Your audio library likely comes from a hodge-podge of sources; tracks that you ripped from CDs using different programs and settings over the years, tracks that you downloaded from sites and file sharing services, and tracks that you bought from services such as iTunes, etc. This means that unless you have put in a lot of time and energy fixing tags, normalizing volume, and generally doing maintenance on your audio files your audio library probably has a lot of issues that need to be remedied (including many problems that you were never aware of). This is where MP3 Diags steps is to discover, diagnose, and fix any problems or other issues that your audio library may have.

Problems? What Problems?
The most visible problem are of course tagging and missing normalization data, but there are other, more technical issues that you may not be aware of. MP3 Diags, to quote its website, “is a one stop solution that identifies more than 50 different issues in MP3 files and provides the means to fix many of them”. These (again from the website) include broken tags/headers/audio, duplicate tags/headers, incorrect placement of tags/headers, low quality audio, missing VBR header, missing (or broken) track info/cover art, missing normalization data, and character encoding issues (for languages other than English).

What I like about this program
Is that it doesn’t just diagnose, it includes the tools to fix. However, here’s a specific list of things I like about this MP3 Diags

1. Full fledged Tag editor: which is really very cool. I like that you can copy from one “cell” in its Excel-like grid, then paste into multiple places.
2. MusicBrainz (and Discogs) integration: it includes a full fledged tag editor that can pull data from Musicbrainz and Discogs. (Musicbrainz is a community based digital thumbprinting database that can identify and tag audio files with no tag or filename information).
3. Volume normalization: uses external app Mp3Gain to process and normalize albums, in order to ensure that played tracks from different albums or different source don’t exhibit volumes that are too loud or too low on transition. To enable Mp3Gain download the zipped version of that program nd extract in the MP3 Diags directory.
4. Tooltips: while most of the issues that MP3Diags are technical and in many cases not easily understandable, the program will let you hover over the different columns and get an instant explanation. This makes the program so much more accessible and easier to use for novices and experts alike.
5. Maintains backups of changed files

Wish list (or how this program can be even better):

• A “fix everything” button: as it is there are a number of “action” buttons, and each will perform a certain group of fixes (which are editable in the settings). However, I found myself clicking on these on after the other in order to get all the issues taken care of.
• Search box: although there are many kinds of filters available for sorting through files, it is not possible to filter by typing in a string of text, which I found very strange.
• Column sort: issues found are laid out in a grid, and it was strange to discover that I couldn’t click on column heads in order to sort by these.
• Context menu integration for the tag editor: i.e. the ability to right click on a folder or selected audio files and open these in the tag editor. This is one thing that Mp3Tag does which I love, and I wish this program would do it as well.

The verdict: I’ve seen a handful of programs that scan your audio library to identify quality issues, but MP3Diag is without a doubt in a league of its own. If you’ve every wished there was a single program that can help you identify problems in your audio library and allow you to fix then you’ve found it.

Some caveats though: this program is still in beta so be mindful of that if you encounter any bugs (I didn’t). Also note that what constitutes low quality is user defined in the settings, so change that according to your preference.

My experience with this program is that it works great; however, I often found myself a little … incredulous (may be the word) … that problems were found with audio files that I didn’t think had anything wrong with them (such as containing invalid streams for example). In cases like these, you could either use the auto backup and apply the fix or simply decide to move on. In my case I did the former without adverse effects, and I actually have a high degree of trust that the program “knows what its doing”. Highly recommended.

Version Tested: 0.99.06.042

Compatibility: Windows, Linux.

Go to the program home page for more info; download link can be found here (installer and portable versions available; approx 6.36 megs).

Songbird is a an open source, multiplatform music player intened to rival players such as iTunes; but does it have much more beyond the basics?

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com]. 

I’m taking a look at Songbird version 1.1.2. Songbird has been out for a while but only reached 1.0 at the end of 2008. Version 1.2 is expected to be out this month adding features like an equalizer and a customizable toolbar. I used to use iTunes and left that after getting sick of the ever-increasing size for updating and bloat. I’m now currently using MediaMonkey and am pretty content with it. We’ll see how Songbird stacks up against the two.

If you’re familiar with other Mozilla products like Firefox or Thunderbird, the install process will feel very familiar. An additional part of the Songbird setup process is locating your media collection and importing it for the first time. You can also set this folder to be monitored for any changes. Along with the import, you can install some add-ons that the setup recommends. You can always add these later but installing them during the setup makes for a much improved first impression. Setup recommends these add-ons: MTP Device Support, QuickTime Playback, Windows Media Playback, SHOUTcast Radio, Concerts (songkick.com), Last.fm, mashTape, 7digital Music Store.I would recommend the MorningPeeps (alarm clock), LyricMaster (lyrics) add-ons as well. They’re pretty cool and add more versatility to the player allowing you to set an alarm with your music collection and automatically pulling down lyrics for your songs to add to the tags. I would recommend a few more plug-ins based on their description but they did not work for me upon installing them; MinimizeToTray (Songbird version) and The Exorcist (remove broken tracks and duplicates) were two that I tried. It seems the Songbird community is not as rigorous as the Firefox community for the reliability of add-ons.

Songbird uses tabs like Firefox and allows for a lot of configuration. You can open separate web pages in these tabs which might allow further integration with the player. It also has an about:config page like Firefox for advanced tweaking. Of course, the standard configuring with an interface is also available and allows for a lot of customization.

Songbird comes with a built-in tag editor and much of these can be automatically populated through the various plug-ins. You can rate songs and add all the metadata you want including your own comments.

One of the coolest features of Songbird, in my opinion, was the Smart Playlists. You can have a playlist randomly populated based on different filters and criteria. If you want to listen to something but you’re not quite sure what you’re in the mood for this can definitely help narrow down your music collection.

If you’d like to change the look of things around Songbird, you can change the theme, or Feathers in Songbird terminology.

I was pretty impressed with the import process. It imported more than 4500 tracks in less than 30 seconds. You can use Songbird to play DRM titles if your machine is already authorized. Unfortunately, to authorize your machine that likely requires you to download and install the client for the other systems.

With a 13 MB download, Songbird measures in on the light-weight side of things compared to the ever-increasing 64MB iTunes 8 download. When running, Songbird brings with it a 70MB process and feels snappier than iTunes and MediaMonkey.

