384

I need to convert audio files to mp3 using ffmpeg.

When I write the command as ffmpeg -i audio.ogg -acodec mp3 newfile.mp3, I get the error:

FFmpeg version 0.5.2, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  configuration: 
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  built on Jun 24 2010 14:56:20, gcc: 4.4.1
Input #0, mp3, from 'ZHRE.mp3':
  Duration: 00:04:12.52, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 208 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 256 kb/s
Output #0, mp3, to 'audio.mp3':
    Stream #0.0: Audio: 0x0000, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Unsupported codec for output stream #0.0

I also ran this command:

 ffmpeg -formats | grep mp3

and got this in response:

FFmpeg version 0.5.2, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  configuration: 
  libavutil     49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
  libavcodec    52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
  libavformat   52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
  libavdevice   52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
  built on Jun 24 2010 14:56:20, gcc: 4.4.1
 DE mp3             MPEG audio layer 3
 D A    mp3             MP3 (MPEG audio layer 3)
 D A    mp3adu          ADU (Application Data Unit) MP3 (MPEG audio layer 3)
 D A    mp3on4          MP3onMP4
 text2movsub remove_extra noise mov2textsub mp3decomp mp3comp mjpegadump imxdump h264_mp4toannexb dump_extra

I guess that the mp3 codec isn't installed. Am I on the right track here?

14 Answers 14

552

You could use this command:

ffmpeg -i input.wav -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -b:a 192k output.mp3

Explanation of the used arguments in this example:

  • -i - input file

  • -vn - Disable video, to make sure no video (including album cover image) is included if the source would be a video file

  • -ar - Set the audio sampling frequency. For output streams it is set by default to the frequency of the corresponding input stream. For input streams this option only makes sense for audio grabbing devices and raw demuxers and is mapped to the corresponding demuxer options.

  • -ac - Set the number of audio channels. For output streams it is set by default to the number of input audio channels. For input streams this option only makes sense for audio grabbing devices and raw demuxers and is mapped to the corresponding demuxer options. So used here to make sure it is stereo (2 channels)

  • -b:a 192k - Converts the audio bit-rate to be exact 192 KB/s (192 kibibit per second).

    But maybe use -q:a 2 instead, which allows the encoder to pick from 170 to 210 KB/s quality-range (average 192 KB/s). But -q format may not be compatible with some old player-hardware.

Note to see docs about bit-rate argument's differences. Because maybe that option is the most important one, as it decides the "quality" versus "output size" versus "old mp3-player compatibility".

Where:

  • -b:a is for CBR (constant-bit-rate), which should be compatible with most old players, but may take more file-size.
  • -q:a or -qscale:a alias, is for VBR (variable-bit-rate).
  • --abr is for ABR (adaptive-bit-rate), which is a combo of CBR and VBR modes, but --abr argument needs -b to be passed as well (because ffmpeg does not take any parameters after --abr, unlike lame --abr executable).
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

@apanloco for me, changing -b to -q absolutely butchers the sound. Using no options at all, or using the options presented in the answer, sound virtually the same as the source .wav.
Cool to batch for f in *.wma; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -b:a 192k "${f%.*}.mp3"; done
@Ax_ It's important to note that your solution will only work on non-Windows installs. To do this from the Windows command line, you can use this: for %f in (*.wma) do ffmpeg.exe -i "%f" -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -b:a 192k "%f.mp3" This will create files for every wma file in the current folder, with the original name and ".mp3" appended to it after the ".wma". E.g. input.wma -> input.wma.mp3
You could also use **/*.wma with shopt -s globstar enabled
221
  1. wav to mp3

    ffmpeg -i audio.wav -acodec libmp3lame audio.mp3
    
  2. ogg to mp3

    ffmpeg -i audio.ogg -acodec libmp3lame audio.mp3
    
  3. ac3 to mp3

    ffmpeg -i audio.ac3 -acodec libmp3lame audio.mp3
    
  4. aac to mp3

    ffmpeg -i audio.aac -acodec libmp3lame audio.mp3
    

7 Comments

How do you specify the mp3 bitrate?
Add -b:a 128k for 128 kbps.
Or even shorter without acodec: ffmpeg -i audio.aac audio.mp3
how to convert from .mp3 to .ogg ?
Is there any solution for audio/mp4 to mp3?
|
39

For batch processing with files in folder aiming for 190 VBR and file extension = .mp3 instead of .ac3.mp3 you can use the following code

Change .ac3 to whatever the source audio format is.

ffmpeg mp3 settings

for f in *.ac3 ; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -acodec libmp3lame -q:a 2 "${f%.*}.mp3"; done

Comments

37

For batch processing files in folder:

for i in *.wav; do ffmpeg -i "$i" -f mp3 "${i%}.mp3"; done

This script converts all "wav" files in folder to mp3 files and adds mp3 extension

ffmpeg have to be installed. (See other answers)

2 Comments

With -f mp2 MP2 is generated, not MP3. Change it to -f mp3
The above command creates files that are named wav.mp3. To get files with the correct file extension, change the command to: for i in *.wav; do ffmpeg -i "$i" -f mp3 "${i%.*}.mp3"; done, i.e. add .* after i%.
28

