did not realise that I will have to redo all the album art or cover art for all the FLAC files all over again?

Yes, there is a challenge with the Classical files as they have Performer data. Rock and Pop music does not have that data. Should I fill all the albums with Performer data (I can use the Artist name as Performer data) before conversion?

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #4
Do you have a directory or subdirectory structure with no other audio files than WavPack only?

Thanks for replying.

My WavPack files are in one directory. My MP3 files are in a separate directory.
X:\WV\Artist\Album\Song.wv
X:\MP3\Artist\Album\Song.mp3

Is this ok?

I want to create a third directory
X:\FLAC\Arist\Album\Song.flac

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #5
I have my albums (including classical) organised as X:\WV\artist\album\songname.wv
I'd like my FLAC files to be organised as X:\FLAC\artirst\album\songname.flac
Right, then put %album artist%\%album%\%title% in the output field.
Keep in mind there's an "artist" and also an "album artist" tag. The latter is probably more appropriate, especially when there are different artists on an album, of course (Various Artists albums, for example). Check your current tags if that would work in your case. Honestly, I'm not familiar with WavePack tagging, but I assume it works like in other common formats.

BTW, I use TagScanner for managing tags. Although I had to use Mp3tag as well with some rare WAV files. In most cases they should produce the same result.

Quote
What is Replaygain Scanning? I don't know if my files are replay gain enabled or not?
In short: ReplayGain is part of a track's metadata and it says how loud a track and/or an album is. To produce this data tracks have to be scanned first. This data can then be read on playback and is used to equalize the volume between tracks or albums that have different levels of loudness.
If you right click on a track in Foobar and check the properties you will see whether it already has some ReplayGain data or not. Tracks can be scanned manually at any time or automatically in the conversion process.

Quote
I assumed the album art or cover art included in the metadata would transfer to the FLAC file.  I did not realise that I will have to redo all the album art or cover art for all the FLAC files all over again?
The cover art can be part of the audio files (as metadata) or it can be in a separate file (usually called cover.jpg or folder.jpg). Foobar can transfer either or both during the conversion.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #6
Right, then put %album artist%\%album%\%title% in the output field.
Keep in mind there's an "artist" and also an "album artist" tag.

The latter is probably more appropriate, especially when there are different artists on an album, of course (Various Artists albums, for example). Check your current tags if that would work in your case. Honestly, I'm not familiar with WavePack tagging, but I assume it works like in other common formats.

BTW, I use TagScanner for managing tags. Although I had to use Mp3tag as well with some rare WAV files. In most cases, they should produce the same result.

If you right-click on a track in Foobar and check the properties you will see whether it already has some ReplayGain data or not. Tracks can be scanned manually at any time or automatically in the conversion process.

The cover art can be part of the audio files (as metadata) or it can be in a separate file (usually called cover.jpg or folder.jpg). Foobar can transfer either or both during the conversion.

Thank you again.

Yes, I am aware there are "Artists Name" and "Album Artists" fields. In most of my WavPack files, I have used the same data for both. The only case is when it is a compilation of "Various Artists". In this case, my "Album Artists" field has "Various Artists" and the "Artists Name" would have a long list of all artists on that album

I am using the default Columns UI to see my music. I don't know how to make a nicer looking screen for Foobar so this basic one serves my purpose. My top 3 columns are "Genre", "Artist", and "Album". If I right-click on the Album a screen pops up and at the bottom is an option called "Properties". When I click on "Properties" another screen pops up with 4 tabs. The tab I use is called "Metadata".

I have never used MP3Tag or any other tagging software. Should I? I assumed EAC would cover all the tagging when I ripped the CDs.

I checked for ReplayGain in properties and there is no data in that field. What do I do now?

For most of my CDs, do not have any "Folder.jpg" or "Cover.jpg" file. A few of them that I manually searched for have called "ArtistName-AlbumName.jpg" in the same folder as the CD.  So will FooBar transfer all these files with the album/cover art as part of the metadata?

Thanks Again

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #7
I want to create a third directory
X:\FLAC\Arist\Album\Song.flac
Do you want to delete your .wv archive? I gave a write-up here, as I would be careful about deleting stuff without having verified that they match bit by bit: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=119929.msg988566#msg988566

But conversion: Likely the easiest thing to do, is to have foobar2000 select all your .wv files and then convert to target $directory_path(%path%)\%filename%
Then fb2k will make
X:\X-\WV\Artist\Album\Song.flac
and then you just repair the beginning of the path in the end. Make sure to select everything you need under the "Other" menu items before converting.