All in all, I’d still recommend MediaMonkey over either of the others. MediaMonkey has its own dynamic playlists to stack up against Songbird’s Smart Playlists and I really make use of MediaMonkey’s ability to auto-organize files by different tag attributes, particularly genre and artist. That’s just my opinion though. When the price is free, give them all a go and see which you like best. Songbird will likely continue to be developed and bring a lot of cool features with it, so it will be worth keeping an eye on.

Version Tested: 1.12

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista.

Download Songbird from Mozilla (approx 13 megs).

I must admit that I almost passed over this program for a number of reasons: the “Express” (i.e. free) version has two paid counterparts, and it requires registration with a valid email to get a free license key; plus there are a number of good, free, screencasting freeware (e.g. CamStudio, Debut Video Capture), as well as well known web services like Wink and Jing.

However let me tell you from the get go that this software is simply excellent, and is in fact one of the best free programs in it’s class. It provides some excellent options than most freeware programs I’ve used do not, and it is a well thought out, well designed software.

Top 10 12 things that I really like about BB Flashback Express:

1. Change resolution while recording: you can capture the whole screen or part of the screen and the software can automatically resize the output to a pre-set resolution. For example you can capture fullscreen and set the output size to, say 640×480 and not have to worry about resizing it later on.
2. Can record moving graphics: from the options, you can specify whether to use the normal capture driver (for regular screen activity) or GDI/DirectX, for moving graphics and animations. I successfully tested capturing full-screen games; the results for both 2D and 3D graphics were excellent (although I did witness some choppiness with the 3D graphics, but am unsure as to what degree the settings I used contributed into this).
3. Can capture fullscreen, a user-defined region, or a specific window: I particularly like the third one (locking on and capturing a specific window); very useful when demo-ing software and for some reason most free screen recording programs lack this option.
4. Can record videocam input: how cool is that? I don’t have one so I did not test this.
5. Can create AVI’s, FLV’s, but also SWF’s: The latter is notable in that BB Flashback Express provides the option to create an interactive video (see below).
6. Can create interactive events inside a video: specifically when outputing to SWF, you can define “mouse click” events to stop/continue the video
7. Autoscroll (keep mouse in or near center): if you decide to export only a smaller subset of your movie (for example export a movie captured at 640×480 at, say, 320×240), you can ask BB Flashback Express to track the mouse and export the area around it. Which is to say you can keep the mouse at or near the center.
8. Cursor highlighting: you can highlight the mouse and mouseclicks so that they are emphasized on the screen (very useful for demoes). You can even edit exactly what the highlighting will look like (see image to the right).
9. Export specific range/frames only: although this free version does not allow you to edit the video directly, you can make a note of your desired beginning and end frames and enter those into the “wizard” that pops up on the export process.
10. Automatically upload to Youtube/web page: with your YouTube username and password. Or it will provide HTML and embed code to easily insert videos into your webpage.
11. Hotkeys: allows you to define hotkeys for use
12. The interface: can reside in the system tray or, interestingly, as a cool-looking strip in the taskbar.

Differences between free and paid versions: paid versions allow you to add text to your videos, to edit them visually on the timeline, and to export in more formats. There are other differences listed here. A nice set of features, but you can find freeware programs to substitute for them if you need to.

The verdict: simply terrific. One of the best in its class.

Version Tested: 2.6.1.1122

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, Vista; 32 and 64 bit.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 7.2 megs).

This article will describe an easy, straightforward way to convert DVD videos, including commercial/encrypted DVDs, into any of a handful of popular video formats; specifically iPhone/iPod/PSP (MP4 or M4V), as well as AVI. It will use two freeware titles in the conversion process: Handbrake and DVD43.

If you’re looking for an extremely easy and relatively fast method to convert your DVDs into video files for use on your computer or in your portable device then read on. The method described here is notable for the following reasons:

1. It is written in English (not geekese) for the layman and advanced users alike.
2. Unsure what decisions to make? Do not worry; I will suggest decisions for you based on my favorite configuration (see “important note” below”).
3. You will be able to convert commercial/encrypted DVDs (or at least 99% or them).
4. You will NOT need to rip (i.e. copy) your DVD to your hard drive first. Conversion will be done straight from your DVD, which means that (a) you will NOT need 5-8 gigs of free hard drive space to rip your DVD onto, and (b) you will save the time that otherwise would be spent waiting for the ripping process to finish.
5. Uses all freeware programs; Handbrake and DVD43. Both are excellent and have been around for a while. Handbrake now comes with all codecs/filters needed for the encoding process, so you will not need to install any codecs or filters separately.

Important note: this article will describe an example where I convert a DVD to iPhone MP4 format using a handful of settings that I like to use; however, I will also indicate what to do if converting to AVI as well. Also note that at any point you could customize the settings as they come along to something that may be more to your liking.

Download and install Handbrake and DVD43. Note, however, that if you do not intend to convert commercial DVDs (i.e. if you are converting DVDs that are copy protected) you will not need DVD43 and you can skip it altogether (and jump to step 3). Also note that both of these programs are 100% free. DVD43 will require a restart after installation. 

Step2

Run DVD43 (it automatically sets itself to start with Windows, so its probably already running; you can change that if you like using a program like Starter). You will see a yellow smiley in the system tray indicating that DVD43 is running. Insert your DVD into the drive; after some processing, the smiley icon will turn green, indicating that all is well and that DVD43 is successfully decrypting the DVD.

Troubleshooting step 2: if the green smiley doesn’t appear (or you get a message saying cannot decrypt), try the following

• Exit DVD43, take the DVD out of the drive; re-insert the DVD, run DVD43. Wait for it to re-process.
• If the above doesn’t work, try rebooting, then repeat the steps above.
• In some cases, DVD43 will simply not succeed because it cannot beat the protection (I haven’t ever come across this, though). If this happens, it would be for brand new blockbuster type movies whose encryption may be too new. If your DVD is not new and/or is some obscure title, the problem is likely not be the encryption; focus on troubleshooting other issues.

Run Hanbrake. Click “Source” in the top left and select the correct DVD source.

Go to the “Title” dropdown and select the title that you are interested in converting. Most DVDs will contain a handful of titles (these include the movie itself, previews, menus, interviews, behind-the-scenes extras, etc.) The DVD I am using for illustration contains no less than 28 different entries (see screenshot).You can convert any content you like; but you’ll have to figure out what’s what.

A really simple way to identify the title to select is through the displayed time duration. In my example here, it is obvious that the movie is “Title1″, since its time duration is 1:29:27, so that is the one I select.

