Converting tracker audio files to MP3

[Nostromo]

I would like to convert different tracker audio files to MP3 (and maybe other formats), such as:

.it
.sfx
.s3m
.xm
.mod
etc...

I would like to do this preferably on Windows. Unfortunately I am having a very hard time to find tools that would allow batch conversion of most of these file format. Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

[vulture]

https://www.filezigzag.com/online-converter

works surprisingly well. Accepts up to 10 files at a time, but downloading after the conversion is on the slow side.

If you prefer an offline solution, there's bzrplayer. You can enable the wavwriter, but conversion will take as long as the playback time is and I'm not sure it splits files or writes a big .wav as I've never used it.

And then, strangely enough, there's an amiga solution, which may as well be the best available if ran under WinUAE with JIT and fastest possible settings. It supports mod, xm and s3m files and can export to various formats, including mp3 and wav (just go for wav and then turn them to mp3 under windows, much much faster). For 33 mod files it took about 30 secs to convert them to wav on my pc!
It's this one: http://aminet.net/package/mus/edit/SoundConvert

[Nostromo]

Thanks for your suggestions!

Bzrplayer seems to be the most compatible, but I am not sure it exports files to MP3. Does not seem like it. What is wavwriter please? Thanks.

[DisasterIncarna]

i recall there is a website for sid tunes converted to mp3 for you so you dont need to do it, i cant remember if theres something the same for the amiga, i did find http://modp3.mikendezign.com/ after a quick search online, maybe someone knows more?.

[alexh]

Exotica run a Modland server and Amiga Demo module server that converts files from their native into OGG or MP3.

It's not a full collection of every format but a good collection.

https://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/Special:Modland
https://www.exotica.org.uk/wiki/SpecialemoDB

[no9]

Foobar2000 + libOpenMPT plugin is pretty compatible with most of the listed formats.

[vulture]

@Nostromo

you can find wavwriter (under audio output selection) in BZRPlayer's prefs. Regardless, no9's suggestion is the best of the lot.

[TCD]

You could also use WinUAE to output to a WAV file (https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=66048) and convert that to MP3.

[JanciB]

uade

It can't directly write to mp3, but it can write to wav.

https://zakalwe.fi/uade/

[andy2004]

xmplay + xmp-libxmp.dll + encoders > LAME

Lame is the mp3 encoder..
requires the lame.exe
encoder under output.. which is normally speakers.

[chip]

I use a manual approach

First of all i use WinUAE for output recording to WAV file

Then i convert the WAV with MP3 lame encoder

Quality is excellent

[TCD]

Originally Posted by chip

I use a manual approach

First of all i use WinUAE for output recording to WAV file

Then i convert the WAV with MP3 lame encoder

Quality is excellent

That's what I said

[chip]

Yep ..... exactly

[ElectroBlaster]

Another possible way, but is limited to Protracker mods:

ProTracker 2 Clone v1.50

It has an option for: MOD2WAV

After that I can use any chosen utility to convert the WAV file to MP3.

[Simmo76]

There's also:
https://www.paula8364.com/

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by Nostromo

I would like to convert different tracker audio files to MP3 (and maybe other formats), such as:

.it
.sfx
.s3m
.xm
.mod
etc...

I would like to do this preferably on Windows. Unfortunately I am having a very hard time to find tools that would allow batch conversion of most of these file format. Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

I Use AMP2 Converter, fast and above all qualitative, I attach link and screenshot:

https://codecpack.co/download/AIMP-AudioTools.html

[giantclam]

[linux host but a lot of this applies to others]

I tend to think of music 'albums' (vinyl. cassette, CDDA), and some demo/music Amiga titles lend themselves to this (Jesus on E's would be a good example), and in these cases I just load the mod files into a tracker-player, record all the audio data using Audacity, and then export as mp3 with whatever bitrate you want. This way you end up with 'album length' mp3 files of whatever duration you load into the tracker-player...

...you could use the same approach using an Amiga for the module playback duty, patch Amiga audio out to sound card line-in, and export out of Audacity in a similar fashion ~ this would effectively capture the audio of a real Amiga & Paula output...(I often used to end up here wrt octamed modules, which sometimes only play properly on Amiga.. especially early v1/2 .med modules that only octamed-player seems to get right)...

...you can go 'full monty' with this lot, and use cross-fade/mixing to produce 'MoS' (ministry of sound) type 'album mixes' B)


As mentioned in an above post tho', if your ffmpeg is linked against libopenmpt, you can do it in a single command;

ffmpeg -i <name-of>.mod -f mp3 -acodec libmp3lame -ab 256000 -ar 48000 -y <name-of>.mp3

...ffmpeg replays the module, samples the resultant wav data @ 48kHz (DAT) and exports it as a fixed bitrate (256kbps) mp3 file. You're limited to what module formats libopenmpt supports (see -> https://wiki.openmpt.org/Manual:_Module_formats ), but it works very well.

You can automate that with a bash/shell script to read in the contents of a directory (full of mods), extract the <name-of> variable, and prepend the resultant mp3 file with the <name-of> field for each file in the dir.

[Snoopy1234]

Is it possible to convert in the opposite direction - Wav/mp3 to MOD? I thought that would be good compression for storing tracks that have many duplicate sounds.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Snoopy1234

Is it possible to convert in the opposite direction - Wav/mp3 to MOD? I thought that would be good compression for storing tracks that have many duplicate sounds.

Short answer: Not really. There are a few MODs that use cut up pieces of a song, but in general that would not work great for most songs.