VLC is the most popular video player on most computing platforms. It’s free, it’s open source, and it’s constantly updated to deliver one of the smoothest and most customizable video playback and viewing experiences around. It is also packed with lesser known but very useful features, one of which is the ability to convert audio files between various formats.
Even though it’s a video player, this program is also great for listening to music or managing your music library. Besides that, as we mentioned earlier, VLC also has (hidden) functions capable of converting audio files into different formats.
How to Convert Audio Files with VLC
First, download or update to the latest version the VLC program on your PC (you can update it from the app by going to the “ Help -> Check for updates “ menu ), and then start it.
Then click on “ Media -> Convert / Save “. In the Open Media window that you will see, go to the File tab and click on “ Add “.
Now select the AUDIO file (s) you wish to convert. You can select as many audio files as you want from a single folder by holding down the Ctrl or Shift keys while clicking on the various files. After selecting all the files, click Open and they will all appear in the “ Open Media Files ” window (as shown in the figure below):
You can continue adding more files from different folders by clicking on the ” Add ” button . In the same way you can also remove them from the list by clicking on the ” Remove ” button .
After entering all the files you want to convert, click ” Convert / Save ” to access the Convert window .
From this window it is possible to ignore the two check boxes “ View output ” and “ Deinterlace ” (which refers to video files). The crucial thing to do instead is to click on the Profile dropdown menu and go to the Audio section to select an output audio format. Finally, click on Start .
As you can see from the image above, the possible output audio formats are many: mpeg audio (aac), mp3, ac-3, vorbis, flac, opus, speex, WAV, WMA, and so on.
Create custom audio conversion profile
If you don’t find the audio format you are looking for in the drop-down menu or you want to create files with different parameters than the default ones, click on the icon on the far right next to the Profile drop-down menu (Create a new profile) , and then click on the ” Audio Codec ” tab .
Name the new profile at the top, and then click the Audio checkbox .
Now you can specify which codec you want to convert your audio file into (we chose AAC as an example), the bitrate you want to convert it to, and the number of output channels you are playing it on (2 for stereo, 5 for 5.1 surround, etc. .). We recommend setting the sample rate to 44100Hz or 48000Hz for CD-level quality, but, of course, you can lower it if you’re looking for smaller file sizes.
When you have finished creating your profile, click ” Create “.
This will take you back to the Convert window where your unconverted files will be waiting for conversion. Click the Profile drop-down menu , select the profile you created, then click Start .
VLC will now convert your audio files, placing them in the same folder next to the original files.
If you want to edit or optimize the profile you created, click the wrench icon next to the Profile drop-down menu in the Convert window .