For TV series or other DVDs that contain more than a single title of interest, your guiding principle would be the same: it will be fairly easy to identify the episodes because they will run 30-45 minutes or so each and they will have more or less the same duration.

Step5

In the “presets” area on the right hand side, select “iPhone & iPod Touch”. If that’s not the format you want, you can do one of two things; either (a) select that format for now; you will get to change specifics later, or; (b) find and select the format you want from the available options.

I strongly suggest (a), such that what you will see will correspond to the screenshots provided here.

Click “browse” next to the box labeled destination, find your desired destination folder, and type in your desired filename (and extension). Or use the file format dropdown to make sure you’ve got the correct output format.

A note on formats: MP4 and M4V are the same format (M4V simply denotes that this MP4 file is a video file, but is often not recognized by some media players). Note that iTunes will recognize both, but I personally prefer to use MP4.

AVI Format: if you want to get an .AVI format file, make sure to specify AVI in this step, using the dropdown.

Step7

Next, in the “Picture Settings” tab, move down to “Width/Height”. If you have an iPhone/iPod touch or a newer generation iPod type 640 in the left (width) box. Leave the “height” box blank. This will prompt Handbrake to calculate the height for your video based on the correct aspect ratio of the title, and your resulting video will look right and will not be lopsided or resized incorrectly.

This is the only input you will make in this tab. Leave everything else alone.

Important note on width=640: the reason I use this value is that the resulting video will play nicely and at an excellent quality both on most iPods/portable devices as well as on the computer (i.e. I like to create one file that will work everywhere, and will look decent on a computer screen).

Note, however, that although iPhone/iPod Touch and all newer generation iPods (5G onwards) can accept video sizes up to 640 pixels, iPhones/Ipod Touchs will only display this video at a resolution of 480 pixels wide, while older iPods will only display a resolution of 320 pixels wide. Pre-5G iPods cannot handle video files with 640 pixels resolution at all, therefore if you have an older device than a Fifth Generation iPod you must use “320″ as the width value rather than “640″.

Here you have to do 3 things:

1- Set the target size in megs (under quality). Here are some guidelines

• For a “normal” feature film use 700 megs. Your video will be of excellent quality and if you want to burn it to CD to get it off your hard drive it will fit on a single disk.
• For typical TV series episode use 230 megs (such that you could fit three on a single CD) or 350 megs for better quality (and you could fit two episodes on a single CD). I usually go with the former, and typically the quality is excellent.

2- Under “Advanced Encoding Settings” check two-pass encoding. This will make for a better quality video but at the expense of longer processing time. Do it!

3- Select video codec using the dropdown

• Select MPEG4-Xvid. Yes you could use Xvid to encode MP4s, which some people do not know; you do not need to use H264 (although yes H264 it is much much more common for MP4s – you can use H264 if you want to).
• For AVI files: use Xvid, plain and simple, if your intended output is an AVI file.

Leave all else as is.

1- Go to the Bitrate (Kbps) column and use the dropdown to select 160 Kbps. This is the maximum quality that the iPod can use and I always select it; I advise you to do the same as believe you me there is NOTHING more annoying than trying to watch a video on a portable device in a public place where the din of outside noises is more audible than the audio from the video that you are trying to watch.

2- Subtitles:

• If you do not need subtitles (i.e. the audio is in your language), do not select or check anything and skip to Step10 …. or
• If you think there may be scenes in a foreign language, but the video is mainly in the language you want, select your desired language from the dropdown and click on “Forced Subtitles Only”. This will result in burned-in subtitles only for those scenes that may require it.
• If you are converting a foreign film, and/or you want subtitles visible on-screen at all times, then select the language you want from the dropdown; in this case do NOT click on “Forced Subtitles Only”

Note on subtitles: any subtitles created with Hanbrake will be permantently “burned into” your video. Handrbake does not produce a seperate subtitles file.

This one is easy; uncheck the “Create Chapter markers” box.

Unless of course you want chapter markers displayed for some reason, inwhich case keep it checked. These markers will be displayed on-screen in the same way burned subtitles would. Moreover, if you want to you can edit/customize the “labels” that you want to display for each chapter marker under “Chapter Name”

You are now ready to start the conversion process. You can do one of two things

1. Start the process (go to step 13)
2. Add another title or titles for “batch encoding”; i.e. have Handbrake schedule another conversion or conversions to be executed back-to-back after this one.

Batch encoding allows you to schedule another conversion or string of conversions to be performed serially one and after the other.

In the process described here, for example, you could batch-convert multiple titles that exist on the DVD such as multiple episodes or extra materials that you are interested in.

How to do it: click “Add to Queue”, then select a new title to convert from the title dropdown, enter a new destination file, and customize the settings for the new title as per the steps above. Press “Show Queue” to review the list of conversions that you have scheduled.

Once you’re ready to start the process, go to Step13.

Note on multiple episodes/TV series: the beauty of scheduling multiple episodes/TV series in batch is that for each title that you add to the process you do not have to change any of the settings (assuming you want the same settings to apply to all episodes). All you would need to do is select title > enter a new destination filename > add to queue, and keep doing this until all episodes on the DVD are covered.

Step13

Click on “Start” in the upper left to start the conversion process.

A DOS window will appear which reveals what is going on under the hood. The time this will take to finish will vary depending on the titles you are converting and how powerful your system is. On average I would say it takes 2.5 hours per movie.

Happy Converting  .

I’ve reviewed a number of audio conversion programs here, but was sufficiently impressed with Xrecode to want to write about this little gem as well. What I like about this program is the simplicity of the interface coupled with some serious power it packs the hood (as well as the CUE splitting, which I occasionally sought out). I am also intrigued by the audio file splitting based on the automatic detection of gaps/silences in a big file. Here are more notes on this program:

