transflac(1)

✨ NAME ✨

okay bestie, so you're reading transflac(1) — that's the General Commands Manual page for transflac — and what it does is convert FLAC audio files to lossy formats. that's the whole vibe. periodt. 💖

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

transflac [input_FLAC_directory] [output_lossy_directory] [lossy_format]
[codec_quality]

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

so like, converting FLAC files to lossy formats and preserving tag information can be a little bit tedious. that's literally why transflac exists — it automates the whole thing for you. no cap.

it starts at the input_flac_directory and recursively walks the directory structure, converting each flac audio file to the specified lossy codec — and it preserves all associated tag information. 🫶

bonus behavior: any cover art (stored in the directory structure as albumart | cover | folder . gif | jpg | jpeg | png | tiff) gets duplicated into the target lossy directories. the way it just does that 💅

⚙️ CONFIGURATION ⚙️

transflac lets you customize certain items in the configuration. main character energy, honestly.

if you want to change an option in the configuration, first create a copy:

cp /etc/transflac.conf $HOME/.transflac.conf

then modify only the $HOME/.transflac.conf version. don't touch the system one, bestie 🙈

the configuration variables can be set as follows:

VARIABLE="value"

"value" needs to be quoted. all shell escaping/quoting rules apply, fr fr.

here's the list of options transflac recognizes:

• FIGFONT="small" — default setting is small. this is the font used by the FIGlet generated banner. iconic.
• ARTSYNC="YES" — default setting is YES, so album art is automatically sync'd. if you do not wish artwork to be copied, change the setting to ARTSYNC="NO".
• input_flac_dir="" — specifies the directory starting point which will be recursively searched for FLAC audio files. all FLAC audio files in the directory structure will be converted to the specified lossy codec. default value is "$1", which is arg1 from the command line invocation. this value is case sensitive. any symlinks that are encountered will be resolved and the physical path will be displayed.
• output_lossy_dir="" — specifies the target directory which will be used to store the lossy audio files created during the conversion process. default value is "$2", which is arg2 from the command line invocation. this value is case sensitive. any symlinks that are encountered will be resolved and the physical path will be displayed.
• lossy_codec="" — specifies the lossy codec which will be used to convert the FLAC audio files. default value is "$3", which is arg3 from the command line invocation. this value is NOT case sensitive. OPUS generally will provide the best sound quality for a given filesize or bitrate — and is the recommended codec. valid values are: OPUS | OGG | AAC | MP3
• codec_quality="" — specifies the quality preset which will be used to encode the lossy audio files. default value is "$4", which is arg4 from the command line invocation. this value is NOT case sensitive. OPUS STANDARD quality provides full bandwidth stereo music, good quality approaching transparency — and is the recommended setting. valid values are: LOW | MEDIUM | STANDARD | HIGH | PREMIUM

and here's the bitrate tea ☕ — like, the actual numbers, bestie:

┌───────┬─────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ CODEC │   LOW   │  MEDIUM  │ STANDARD │   HIGH   │ PREMIUM  │
├───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ OPUS  │ 48 kbps │  64 kbps │  96 kbps │ 128 kbps │ 192 kbps │
├───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ OGG   │ 80 kbps │  96 kbps │ 112 kbps │ 160 kbps │ 224 kbps │
├───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ AAC   │ 40 kbps │  80 kbps │  96 kbps │ 128 kbps │ 224 kbps │
├───────┼─────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ MP3   │ 85 kbps │ 100 kbps │ 115 kbps │ 190 kbps │ 245 kbps │
└───────┴─────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

🎨 COLOR OVERRIDES 🎨

colors can be modified by assigning a valid color name to the variable names as shown in the sample transflac.conf file. monochrome or terminal defaults can be obtained by setting a particular variable name to "DEFAULT". additional information can be found at the TransFLAC website.

available color names: RED, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, CYAN, PURPLE, GRAY

placing an L in front of the color designates the "LIGHT" version. so like LRED, LGRAY, you get it. ✨

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

possible ways one can call transflac:

• transflac — you will be prompted to enter all options. if you have customized options in $HOME/.transflac.conf those values will be substituted.
• transflac [input_flac_dir] [output_lossy_dir] [lossy_codec] [codec_quality] — transflac processing will proceed with the options entered on the command line.

🛠️ BACKEND TOOLS 🛠️

transflac requires the following backend tools:

• opus-tools — required to convert files to the OPUS lossy format
• vorbis-tools — required to convert files to the OGG Vorbis lossy format
• ffmpeg — required to convert files to the AAC or MP3 lossy formats
• flac — required to convert files from the FLAC lossless format
• rsync — required to copy cover art files to the new lossy format directory structure
• figlet — required to facilate display formatting

no backend tools, no conversion. that's the rules, bestie 💀

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

opusenc(1), oggenc(1), flac(1), ffmpeg(1)

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Gerald Cox <gbcox@fedoraproject.org>

🌐 WWW 🌐

https://bitbucket.org/gbcox/transflac/

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and that's a wrap on transflac(1) from the General Commands Manual section, no version number or date stamp on this one — it's just transflac, doing its thing. go convert something, you got this 🦋💖