Play FLAC and edit tags under MacOS

Posted by: AMA on 12 March 2012

I was a big fan of Foobar.

 

Actually I normally use it to do the try the new albums/tracks, convert wav, wv and ape to flac and draw the tags from internet or edit tags manually. Then I copy it to NAS and stream. 

 

How can I do the same on MacOS?

Posted on: 12 March 2012 by pcstockton

There is nothing like it for MacOS that I know of.

 

Try XLD or DBPoweramp

Posted on: 13 March 2012 by Guido Fawkes
You can use XLD to process FLAC on a Mac including editing tags though it doesn't have the number of options that iTunes does for ALAC. It does all the ones I need though. Lots of choices for playing FLAC. I use Decibel. As all players when set for bit perfect playback on a Mac produce the same output through S/PDIF then there should be no difference what player you use. I can't hear any difference. If you like FooBar then it may run on a Mac under CrossOver. I've not tried this. Good thing about CrossOver is no Windows licence required.
Posted on: 13 March 2012 by AMA

Actually, I'm not going to listen FLACs on Mac.

I use KDS to stream music from the NAS which is stuffed with FLACs.

I operate KDS with iPAD and this is the best remote ever.

 

What I need is to convert WAV, WV and APE to FLAC, download the tags  from freeDB and edit the tags manually. So as you see the sonic qualities are not an issue for me at all.

I'm not gonna use the software player to listen for music (only test the tracks sometimes).

 

My family and all my friends have changed to Mac long time ago.

I did the same couple of months ago and the only question left is why didn't I do it before 

 

The only software which still takes me back to my old Windows laptop is ... Foobar.

Posted on: 13 March 2012 by mutterback

There's a great program called MAX that can convert to/from almost any audio format. it works with MusicBrainz and I believe it can get track data if you've already ripped the files. Typically, it rips and gets track data at the same time.

Posted on: 13 March 2012 by Steven Shaw

I use XLD for ripping. Excellent. If I ever need to edit tags etc I use a program called Kid3 for mac. Very similar to mp3tag that I used to use on pc.

Posted on: 13 March 2012 by m0omo0

AMA,

 

+1 for Max as a conversion tool. Works well most of the time, but can have problems converting to ALAC, and with high def files sometimes.

 

From the same developer (Google sbooth) you'll find Tag which is a FLAC tagging tool, and Play which is basically a player but that I find quite easy to use for editing tags. Plus it works on other formats as well, where Tag is restricted to FLAC.

 

I didn't find a proper tool to edit embedded artwork on a Mac though. No powerhouse like MediaMonkey on Mac, such a pity.

 

HTH

Maurice

Posted on: 13 March 2012 by pcstockton
Originally Posted by AMA:

My family and all my friends have changed to Mac long time ago.

I did the same couple of months ago and the only question left is why didn't I do it before 

 

The only software which still takes me back to my old Windows laptop is ... Foobar.

Why not before?  Because the PC works better for your needs.

Posted on: 13 March 2012 by Guido Fawkes

> What I need is to convert WAV, WV and APE to FLAC, download the tags  from freeDB and edit the tags manually.

 

That is exactly what XLD will do. Sorry I misread thread title and thought that you wanted to play FLAC on a Mac, 


Max and the booth crowd are fine - indeed that is where Decibel comes from, but I have found XLD slightly better - anyways they are free so I have both. 

Posted on: 13 March 2012 by Guido Fawkes
Originally Posted by pcstockton:
Originally Posted by AMA:

My family and all my friends have changed to Mac long time ago.

I did the same couple of months ago and the only question left is why didn't I do it before 

 

The only software which still takes me back to my old Windows laptop is ... Foobar.

Why not before?  Because the PC works better for your needs.

But the Mac is just so much better, see if Foobar runs with CrossOver if it does and you still want to run it then you never need use Windows again. 

Posted on: 17 March 2012 by Scarydog

I use a combination of tools to manage Flac on my Mac. Max (as mentioned above) to rip the CDs I buy. Media Rage is good for renaming, mass editing and adding album artwork, amongst other things. Media Rage however is expensive for what it does, and I seem to have bought atleast 2 copies. In the past I have also used Picard from Music Brainz to look at albums that have no meta-data and retrieve it from Music Brainz. However, I have no idea how it works and I end up flailing about clicking all sorts of stuff and somewhere along the way it works. I've been developing software for 20 years, but the interface of Picard is bonkers :-)

 

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_Picard

http://www.chaoticsoftware.com...Pages/MediaRage.html

 

What I would really like is if the Song Genie and Cover Scout guys would make versions that work with Flacs and dont rely on iTunes (http://www.equinux.com/us/prod...overscout/index.html). The interface is great and I use it to keep my cover art all good in iTunes. I am finding that I don't list to MP3s or use iTunes much any more though.