• The user interface: employs a simple drag and drop interface for files or entire folders. You can keep adding files/folders by dragging while pressing CTRL. Settings and other dialogs are very nicely couched into the interface such that they are only seen if and when they are needed.
• Supported filetypes: can convert to/from any of the following formats; MP3, WMA, OGG, APE, FLAC, WavPack, AAC, and WAVE.
• CUE Splitting: simply drag the CUE file into the interface and watch Xrecode do its magic.
• Split by silence: this experimental feature allows you to set (a) the volume threshold, as well as (b) the length of the gap in seconds that the program will look for to pinpoint gaps between songs. This means that getting an accurate split will likely require some experimentation on you part, and whether or not all songs will be split off accurately is a big question mark.
• Testing “split by silence”: in my experience this feature did not work at all for Jazz (splitting a John Coltrane album into a few dozen songs instead of 6), but did fairly well with a Tori Amos album, albeit chopping one of the tracks in two a few seconds into the song (the rest of the tracks, however, seemed to be split correctly). All in all I would recommend trying this option out but, if it doesn’t work, I do not recommend spending too much time with it and instead to save your time and energy and do the splitting manually (with a program like Audacity or MP3 Directcut).
• Tag info: conversions retain tag information (I tested this on a couple of format conversions).
• Parallel processing: you can set the number of files to process simultaneously in general, or you can do it in “advanced” mode where you set it for each file type. Parallel processing worked really well on my core duo (a 17 file conversion just zipped through at 3 simultaneous files). The website states that users might want to experiment to see what’s optimal for their system.
• Other features: conversion from the command line interface, Unicode support. Supports 24Bit encoding (OGG, FLAC, APE, WavPack and WAV) and 32Bit encoding (OGG, WavPack, FLAC and WAV).

Wish list

• FLV support. Increasingly important these days.
• Support for Apple/Itunes formats: M4A, MP4, M4B (note: if you need to convert to M4B audiobook format check out MP3 to Ipod Audio Book Converter).

The verdict: there are many excellent freeware audio file conversion programs (Pepsky Free Audio Converter, Mediacoder Audio Edition, Any Audio Converter, BonkEnc, and others). What’s interesting about this one is (a) it is a well designed, streamlined tool, and (b) it has some innovative features with respect to splitting large audio files. It also is a pure converter that does not come with a CD ripping/burning component, which could be either a good thing or not a good thing, depending on your needs. If you are looking for a good pure audio converter by all means give this one a try.

Version Tested: 1.95

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.81 megs).

When it comes to great freeware audio players it seems we are spoilt for choice. ATunes is another program that offers a wide range of functions. Here is what sets this program apart to make it interesting:

• It looks and feels great: and by this I mean a kind of appealing simplicity of design and an intuitive user experience.You can do everything by right clicking on individual or multiple tracks.
• Last.fm integration: in practical terms this means that (a) ATunes can connect with your Last.fm account if you have one – not a requirement – and scrobble the tracks you listen to, (b) can recommend related music in real time for each track or artist in your playlist (with the option to click and listen on the Last.fm site), (c) it will automatically display information on the playing artist as well as download and display song lyrics, and (d) can tag genres for files in your library according to the Last.fm database. See the image to the right for Last.fm info.
• Last.fm and album art: album art pulled from Last.fm is automatically saved inside the tag for that audio file (you can optionally switch this off, but I am loving it believe me). This essentially means that you can fix your album art (for most of your tracks, not all) simply by playing your music library. How cool is that? You can also right click and save the pulled lyrics into the audio file tag as well.

ATunes offers a collection of cool functions in one place but lacks some features offered by other freeware music managers. I will start by listing the functions that it supports:

• Audio formats supported: mp3, ogg, wma, wav, flac, mp4, ra, and rm.
• CD Ripping: does this very well, including grabbing tag info from Amazon.
• Internet Radio: provides a good collection of built in internet radio stations, and you can easily add your own.
• Views: you can view your library by artist, album, genre, or folder structure. This is simple and all the better for it. You cannot browse your collection by album art. Supports a tabbed interface where you can work on multiple playlists simultaneously in each tab.
• Search: has both an advanced search dialog (from the ’Tools’ menu) and a filter box that can act on any view in order to hone on on what you might be looking for.
• Audio podcast support: subscribe to audio podcasts and download them locally on your hard disk. No video podcast support.
• Tag editing: you can edit tags by right clicking a single audio file or a selection of audio files. It’s tag editing ability is functional but not advanced; it does not offer any mass editing functions (e.g. tags from filename or vice versa, case functions or find/replace, etc.) To get this level of sophistication you will need another app such as the excellent (and free) Mp3Tag.
• Smart Playlists: collects (and displays) stats on user behavior and can generate playlists based on that. Also allows for user-specified favorites tracks, artists, or albums (see image to the right).
• Volume normalization: to eliminate volume differences across tracks. Also supports an equalizer with a number of available presets.
• Support for audio devices: I haven’t any personally, but will quote the site "connect your portable player or anything that could be mounted as a file system, and view in ATunes, copy to repository, synchronize, etc."
• Memory use: a whopping 79 megs, definitely more than usual for this sort of program (e.g. ITunes at 60 megs, Mediamonkey and JRiver Media Jukebox both use up 30 megs). I’m hoping they get this optimized in future versions.

Features that ATunes does not offer:

• Audio conversion: not supported. But there are many good freeware options that can provdie this, e,g Pepsky Free Audio Converter, which can also burn audio CD’s.
• Audio CD burning: not supported. Use Pepsky (mentioned above) for this if your CD burning program doesn’t offer it.
• Audio recording: no line-in recording. Use the free Mp3MyMp3 instead.

The verdict: this program is a good all-around music player with some solid features. What I like about it is the Last.fm integration (info, recommendations, genre tagging, and automatic album art downloads), which makes me feel like I can connect my otherwise isolated music library with the rest of humanity (so to speak). Overall a very solid program that is worth installing.

Version Tested: 1.9.0

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux. Requires Java 6 Runtime Edition.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 19.3 megs).

What’s notable about this software is (a) the wide range of supported audio file formats that it can read and write (b) the nice collection of functions that it brings together at the same place, and (c) a very nice overall look and feel. Here are more notes on this program:

• Supported audio formats: will convert from and to any of the following formats; MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC, AIF, VOC, FLAC, M4A, OGG, AU, FLV, and APE.
• The user experience: is very nice. The interface looks good and the dialogs very intuitive.
• Conversion Performance: provides excellent conversion speed. This is merely my subjective assessment, but I will note that the program is optimized for dual core (Intel/AMD) processors.
• Audio CD creation: it can burn any of the above format audio files into a normal music CD that can be played on any CD player. It can also create a “disk image” file in BIN, APE, SVD formats.
• MP3 CD creation: actually not just MP3s; you can burn audio files of any supported format into CD’s that can be played on some CD players that support these formats.
• CD Ripping: will rip CD tracks into any of the supported audio file formats; surprisingly, however, it does not pull track data from CDDB or an online database, requiring manual data entry of this information (or a later online lookup using another app).

