need help with afconvert command

Comments

• Reply 1 of 6

  Marvin Posts: 15,515moderator

  September 5, 2009 6:45AM

  To find all the output formats, type afconvert -h. The example below does .wav output. You need the -d flag to specify the format. You can choose big endian or little endian, float/int/unsigned int, and your sample rate. So a Big Endian Integer 16-bit 44.1kHZ would be: -d BEI16@44100
  
  
  
  afconvert -f 'WAVE' -d I16@44100 input.aac output.wav
  
  
  
  I'd recommend doing a move to trash instead of delete in case the program has some sort of error.
• Reply 2 of 6

  nick_harambee Posts: 100member

  September 5, 2009 6:58AM

  hey marvin
  
  
  
  thanks a lot for the command. how would i use this in a folder action? do i have to put it in a script?
  
  
  
  sorry for being a bit thick in this regard
  
  
  
  nick
• Reply 3 of 6

  rokcet scientist Posts: 962member

  September 5, 2009 9:43AM

  
  Or you can convert ONline

• Reply 4 of 6

  Marvin Posts: 15,515moderator

  September 5, 2009 2:43PM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by nick_harambee
  
  
  hey marvin
  
  
  
  thanks a lot for the command. how would i use this in a folder action? do i have to put it in a script?
  

  
  

  
  
  Yeah, you have to put it in an Applescript like this one:
  
  
  
  

  Code:

  
  
  
  
  on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
  
  try
  
  tell application "Finder"
  
  set the folder_name to the name of this_folder
  
  end tell
  
  
  
  set the item_count to the number of items in the added_items
  
  tell application "Finder"
  
  repeat with opath in added_items
  
  set ppath to quoted form of POSIX path of opath
  
  if ppath as text does not end with ".wav'" then
  
  do shell script "afconvert -f 'WAVE' -d I16@44100 " & ppath & "; mv " & ppath & " ~/.Trash"
  
  end if
  
  end repeat
  
  end tell
  
  end try
  
  end adding folder items to
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  You'd open Applescript Script Editor, paste that into it and save it as something like wavconvert in the folder /Library/Scripts/Folder Actions. Then you'd right-click a folder and enable actions and assign that one to it. When you drop an audio file into it, it should trigger after a few seconds, convert to .wav and move the original to trash.
  
  
  
  Folder actions are a bit odd because if you have a script that creates a file inside the folder, it triggers the action again. So for example, without the extension check above, if you drop an mp3 into the folder, it creates a wav file but the folder then thinks you've just added a wav file to it so it runs the script again and it goes into an infinite loop.
  
  
  
  I think a more popular method is to use a droplet so you'd grab a bunch of files and drop them onto it. It would then start converting the files and move them to a given folder. This isn't as convenient if you have multiple folders setup or you change the location but you get more control.
• Reply 5 of 6

  nick_harambee Posts: 100member

  September 5, 2009 3:42PM

  hey marvin
  
  
  
  you're a star. this script does exactly what i want it to do, and so far is working without any problems. thanks so much, you have really improved my workflow!!
  
  
  
  nick
• Reply 6 of 6

  gngrwzrd Posts: 1member

  October 24, 2012 12:53PM

  
  Here's a nice audio converter for core audio formats. http://gngrwzrd.com/microac/