Convert .m4a files into .mp3

One of the things that's been troubling me lately has been the fact that on a standard Debian/Ubuntu system I can't seem to be able to edit the tags for the .m4a files I have.

So, in order to edit the tags on the .m4a files... I'd rather convert them into .mp3-s. The way to do this is actually simple.

The only prerequisites are the lame and faad packages, so better have them installed (in the examples that will follow throughout this blog I'll be assuming a Debian or Ubuntu system, featuring the all-mighty aptitude or apt-get):

sudo aptitude install lame faad

Next, use faad and lame for the conversion:

for x in *.m4a ; do faad -o - "$x" | lame -V 0 - "${x%m4a}mp3" ; done

Et voilà! Finally you can remove the .m4a-s if you no longer need them:

rm *m4a