Wish list

• CDDB, Amazon, or other online database lookups for audio track info when ripping CDs. The omission of this is a significant drawback since, at least for myself, it is enough of a reason to never use this program’s CD ripping functionality. (Having said this, it will rip CDs into some unusual formats which other CD ripper may not).

The verdict: this program is a worthwhile download for many reasons. As a converter is it perfect because of it’s good performance and the great range of audio file formats that are supported that you can convert from and to (including ’uncommon’ formats such as FLV, APE, FLAC, etc). The audio CD creation function is also great because many freeware CD burning programs and many Audio players do not have it. The omission of online database lookups when ripping CDs is somewhat strange, though, and if added would make a very good program even better.

Version Tested: 3.5.3.218

Compatibility: Windows NT4/2000/2003/XP and Vista

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 10 megs).

I’ve had my eye out for a simple program that can quickly create ringtones out of MP3s for my IPhone when I found this program, which in fact can do this for a very wide range of phones and devices. ToneShip is in fact a frontend GUI for FFMPEG, the encoding engine which the majority of freeware video and audio conversion programs are based. Here are more notes on this one.

• How it works: simply load an audio file, then use the (0.1 second precision) trackbar to identify beginning and end points for your ringtone (note that different phones vary on length of ringtone they will accept, so take that into consideration). You can also enter in the start and finish positions as values manually, and preview the ringtone snippet by pressing the "show" button. Finally, select the desired ringtone file format from the dropdown and press the "convert" button to create your ringtone.
• Phones supported: all phones that use true audio ringtones. Go here for a (non-exhaustive) list.
• Audio file types supported: can input MP3, WAV, WMA, and M4A formats, and produce ringtones in MP3, WAV (uncompressed PCM), AAC (Advanced Audio Codec, .m4a), Nokia TrueTones (AMR-WB, .amr), AMR-NB (.amr)
  Yamaha SMAF (.mmf),ADPCM (4-bit compressed PCM. way), and Apple IPhone (AAC, .m4r).

Wish list:

• The ability to "preview" your snippet from any point within the snippet, rather than having to start it from the beginning. This would be useful, for example, if you simply want to preview the best possible ending position.
• While the trackbar works fairly well, it would be nice to have a larger trackbar inside the interface that can add more sensitivity to the slider as it is moved around.
• A trackbar that uses a visual representation of the audio (i.e Audacity-style waves with hills and valleys). The ability to see the audio could help in quickly finding the best beginning and ending places for the ringtone.
• If the third one is too involved, I’ll settle for the first two

The verdict: a rather nice, straightforward freeware program that performs a useful function and does it well.

Version Tested: Build 16.

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP or Vista.

Go to the download page to download the latest version (approx 4.4 megs ). Also visit the program home page.

If you weren’t aware of it, FLV files are containers that house audio and video files which may be encoded in any number of formats. FLV Extract gives you the ability to unpack the video and audio files without needing to re-encode or re-process.

This little program will be very useful if you (a) are downloading music from music-sharing sites in the FLV format, or (b) need to demux the audio or video from FLV files.

Converting FLVs to MP3s is possible using a number of programs such as Super or Any Audio Converter; however, these will perform re-encoding operations which take time and in most cases require that the user make a number of quality and format decisions. With FLV Extract, however, the extraction happens in a flash and is almost instantaneous, and the files retain the format and quality with which they were encoded. Here are more notes on this program:

• Nothing to install: just unzip and run.
• The UI: a simple dialog with 3 options: extract video, timecodes, and audio. All you need to do is to drop files onto the app for processing.
• Performance: you can drag multiple FLVs onto FLV Extract and they will be processed immediately within the space of a second (or a few seconds at most).

The verdict: although I do not expect this to have a very broad audience, those of us who need it will greatly appreciate it. Simple, straightforward, and free — just the way I like my software.

Version Tested: 1.3.0

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires .NET Framework 2.0.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 50K).

Yes you might have heard of this program and yes, it is now released as 100% no-strings attached freeware. This program is a perfect replacement of ITunes and if you were looking for a single program that can do it all (or at least do more than 90% of what you might want to do with your audio library), Media Jukebox is it. It also looks and feels pretty darn good to boot. Here are some notes on this program:

More info on this program:

• The User Interface: is one of the nicest aspects of this program. Your audio tracks or albums can be displayed in list view or a very pleasing tiled thumbnail view. One of the more useful features is filtering pane split into 3 sections (genre/artist/ablum) which allows you to check boxes to filter your music, and is very useful when you are trying to fix or manage your library’s ID3 tags.
• The context menu: most operations can be done by selecting multiple tracks (using CTRL or Shift-clicking) then right-clicking to access the function you want (e.g. converting tracks to other formats, managing album art, group tag-editing, sending to a device, etc.) Generally speaking this makes for a very intuitive way of working with your audio library.
• Tag editing: has everything you would expect from a tagging program, including file to properties and vice vera, and various cleanup functions (e.g. underscore to space, etc.) One thing I like is that you can set it such that it automatically updates the database to reflect changes to the tags that are done externally with other programs.
• Normalization: optionally built in on playback. Make sure to perform an audio track analysis on your library which will help this process (right click to library tools/analyze audio, or use advanced tools from the tools menu).
• Audio format conversion: can natively encode into MP3. Flac, APE, Musepac, Ogg Vorbis, WMV, and WAV, or alternatively you can download and use other encoders from the site. Strangely, it uses WMV as default when first installed.
• CD burning: with the option of converting your audio into a desired format before burning them to disk. Can create audio CDs and DVDs. You can simply drag and drop files into a dropzone, and in fact you can use it to burn any kind of files and folders to CD/DVD, not just music files.
• Smartlists: the program supports a number of pre-set smartlists (e.g. top 100 played, top rated, albums without cover art, etc.) These are easily created through an intuitive and simple interface. You can add as many contingent rules as you want and work with them using an intuitive interface.
• Album art support: one thing I never could quite figure out is why so many freeware music suites lack cover art support. Not the case here; select multiple tracks and the program can download all the different covers for all sequentially (from Amazon) in one go. The program has two modes for downloading album art, a stringent and more liberal one that has a larger margin of error. You can also remove, copy, and paste cover art at will. It will not, unfortunately, allow you to manipulate search strings yourself for tracks for which it cannot find cover art. Cover art can be saved on your hard drive, in the audio file itself, or both.
• Audio recording: records line-in, Microphone and CD audio inputs. You can use this to convert, say, cassettes to MP3s or even to re-record DRM protected files. It can also split tracks automatically based on gaps in the signal. (Note: I did not try this one myself).
• Device support: Ipod, Sony PSP, and all PlaysForSure devices and phones. It will most likely support your device; try it.
• Plugins: this program has been around for a long time, and there is a wealth of plugins, skins, and visualizations that can be added covering all
• Search box: makes finding the music you want a breeze.
• Visualization Studio: allows you to create your own custom visualizations. Did not try this one myself.
• Other functions: Podcast support (subscribe to podcast RSS’s), custom label and cover printing, EQ, DSP and audio effects, can connect to the Amazon DRM-free music store (which you can also disable), Windows shell integration, etc.
• Resource utilization: approx 30 megs in memory (compare to approx 60 megs for ITunes and it’s ’helper’ processes). Mediamonkey takes up 38 megs.
• But is it free?: yes; it was recently changed from being shareware. The makers of Media Jukebox are hoping that you will like it so much you will buy its cousin, JRiver Media Center, which handles images and videos as well as audio.

