Portable fre:ac 1.0.27

Portable fre:ac is a free audio converter and CD ripper for various formats and encoders

Portable fre:ac is a free audio converter and CD ripper for various formats and encoders. It features MP3, MP4/M4A, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, and Bonk format support, integrates freedb/CDDB, CDText and ID3v2 tagging and is available in several languages.

The interface of the application may seem a little confusing at first, although it contains simplistic elements from the visual perspective, but Portable fre:ac is actually pretty easy to work with.

You can import audio tracks from the hard drive or disc by using the file browser or the "drag and drop" method (batch processing is also supported).

All you have to do is specify the output extension and initiate the conversion process.

Furthermore, you can preview source files in a built-in media player, as well as check out the title, track number, length and size of each audio track in the queue.

Additionally, you can edit ID3 tags when it comes to the artist, title, album, track number, year and genre, as well as save and load job lists. On top of that, you can submit CDDB data, manage CDDB cache entries and configure the selected encoder (e.g. preset, stereo mode, linear predictor, residual coding).

In "General Settings" you can specify the output directory and filename pattern, enable the tool to encode to a single file (i.e. file merging), create playlists and cue sheets, change the interface language, add and configure plugins and info tags, and more.

The audio encoder quickly finishes a job while using a moderate amount of system CPU and memory. No errors have popped up during our tests and Portable fre:ac did not freeze or crash. There's also a brief help file available, but it's incomplete for first-time users. The output files have a very good sound quality.

All in all, Portable fre:ac is an excellent tool for audio conversion. Since it comes equipped with plenty of advanced options, we mainly recommend it to experts.