Home » Windows » Audio » Audio Conversion

Freac: powerful audio converter and CD ripper, optimized for multi-core PCs

January 29, 2011 By 9 Comments

While there are many free programs that can rip CD’s and perform audio file conversions, many of them do not support multi-core processing. For most modern PC’s this means that the software does not utilize the full processing power of your machine, resulting in longer encoding and conversion times (significantly longer if, say, you were processing a large audio library).

Fre:ac is a versatile, free, and feature-rich audio converter and CD ripper with multi-core optimized encoders. It can convert to/from most major audio types (MP3, MP4/M4A, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, WAV, and Bonk). Other functions include ripping audio CDs and downloading metadata from online sources (CDDB/freedb), playlist Freewaregenius 5-Star Pickcreation, and encoding into a single file. (Note that the program used to be called BonkEnc before the name was changed).

I found out about this program when I received the following email from a reader: “I recently did a big project of moving all my AAC files to OGG to use on my Droid. I found every audio encoder, including the one you have recommended [Any Audio Converter] to be so slow. I found this one on SourceForge and I think it is much better and much faster. It actually supported multithreading on my machine.” (Thanks Kyle S).

It turns out this program was, in fact, the very first program I reviewed on Freewaregenius, except back then it was called BonkEnc. I am glad I was reminded of it, though, because I had been looking for an audio converter to add to the next update of my Top Freeware page, especially as one audio converter I liked, Xrecode, had become payware after I had reviewed it.

Fre:ac snapshot 20101205: this is the name of the latest beta of this program, which has tag editing functionality, offers a 64bit native version, and (presumably) also offers an integrated video downloading function from video sharing sites, in order to save downloaded videos and encode straight to audio file/MP3. (I say “presumably” because I couldn’t figure out how to use this function, if it exists at all). Unfortunately, this version would not work for me on Windows 7 64 bit, and crashed when I tested it (in the middle of encoding to Flac) . Keeping fingers crossed that an update will be offered soon.

Here’s a list of PROs and CONs:

PROS:

  • Optimized for multi-core PCs: which means you get to use the true potential of your PC.
  • Self-contained: all encoders/decoders included, nothing to download and/or install separately.
  • Unicode support: can perform ID3 tagging in unicode characters for non-latin song names.
  • Nice interface: no nonsense, simple, functional.
  • Portable: unzip and run without installing.

CONS:

  • The beta version didn’t work. Please fix it.

The verdict: this was a “Freewaregenius pick” when I first reviewed it when it used to be called BonkEnc, and it still is in its new guise. If you are looking for a standard, powerful freeware audio converter and CD ripper then I recommend you turn to Fre:ac (bad pun deliberate, I’m afraid). This program is rich in features, fast, nice looking, portable, and open source. What more could you ask for?

Version Tested: 1.0.17a

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7; 32bit and 64bit. Linux support introduced in “Fre:ac snapshot 20101205″.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 6.7 megs).


 
 
 
Samer Kurdi

Samer Kurdi

Has been reviewing software since 2006 when he started Freewaregenius.com
Samer Kurdi

@freewaregenius

We've just launched a new site design for Freewaregenius http://t.co/xaq1ZzmLlW -- tell us what you think - 36 days ago
January 29, 2011
Samer Kurdi
9
  • Dexter

    I’ve been using http://xrecode.com/ for a long time. It supports multi-core and many codecs. From 2nd version it went shareware but you can still use it for as long as you want, it just nags you on startup.

  • http://freethought.posterous.com Dan

    I love BonkEnc, it has been my preferred audio ripper and transcoder after dbpoweramp started charging for LAME mp3 encoding. I’ve used xrecode and it’s decent enough, but bonk/fre:ac is better.

  • Michael

    That guy really converted from one lossy format to another lossy format?

    I thought everybody knew that when you do that a *lot* of the original file is lost for good, resulting in an audio file of extremely low quality.

    An example: The quality of the original wav file is 100%. You convert it to aac, thereby cutting away 50% of the data. The quality of the resulting aac file is 50%. You might not be able to tell the difference, depending on your ears and your sound system. Next you decide to convert the aac to ogg (or mp3 or another lossy format), thereby cutting away 50% of the data. In this example the quality of the resulting ogg file is 25%. Unless your sound system really sucks you’ll no doubt be able to hear that the new file is not worth listening to. Think of it as pixels in a picture. Every time you convert there are less and larger pixels, resulting in a crappy picture.

    I know, these percentages are not accurate. They depend on the quality settings you chose when you convert. Most likely they will be larger, resulting in even worse quality of the ogg file.

    And no, converting back to aac will not give you back the quality. It will further reduce the quality. Lost is lost.

    If you care about audio quality lossless formats are essential. If you absolutely have to use a lossy format only convert from the original lossless file.

  • http://www.greggdeselms.com Gregg DesElms

    McAfee site advisor doesn’t like the author’s site.

    SEE: http://bit.ly/e5R7xJ

    For whatever that’s worth.

  • TA

    I’m running it Win 7 x64 with no problems.

    There is a Hotfix listed on the download page:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/bonkenc/files/freac/1.0.17/freac-1.0.17a-hotfix-bin.zip/download

    Great program!

    I wish you could save off your configurations.

  • Pingback: farah.eti.br » Conversor de áudio

  • http://www.dhryland.com Dean-Ryan Stone

    Foobar2000 pretty much does everything this does and about ten times more besides. Multicore etc. http://www.foobar2000.org

  • Mikey

    @Michael (above) you are correct in your comments about when going from one lossy format to another.

    No offense, but why not just use Format Factory?
    It’s faster AND does both audio/video/pictures, rips CD’s'/ joins AND separates videos as well as converts to all popular portable formats like MP4
    And it’s FREE http://www.formatoz.com/

    http://format-factory.en.softonic.com/

    • Samer

      @ Mikey: I am not a fan of FormatFactory because (a) the FF page doesn’t give out any information as to whether it supports multi threaded conversion or whether it is optimized for multi core CPU’s. Thus while I know exactly that Freac will utilize all the power of my machine I don’t really know how FF compares; and (b) I don’t like how the FF interface looks. Call me a snob but I would much rather install, say, Freemake Video Converter (which looks good and is better than FF) than FF.