Wish list

• Folder-watching/auto importing: i.e. watching a folder or folders for changes or new audio file additions and automatically reflecting those in the database. There is actually an auto importing plugin that will do this but I was not able to download and install it.
• Allowing the user to enter the search strings when searching for album art.

Media Jukebox vs. Mediamonkey: I prefer Media Jukebox’s look and feel to that of Mediamonkey. I like its interface better and the fact that it comes with pretty much everything you need (e.g. album art support, Ipod support, LastFM support and pre-installed encoders; Mediamonkey forces you to install the LAME mp3 encoder manually).

Media Jukebox also offers a more complete set of tools (e.g. sound recording, advanced smartlists — which in Mediamonkey is only supported in the paid version) and I prefer its filtering panel to Mediamonkey’s explorer style left pane. Although both are mature programs that have been around for a very long time and can be extendible through all sorts of plugins, Mediamonkey has a larger community following and more third party additions, and can also use WinAmp plugins. Finally, Mediamokey is scriptable while Media Jukebox isn’t, which some advanced users might want.

The verdict: a fantastic, mature, comprehensive program that is a joy to use, and is my favorite all-around Audio Management application. Highly recommended.

Version Tested: 12.0.29

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 12 megs).

Rating

Version tested: 1.0.1

Any Audio Converter is a freeware program that can convert a wide range of audio files into MP3, WMA, ACC, or OGG audio format. It can also demux (extract) audio tracks from most video files, including FLV and DVD video VOB files, and provides a preview screen where you can set beginning and end points for audio extraction from a video.

While you can perform audio format conversions another using a number of applications (e.g. a CD ripper such as BonkEnc, an audio player such as Mediamonkey, or even the context-menu based DMSI), there are a number of reasons why you should download and use Any Audio Converter, as follows:

• Converts audio files and demuxes video files as well.
• Broad range of supported input formats (although some audio formats are conspicuously absent): MP3, WMA, WAV, WMV, ASF, VOB, MPG, DV, M1V, M2V, MOV, MPEG-4, 3GP, RM, RMVB and FLV. Supported output formats: MP3, WMA, AAC and OGG. Not supported: FLAC, OGG input, APE, M4A/M4B, (Itunes formats).
• Supports FLV; (for all of you downloading tracks from music sharing sites in FLV format and not knowing what to do with them, Any Audio Converter is what you need).
• Converts files in batches (including videos).
• Allows you to set output quality in terms of bitrate, sample rate, and mono vs. stereo channels. Curiously, it does not support variable bit rate processing.
• Video preview screen allows for setting beginning and ending point for audio demuxing. You can do this individually for each video file even when processing multiple video files.
• Speed: although this is my subjective impression, it does seem to offers excellent conversion performance.
• Displays the audio bitrate for input files, which is excellent information to know when you are converting from a video file or from FLV.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better):

• Support for 160 output bitrate (for some reason it jumps straight from 128 to 190 bitrate in the settings).
• Support for FLAC format for both input/output, OGG for input, APE, input/output, and M4A/M4B.

The verdict: this is a great program to have in your audio file processing toolbox; it does exactly what it claims to do quite well, and is 100% free.

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, Vista.

Go to the program home page to get the latest version (approx 13.14 megs).

Rating: 5

Version tested: 0.14

MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter will combine a number of MP3 files into a single .M4B audiobook file. Ipod M4B audiobooks support a number of features including remembering last listening position and the ability to adjust reading speed.

Having recently transferred an audiobook consisting of some 56 MP3 files into my new IPhone, I realized that it wasn’t possible to use ’song shuffle’ without getting these files played as well, interrupting the music, and requiring a human intervention. I had tagged these MP3s as "audiobook" genre but being as there is no "shuffle songs from all genres except" function I started searching for an MP3 to Audiobook converter and found this program. (Why use an app like this instead of an audio converter or transcoder? because it will both convert and combine in one action, as well as provide an interface for sorting chapters correctly and editing the tag info of the resulting audiobook).

Fitst, here’s a list of reasons why Apple’s audiobook M4B format is a good thing:

• Combines all the different MP3s constituting the different chapters into an easy to manage single M4B file.
• Will not get played when using song shuffle
• Remembers the last listening position and allows you to get back right at the point where you left off.
• Allows you to adjust the reading speed.

Here are some notes on this program:

• Will combine as well as convert all MP3 files into a single M4B audiobook.
• Very simple; load MP3s and convert. Supports drag and drop.
• You have to make sure that the files are in the correct sort order; sort order for individual MP3 files corresponds to their sort order in explorer (i.e. in the directory where they reside).
• The program allows for adjusting the sort order of files individually (move up/move down).
• MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter will allow you to modify/set tag information for your file straight from the program interface.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better):

• Support for other audio formats (esp. Ogg Vorbis) not just MP3
• Allow for moving up/down of blocks of files or multiple file selections.

The verdict: I like it; hit me with those audiobooks, baby!.

Compatibility: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista. Mac and Linux versions promised soon.

Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 14 megs). Also visit the program home page.

Rating

Version tested: 1.26

[Note: this review was written by reader Sinkhan, a connoisseur of freeware and open source programs- The Freewaregenius]

Audacity is a free full-featured digital audio editing program. It offers a broad spectrum of audio editing tools and capabilities and a simple, easy to use user interface.

