Free program to change the bitrate and move large amounts of MP3s to a new locations

[thedarkwolf]

I bought a MP3 player and would like someway to easily shrink their size and move them onto the player at the same time. I found one called Switch that will allow you do add whole folders tand the subfolders but when its done converting and moving you lose all the directory structures. Anything else out there to do this?

 

[TheStu]

Well, if you are on Windows... I remember back in the days of WMP10 you could specify the bitrate of files that get transferred over to MP3 players. So if all your music is lossless but have no need for that on the mp3 player, you can drop it down to 128Kb/s or whatever you choose.

 

[0roo0roo]

how small are you going...you are photocopying a copy to an even lower grade

 

[thedarkwolf]

Looks like WMP will probably do it. I don't actually have the MP3 player yet so I can't really fiddle with it much. Also came across one called media monkey that sounds like it will do it too if I don't like WMP. I'll have to play around with how low of a bitrate I want to go. They will be going through ear bud headphones so sound quality isn't exactly a high priority.

 

[Schadenfroh]

The freeware / open source CDex with LAME should do the trick, use the batch function and set it to preserve the directory layout and to look in subfolders.

 

[Evander]

If you haven't gotten the mp3 player yet maybe you should instead get a player that supports formats that are good at low bitrate - aac+ or ogg (aac+ is better, 24 - 32 kbps stereo is actually pretty good). Personally I have my music collection on a smartphone 2gb card so I don't have to carry around 2 devices.
WMA also sounds better than mp3 at low bitrates, I haven't used wma in a long time but I'll bet it's made even more improvements in the last few years.

By the way you can convert your mp3's into the format of your choice with dbPowerAmp (free)

 

[thedarkwolf]

I bought a Sansa e250 from buy.com. Just waiting for it to show up. I've been hunting for one that had FM radio, atleast 1 gig built in, and expandable memory. These fit all of those wants and showed up on buy.com for $50 as refurbs with free shipping and I had $40 in buy.com credit so I thought I"d give it a try. It does support WMA so I"ll probably try that out as well.

CDex is what I used way back when I ripped my CDs and was always happy with it so I'll give it a try too. Thanks for the help.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
The freeware / open source CDex with LAME should do the trick, use the batch function and set it to preserve the directory layout and to look in subfolders.

best way right there