Once you have a complete copy, you can compare before deleting.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #8
I have never used MP3Tag or any other tagging software. Should I?
IMO yes. They give you a nice overview and let you edit tags more quickly.

Quote
I checked for ReplayGain in properties and there is no data in that field. What do I do now?
Honestly... forget about it for now, don't overwhelm yourself. ;) Once you're done converting/tagging, you can read about ReplayGain and decide if you want to use it.

Quote
For most of my CDs, do not have any "Folder.jpg" or "Cover.jpg" file. A few of them that I manually searched for have called "ArtistName-AlbumName.jpg" in the same folder as the CD.  So will FooBar transfer all these files with the album/cover art as part of the metadata?
Foobar can copy those separate files, if you tell it to. There's a help pop-up "?" in that "Copy other files to the destination folder" field, which explains how copying the files works for different extensions and so on.
And as I said before, Foobar can also transfer the covers that are embedded in the files (part of the metadata), by checking "Transfer attached pictures".
Foobar can't take those external image files and embed them in the audio files as metadata, though, AFAIK.

I suggest you explore all those conversion options, how they work and what they do, then do some tests with different settings.
And a tagging program, while not strictly necessary, can make your life easier and let you better know what you're dealing with.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #9
Do you want to delete your .wv archive?

But conversion: Likely the easiest thing to do, is to have foobar2000 select all your .wv files and then convert to target $directory_path(%path%)\%filename%
Then fb2k will make
X:\X-\WV\Artist\Album\Song.flac
and then you just repair the beginning of the path in the end. Make sure to select everything you need under the "Other" menu items before converting.

Thank you.

No, I don't want to delete my WV files. I intend to keep them just in case I need them later. I just want a directory that has all my FLAC files.  ...\FLAC\Arits\Album\SongName.flac.

I am hoping the conversion will mean my FLAC files also have the same metadata (Artist, Album, Cover art) that my WV files have.

I have 2500 CDs ripped. It will be years before I compare each file by listening to both. Is there a quick way to compare the FLAC copies from the WV originals?

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #10
IMO yes. They give you a nice overview and let you edit tags more quickly.

Foobar can copy those separate files, if you tell it to. There's a help pop-up "?" in that "Copy other files to the destination folder" field, which explains how copying the files works for different extensions and so on.
And as I said before, Foobar can also transfer the covers that are embedded in the files (part of the metadata), by checking "Transfer attached pictures".

Foobar can't take those external image files and embed them in the audio files as metadata, though, AFAIK.

I suggest you explore all those conversion options, how they work and what they do, then do some tests with different settings.
And a tagging program, while not strictly necessary, can make your life easier and let you better know what you're dealing with.

Thanks.  I figured now that all my files are tagged I would not need any additional tagging.

I did not expect FooBar to take JPG files and embed the artwork into the FLAC files which is why I went through each album manually and ensured that each of them has album art embedded (either automatically) or manually).

I have noticed (in FooBar) that some of my older albums (albums ripped earlier) have a very small cover/album art embedded.  There about 1000-1200 albums with this issue. Is there some automated way I can replace this lower-quality art with better quality (higher pixel) cover/album art?

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #11
I have 2500 CDs ripped. It will be years before I compare each file by listening to both. Is there a quick way to compare the FLAC copies from the WV originals?
I have never tried the foobar2000 Binary Comparator tool, but that is the exact purpose of it.

And it certainly would be a good idea, especially if you decided to delete some or all of the WavPack files at some point.

Whether you could do the whole 2500 CDs in one pass is not obvious though. But doing a small random sampling of CDs without errors would provide some confidence. That's how they test light bulbs!  :)

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #12
And it certainly would be a good idea, especially if you decided to delete some or all of the WavPack files at some point.

Whether you could do the whole 2500 CDs in one pass is not obvious though. But doing a small random sampling of CDs without errors would provide some confidence. That's how they test light bulbs!  :)

When God speaks, you listen. :-)

Thank you Bryant. I don't think I will delete my WavPack files ever. I have put too much effort into them.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #13
And it certainly would be a good idea, especially if you decided to delete some or all of the WavPack files at some point.