Audacity is an open source program developed by a large and dedicated community of programmers. It has an immense array of capabilities, functions, and tools. I’ve personally used this program for tons of things, from recording and piecing together audio projects, to just random fiddling around. Some features of this application are:

• Supports many audio formats (from the common .wav and .mp3, to others such as .aiff, and .ogg).
• An easy to understand interface with large play, stop, pause, and skip buttons to control the playing of the file as you are editing it.
• A main display showing the frequencies or sound waves of the audio files. The scale can be adjusted from blocks of 24 hours to increments of 1/1,000,000 of a second.
• Various effects can be applied, such as echo, invert, and fade in and out. You can easily apply volume, normalization and gain changes to entire tracks. There is also a “noise removal” plugin, but in all honesty I have found that other (commercial) programs produce better noise removal results.
• Features a very nice collection of tools and plugins, including an envelope tool (for writing volume envelopes), draw tool (zoom to waveform level and “draw” data to eliminate noise/distortion). You can also apply gain, amplify, and normalize commands. There are also a host of other commands/tools I will not mention that you would expect in an audio editing application (cut, copy, paste, select, etc).
• Great set-up for recording
• Meters that indicate the left and right input audio levels
• The ability to split and individually edit both halves of a music track
• The ability to trace back and undo all of your edits. Like most programs, you cannot undo after a save, as the history list is gone after saving.

Overall, the program is quite user-friendly and easy to navigate. There is a very helpful brief manual included with the program that can guide you through any parts that you may find difficult to understand, as well as a larger and more comprehensive online user guide. I myself have found the learning curve of this program to be quite smooth. A few brief looks at the included documentation is all that is needed to learn how to use this program (which is more than can be said for most audio editing programs out there).

The Verdict: This program is extremely versatile and can handle pretty much all sound editing needs. Although commercial programs such as Adobe Audition, Protools, and Nuendo are more sophisticated, Audacity is much more straightforward than those and easier to use (not to mention it is free). It is quite possibly one of the best and most useful sound editing utilities you’ll ever use. If you need a flexible free program to edit your sound and music files, Audacity is most certainly your top choice

Compatibility: Windows 98 and newer, Mac OS X, Linux, and Unix-based systems. There are also older versions available for Mac OS 9.

Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 2.1 megs) . Also visit the program home page.

Version tested: 2.0

MP3myMP3 is a program that can record any sound coming into or out of your PC straight into MP3 format. If it can be played on your machine MP3myMP3 can record it.

This is a very straightforward yet useful program that has a variety of uses, as follows:

• Allows you to record any input through the mic jack directly into mp3. This can be useful for, say, creating podcasts using a microphone or creating audio files from non-digital sources (such as cassettes).
• Can be used to record streaming radio. (Alternately, you can try to determine the URLs for streaming radio using URL Snooper and download these directly).
• Can circumvent any digital rights or protection that may exist your audio files. Simply play these and record using MP3myMP3.
• Can play audio files in the following formats: mp3, wav, aif, swa, or sun au. No need to use an external player, unless you want to.
• In theory, it can convert any playable audio format into MP3. However, unless you have a really obscure format you would be better off using a program with a straight conversion functionality such as BonkEnc or even the online Zamzar service. This will be faster, more convenient, and has a less of a risk for loss of quality.

MP3myMP3 allows you to set the bit-rate and quality settings for your recording, and has a timer that allows for scheduling of the recording action as well as its duration. To make a recording you might need to do a little bit of simple tweaking initially. This involves adjusting the player audio level, the master volume level, as well as the recording level such as to get a good sound level. It is a simple process that is represented visually.on an audio meter on the right side of the UI. Note that you also have to make sure that no other audio events occur beside the one you are interested in when recording (for example the bleep of an unexpected instant message that might arrive during recording will be recorded as well). Recorded audio can be saved in either mp3 or wav formats.

Note that once a recording is set in motion with optimal volume levels, you are forced to listen to it until it is done or This of course is a function of the technology being used here, and you can always plug something into the headphone jack in order to escape it.

Wishlist: The ability to trim/cut parts of the recording before saving, and to do this on a visual representation of the audio. Using MP3myMP3 will invariably result in a recording that has a little bit of extra, unwanted audio at the beginning and the end. Unfortunately, MP3myMP3 does not provide a way to trim or cut these, and you have to seek another application to do this such as Mp3DirectCut.

This program is simple, looks fantastic (and supports skins), and is simple to use.

Compatibility: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server

Go to the download page to download the latest version (approx 5.7 megs). The the program home page.

Rating: 5

Version tested: 1.0.305

Free Easy Burner is a CD/DVD burning and authoring program that supports burning data and audio CD’s and DVD’s, copying CD’s and DVD’s (by ripping and burning ISO’s), and Ripping audio CD’s into MP3’s.

If you want a small CD/DVD burning program that performs all standard functions without many frills, then Free Easy Burner will cater for all of your burning needs (pun intended heheh).

Important Note [8/13/2007]: since first reviewing this program on 2/3/2007 it has become adware, despite still being billed as freeware on the author’s site. This means that as of version 1.2.43 the program, while fully functional, nonetheless displays ads (albeit harmless ones) within its interface. However you can still download version 1.2.21 of this program, which is fully functional and ad-free, from the link at the bottom of this page.

The following is a list of what this program can do:

• Supports dual-layer DVD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW.
• Burns Data CD’s and DVD’s: allows dragging and dropping of files and folders, will verify and/or finalize your CD/DVD.
• Will copy CD’s and (unencrypted) DVD’s by ripping an ISO image on hard drive and burning it back.
• Will write to ISO (i.e. can create ISOs from any collection of files and/or folder). Will also burn ISO files.
• Burns Audio CD’s; will convert your audio files into a playable audio CD. Supported audio file formats are: WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, and M4A.
• Rips audio CD’s to MP3 or WAV file formats. Supports automatic FreeCDDB tag information retrieval.

This is great, straightforward freeware that does the job very well and looks good to boot. Nice simply functional user interface;  I recommend higly.

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista.

Download FREEWARE version 1.2.21 here. Go here to download the latest version on the author’s site; two things to know (1) the version on the author’s site is adware, and (2) you do not need to enter your info to download if you don’t want to. Also visit the author’s page.

Version tested: beta

Zamzar is an online file format conversion service for documents and media files. It will allow you to upload a file up to 100 megs in size and will convert it remotely according to your requirements. It will then email you a link to download the converted file from.