As described here input and output extension will detected by ffmpeg so there is no need to worry about the formats, simply run this command:

ffmpeg -i inputFile.ogg outputFile.mp3

1 Comment

Yea, I don't see a point why everyone else is making it like 20x more complicated than necessary... job safety?
12

I had to purge my ffmpeg and then install another one from a ppa:

sudo apt-get purge ffmpeg
sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:jon-severinsson/ffmpeg 
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

Then convert:

 ffmpeg -i audio.ogg -f mp3 newfile.mp3

1 Comment

this is the short way, but if you want to specify the quality kb per seconds, use -ab 192k
8

No one seems to use find/fd, which let you do everything on one line. Based on this answer and this post:

find . -type f -iname "*.webm" -exec bash -c 'FILE="$1"; ffmpeg -i "${FILE}" -vn -ab 128k "${FILE%.webm}.mp3";' _ '{}' \;

For e.g. podcasts, 128k is enough for me. You can adjust that argument beside some others:

  • -i - input file.
  • -vn - Disable video, to make sure no video (including album cover image) is included if the source would be a video file.
  • -ab - Sets the audio bitrate.
  • -ar - Sets the audio sampling frequency. For output streams it is set by default to the frequency of the corresponding input stream. For input streams this option only makes sense for audio grabbing devices and raw demuxers and is mapped to the corresponding demuxer options.
  • -ac - Sets the number of audio channels. For output streams it is set by default to the number of input audio channels. For input streams this option only makes sense for audio grabbing devices and raw demuxers and is mapped to the corresponding demuxer options. So used here to make sure it is stereo (2 channels).
  • -b:a - Converts the audio bitrate to be exact 192kbit per second.

2 Comments

find is fantastic. Although, I don't remember what "_ '{}' \;" are for at the end. I know (kinda) what {} is for, but...
7

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/MP3

VBR Encoding:

ffmpeg -i input.ogg -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -q:a 1 -codec:a libmp3lame output.mp3

1 Comment

You forgot the input.
2

High quality for Mac OS works perfectly!

ffmpeg -i input.wma -q:a 0 output.mp3

Comments

2

I will explain how to convert webm to mp3 for macs, I guess for linux it also works.

  1. Install ffmpeg - brew install ffmpeg (mac) or sudo apt install ffmpeg (linux)
  2. Create shell script - Open text editor put the following code inside:
#!/bin/bash

echo webm to mp3 converter! Work begins! 
for FILE in *.webm; do     
    echo -e "Processing file '$FILE'";
    ffmpeg -i "${FILE}" -vn -ab 128k -ar 44100 -y "${FILE%.webm}.mp3";
done;

this code will look all files with .webm extension in current directory.

  1. Save this file without extension (for example "my-converter")
  2. Navigate to created file via terminal
  3. Make the file executabe by typing command: chmod 700 my-converter, now in the same directory the unix executable file (.sh) will be created.
  4. Execute the file from terminal by typing: ./my-converter and the process begins, you will see the progress in the terminal window.

Done.

Comments

0

If you have a folder and sub-folder full of wav's you want to convert, put below command in a file, save it in a .bat file in the root of the folder where you wan to convert, and then run the bat file

for /R %%g in (*.wav) do start /b /wait "" "C:\ffmpeg-4.0.1-win64-static\bin\ffmpeg" -threads 16 -i "%%g" -acodec libmp3lame "%%~dpng.mp3" && del "%%g"

Comments

0

Try FFmpeg Static Build Link

Documentation: https://www.johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/

Host the static build on your server in same directory

$ffmpeg = dirname(__FILE__).'/ffmpeg';

$command = $ffmpeg.'ffmpeg -i audio.ogg -acodec libmp3lame audio.mp3';

shell_exec($command);

Comments

-1

Using the previous answers, here is an alias for this by adding the following into .bashrc/.zshrc:

alias convert-aac="cd ~/Downloads && aac-to-mp3"

# Convert all .aac files into .mp3 files in the current folder, don't convert if a mp3 file already exists
aac-to-mp3(){
    find . -type f -iname "*.aac" -exec \
        bash -c 'file="$1"; ffmpeg -n -i "$file" -acodec libmp3lame "${file%.aac}.mp3";' _ '{}' \;
}

Usage: convert-aac (in shell)

Thanks to https://stackoverflow.com/a/70339561/2391795 and https://stackoverflow.com/a/12952172/2391795 and https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/683488/60329

Comments

-1
for file in *.wma; do ffmpeg -i "${file}"  -acodec libmp3lame -ab 192k "${file/.wma/.mp3}"; done

2 Comments

Remember that Stack Overflow isn't just intended to solve the immediate problem, but also to help future readers find solutions to similar problems, which requires understanding the underlying code. This is especially important for members of our community who are beginners, and not familiar with the syntax. Given that, can you edit your answer to include an explanation of what you're doing and why you believe it is the best approach?
This is the only answer that mentions a specific combination of -acodec and -ab arguments that worked for me.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.