Archives For November 30, 1999

SoundConverter is a nifty audio file converting software for Linux Gnome. Here’s how to install the latest version via PPA in Ubuntu.

SoundConverter is a simple and fast Gnome sound conversion software with multi-threading support. It reads anything GStreamer can read, and writes to Opus, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, AAC, and MP3 files.

It can also be used to automated re-naming filenames and creating folders according to tags, extract the audio from videos.

Ubuntu includes the software package in its main repositories, however the package version is always old.

If you want to install the most recent 4.0.x version with latest bug-fixes and improvements, the “xtradeb packaging” team maintains the packages for Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04.

1. Add the PPA:

Firstly open terminal either from system application launcher or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When terminal opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/apps

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Install or upgrade SoundConverter:

After adding the PPA, you can either install the sound converter via command:

sudo apt install soundconverter

Linux Mint users may need to run sudo apt update first to update package cache.

or upgrade it via update manager (Software Updater) if an old package version exist.

Once installed, open it from your system application launcher. Add audio file or folder, click the gear button to set result folder, format, quality etc, and convert!

3. (Optional) How to Remove SoundConverter:

The PPA contains also many other software packages, e.g, Shutter, GNU Cash, Avidemux. You may want to remove it after installation, by going to Software & Updates -> Other Software.

And remove the sound converter if you want by running command:

sudo apt remove --auto-remove soundconverter

Gnome sound converter application has been updated to version 2.1.4 with 3 important bug fixes. Ubuntu 14.04 user can upgrade it from Getdeb repository.

SoundConverter is the leading audio file converter for the GNOME Desktop. It reads anything GStreamer can read (Ogg Vorbis, AAC, MP3, FLAC, WAV, AVI, MPEG, MOV, M4A, AC3, DTS, ALAC, MPC, Shorten, APE, SID, MOD, XM, S3M, etc…), and writes to Opus, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, AAC, and MP3 files, or use any GNOME Audio Profile.

The latest 2.1.4 was released with below important fixes:

1. Fixed the error when converting a video to an audio file: Python (v2.7) requires to install plugins to play media files of the following type: H.264

2. Fixed the issue that converts things with same filename at the same time doesn’t work. When trying to convert all the music of one artist at the same time. The problem arose when the first track on an EP was also the first track on an album.

3. Fixed SoundConverter can’t export to a folder on an MTP device.

Install or Upgrade to SoundConverter 2.1.4:

Getdeb repository has built the package based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Go to the link below and download the “soundconverter_2.1.4-1~getdeb1_all.deb” package.

Download SoundConverter DEB

Then double-click on the package to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button to install the Sound Converter.

SoundConverter, a simple Gnome sound converter app recently released version 2.1.2 with various bugfixes.

As you may know, SoundConverter aims to be simple to use, and very fast. Thanks to its multithreaded design, it will use as many cores as possible to speed up the conversion. It reads anything the GStreamer library can read, and writes WAV, FLAC, MP3, AAC and Ogg Vorbis files.

Changes in SoundConverter 2.1.2:

  • Fix original files deleted when encoding failed.
  • “Same folder as the input file” fix when “Create folders” is active.
  • Reset plugin install cancellation after conversion batch.
  • “Replace all messy characters” based on a black list instead of a white list. This means that only really problematic characters are replaced now.
  • Added appdata for gnome-software.
  • Translation updates.

Install SoundConverter 2.1.2:

The Getdeb has made this release into its app repository for Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.04 and Linux Mint 13/16.

1. Add the getdeb repository by running commands below in terminal one by one (For Linux Mint, there’s an option in Software Sources -> Additional repoository to enable getdeb):

wget http://archive.getdeb.net/install_deb/getdeb-repository_0.1-1~getdeb1_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i getdeb-repository_0.1-1~getdeb1_all.deb

2. Install SoundConverter after checking for updates:

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install soundconverter

If you’re on Ubuntu 13.04, Ubuntu 12.10 or you just don’t want to add the PPA, download and install the DEB packages