Whether you could do the whole 2500 CDs in one pass is not obvious though. But doing a small random sampling of CDs without errors would provide some confidence. That's how they test light bulbs!  :)

When God speaks, you listen. :-)

Thank you Bryant. I don't think I will delete my WavPack files ever. I have put too much effort into them. Some are 15 years old.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #14
I've been using the fb2k binary compare component for this. And for good reason - I once had the FLAC frontend eat my files when I tried to use it to recompress.
It is crucial though that you are sure you got all the files in the right order. foo_bitcompare will not make any attempt at reordering files. It will however yell if the set is not an even number, or if you try to compare a file to itself.

Also, I suggest that you convert to another drive and pack down this one for backup, if you have had files on it for fifteen years.


Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #15
Is there a way to compare files in bulk? I only know how to compare two at a time.

EDIT: Oh, I see now, they have to be ordered just right, like in the wiki example. Took a bit of fiddling before I realized that sorting by the Codec column puts them in order.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #16
I suggest you explore all those conversion options, how they work and what they do, then do some tests with different settings.
And a tagging program, while not strictly necessary, can make your life easier and let you better know what you're dealing with.

So I tried to convert WV to FLAC and I set up the converter in FooBar as per the instructions in the link below
https://captainrookie.com/how-to-convert-flac-files-to-mp3-using-foobar2000/

I got a prompt for folder. I chose a folder I had created for this test (Just one album) but nothing happened.

I repeated the test by creating another preset for WV to MP3 still no file.

I tried using "Quick Convert" to create FLAC and still nothing.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #17
as per the instructions in the link below
https://captainrookie.com/how-to-convert-flac-files-to-mp3-using-foobar2000/

Right after the "Set the name format as" text, hit "specify folder" and select the X: root folder. The under "Name format", enter $directory_path(%path%)\%filename%

Then under Other also check the "Transfer ReplayGain info" box.

Under that "Click on MP3 (LAME) and then" thing, select FLAC. (For testing purposes you might want to use the fastest -0 thing; for the real thing, delete your test-run files and select -8.)

Anything going on?



Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #18
Anything going on?

Thank you so much.

You will kill me for my stupidity. I figured out that I do not have a FLAC encoder downloaded.  I downloaded the encoder pack from https://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack

Once I got this even the older path worked fine.

I put X:\WV2FLAC in the "Specify Folder" and %album artist%\%album%\%title% in the "Name Format".

Now I had only 1 challenge left. I was not getting the  song list in the same order as on the album. Instead I am getting the song list alphabetically.

So I changed "Name Format" to %album artist%\%album%\%tracknumber%-%title%

Now it seems to work.  YAY. Thank you Brand, Porcus and of course, Mr. David Bryant.

I don't have any album without track numbers so can't check what happens if there are NO track numbers.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #19
Progress report: I am thrilled. It will take about 6 hours to convert everything to FLAC V0.

Thank you again everyone. Muaaaaaaah!

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #20
Now I had only 1 challenge left. I was not getting the  song list in the same order as on the album. Instead I am getting the song list alphabetically.

That should then have been a problem in your old set.
The problem is now: if you don't get them in the same order out, then you won't get them in the correct order for foo_bitcompare.

There is a way to handle that if everything is OK: sort each by audio checksum.
fb2k: Ctrl-P for preferences. Under Display -> Default User Interface -> Playlist View, add a new custom column called "MD5", pattern: %__md5%. Then make sure you have that displayed in your playlist view. Then generate two playlists: One for the .vw, one for the .flac. Each of them you sort by MD5. Copy one on top of the other. Then they should be in the same order. Select all, and bitcompare.
Try it with three album folders first, so you don't have to wait a week for it to compare and report lots of errors of yours! :-)


Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #22
* This is not about wavpack to .ape, but to .flac.
* What is the purpose of going by way of .wav - except risking to lose metadata?
* The FLAC frontend is not safe to use. Verify afterwards.

Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #23
I meant "Do not convert wavpack to flac directly."

"* What is the purpose of going by way of .wav - except risking to lose metadata?"

Because wav is the best source to transfer to .ape or .flac. If you convert flac to ape or ape to flac you will get a worse result. If you lose the metadata of the initial wavpack you can embed later the .cue to the flac file in two seconds.

* The FLAC frontend is not safe to use. Verify afterwards.
I have transfered dozens of albums with the NEW flac frontend and didnt have any problem. (yes, I use verify, and even compress two times the wav file to make sure both results weight the same).





Re: How to convert WavPack Files to FLAC

Reply #24
If you convert flac to ape or ape to flac you will get a worse result.

I'm intrigued by this. They're both lossless so can you explain where there is an issue converting one lossless format to another? Besides this is a thread about Wavpack and not APE.