This service is very similar to Media-Convert. Just like Media-Convert, Zamzar can handle an impressive array of file types; it doesn’t quite match Media-Convert’s support for obscure formats, but should cover most of the file formats you would encounter. One notable absence is flash SWF support. For a list of all file formats supported click here.

Max file upload size is 100megs compared to Media-Convert’s 50megs. This means that Zamzar is a much more practical resource for converting video files (albeit still limited by the max upload ceiling).

Here are some observations:

• I did a number of image conversions and all of these went really well.
• I am often asked about a freeware program to convert PDF to DOC, and I am happy to report that this conversion works great in Zamzar
• Audio conversions also went without a hitch.
• The handful of video conversions I attempted (including FLV as source) worked really well and without any audio sync problems.
• Some conversion flat out failed, including converting a Powerpoint presentation (.PPT) into HTML.

My wish list for Zamzar is almost exactly the same as that for Media-Convert:

• This service does not perform optical character recognition; i.e. you cannot convert a JPEG with text in it into actual text (in fact, you can only convert an image file into another image format). If you want to do OCR try Docmorph instead. OCR would have added significant value, as the choices for freeware OCR programs are slim to say the least
• Batch upload. Lets face it, uploading a few dozen JPEGS or PDFs sequentially is impractical, and you’d be better off finding a conversion program that runs locally.
• SWF support; I am always on the lookout for a resource that will convert .PPT to .SWF for free.

There is a wide array of options for freeware file format conversion, including virtual printers like PDFCreator, batch image converters like Multiple Image Resizer.Net, and universal transcoders for media files such as Mediacoder. Most freeware MP3 rippers/encoders also offer audio format conversions (see BonkEnc). Having said this, however, I will also say that I really like this service for the following reasons: (a) it works well, (b) the website looks good and has a nice design, (c) the generous 100-meg upload size limit makes it a good solution for a good range of media files, including most Youtube or Google video, and (d) it is a good solution for converting from PDF to DOC or RTF.

Go to the Zamzar home page.

Version tested: 2.5.4.978

MediaMonkey is an advanced music manager comprising a music player, cd ripper, audio converter, ID3 Tag editor, and playlist generator. It also supports external MP3 players, including the Ipod.

If you’ve been looking for a free program that can be a kind of one-stop-shop of audio, doing everything that you might possibly want to do with your library of audio files (and doing it well) – MediaMonkey just might be that program.

Here are some of the reasons why this program is so cool:

• Audio format conversions. Supported formats are MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, and FLAC.
• Rips and burns music CD’s.
• Powerful Tag editing functionality: as good as it gets, with support for importing ID3 tags and album art from external resources like Amazon and Freedb. Auto tagging tracks and saving album art from Amazon is just beautiful!
• Organization: allows you to automatically change your music library’s folder structure based on your audio files’ tag information.
• Dynamic Playlists: you can easily create these, e.g. “all tracks from the ‘Electronic’ genre from 2004 to 2006″. Unfortunately, advanced dynamic playlists based on multiple criteria are only availabe in the paid ‘Gold’ version of the program.
• Search: makes it possible to find the music you are looking for in a snap.
• It offers versatile scripting support. In fact there are hundreds of downloadable scripts and skins that a community of enthusiasts have created that enable MediaMonkey to do pretty much anything you could think of.
• Also offers compatibility with Winamp 2 plugins.
• Synchronization with MP3 players, including the Ipod is seamless. The paid version allows for automatic file conversion when syncing music with hardware players (this sounds nice but I can certainly live without it).
• It is a music player not an audio player. As far as I am concerned this is a huge PLUS, as this would have been over-reach, and I already have my favorite freeware video players which I am extremely happy with (VLC media player and GOM Player).
• The program also features a motley collection of cool little features, such as controlling the player by mouse gestures, support for skins, a right-click ‘find more from the same’ command that delivers tracks from the same artist, album, genre, etc.
• MediaMonkey seems to me to be less resource intensive than some other shareware ‘Music Management’ software that I have used (specifically Media Center and Musicmatch).

Here are some of the reasons why it is not as cool as it could be:

• The iTunes like interface is functional but not very exciting.
• No support for browsing by album art. This is surprising as many shareware music managers have this. Note that I DID find a script that adds this functionality to MediaMonkey here (works great); it required a bit of manual fiddling with the registry to run properly, though.
• No support for some protected file formats such as WMA v10 and protected AAC files (a non-issue to me, but some might want to know this).
• Forces you to manually install LAME MP3 encoder if you want to still be able to encode and convert to MP3 after 30 days of installation. This is a nuisance, but doable fairly easily (click here for instructions).

Differences between free and paid versions: The two most important features that the paid version provides are (1) real-time audio library scanning, which keeps your library updated without you telling MediaMonkey to re-scan your folders, and (2) advanced dynamic playlist generation for multiple criteria (e.g. I want a playlist for all ‘Rock’ genre tracks rated 4 and above where the year is between 2005 and 2006). Other differences include the need to manually install the MP3 encoder I mentioned above, plus a few others which to me aren’t that significant.

For all of MediaMonkey’s functions you could find strong 100% freeware titles that can do each one of them seperately. You could have the Music Management and dynamic playlists portion with the excellent MusikCube, ID3 Tagging and Amazon/CDDB resources are offered with Mp3Tag, and encoding and converting is offered by many programs, e.g. BonkEnc. MediaMonkey offers all of these functions at the same place, does a really good job at each one of them, and syncs with external MP3 players and the Ipod (as of this writing MusikCube does not have Ipod support).

Additionally, one of the real strengths of MediaMonkey is the community that has grown around it of people who absolutely love it (and create all sorts of scripts and plugins for it). If you’re an Ipod owner and do not want to use iTunes you could do worse than use MediaMonkey. I recommend it higly.

Go to the download page for the latest version. The program home page.

This curiously named app is a competent, 100% free audio cd ripper and converter that offers compression into MP3, MP4/M4A, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, Bonk and FLAC formats, as well as others through plugins. It also supports automatic tagging through the CDDB/freedb online CD database and CDText. It can even support ID3 tagging in unicode characters (i.e. non-latin song names).

Rating: 5 

Version tested: 1.0 beta 4

I like the economical sleek looking design of this one, even if it takes a bit of getting used to at first. I also love the idea that I do not need a seperate program to do format conversions. CDDB/freedb integration is seamless and reliable.

To download go to download page. Click for the Developer’s Page.