I keep several free drag-and-drop audio applications on my desktop for quick tasks. From left to right, here are the ones that have stuck around, albeit usually with truncated names:
- Deep Niner Xtract2Wave44 converts any QuickTime-compatible audio file to a 44.1kHz WAV. The developer offers a 48kHz version as well.
- Doug Adams’s Drop a Few My Way uses iTunes to convert dropped files to various formats, which you can choose on the fly without burrowing into iTunes’ preference menu. It’s also smart enough to keep the files from infiltrating the iTunes library.
- Add “.aif” is an AppleScript droplet I wrote that simply adds an “aif” extension to the file’s name. It saved me a lot of time when I transferred several hundred extensionless AIFF files from my OS 9 Mac to my OS X one.
- Add 2 iTunes Library may also have come from Doug Adams or MacOS Hints.com. (There’s a similar droplet here.) Does what it says.
Which droplets have stuck on your desktop?
Does the 2MP3 app use the iTunes MP3 converter? I have found this to produce terrible sound quality. You should try using LAME.
Will
Will—good question. Drop a Few My Way does use iTunes' Fraunhofer converter. However, I mostly use it for quick conversions of something I want to e-mail. Usually I make MP3s using BIAS Peak's LAME plug-in.
But your comment inspired me to look around for alternatives, especially since launching Peak is overkill for a quick conversion. Max (the free converter, not the Cycling ’74 software) looks promising. After a quick adustment of the preferences, it became a drag-and-drop MP3 encoder. I then use ID3X via the MP3-Info contextual menu to write the tags.
Can you please explain how to tweak Max to get a drag-and-drop mp3 Encoder? I use it everyday for my conversions, but its interface is really clunky...
thanks
Filippo—when I first dragged a file onto Max, it said I needed to specify an output format. I added “MP3” to the list, and after that, whenever I dragged an audio file onto the Max icon, it would convert it to MP3.
I did notice that sometimes I have to hold down Command and Option while dragging the file (a trick that forces an application to open a dragged file). And 24-bit files didn’t work; I needed to use iTunes for that. I think that’s a limitation of LAME.
Thanks, I was thinking of something more complicate as, oddly, I never used drag and drop on it...Sometimes it does not hurt to try -)
i want to know "how to tweak Max to get a drag-and-drop mp3 Encoder"?
Suangsang—here’s what worked for me:
Select Preferences from the Max menu,
Click the Formats icon in the preferences window,
Select “MP3” in the list at the bottom of the window, and
Click the + button.
Now drag an audo file onto the Max icon. (If it doesn’t highlight, try holding down Command and Option while you drop the file.)
One of my favourites is m3uplayer
found via http://www.archive.org/about/faq.php?faq_id=173