Converting WAV to MP3 in the terminal

Need to convert multiple WAV files to MP3 through the terminal? You need ffmpeg. Most commonly used for video conversions, ffmpeg can also be used to convert between audio formats.

Here’s how to do a simple conversion from WAV to MP3:

ffmpeg -i test.wav -acodec mp3 test.mp3

You can also specify the bitrate of the MP3 with the -ab flag.

ffmpeg -i test.wav -acodec mp3 -ab 64k test.mp3