Best way to convert from Itunes to MP3?

Street · 19 Aug 2010 at 13:30

There is a new album that I want to buy but unfortunately it is exclusive on Itunes.. Now I don't mind installing Itunes and buying it there as long as I can convert it to an MP3. I generally listen to music in my car off of a pendrive hooked up to my headunit and have no Ipod or anything like that.

Is it possible to burn it to CD and then rip it to MP3 or is there any free software about that will do it?

Thanks!

craig3000 · 19 Aug 2010 at 14:23

I don't have experience with itunes so this might not work but try http://www.zamzar.com it's an online converter.

cotton31 · 19 Aug 2010 at 15:16

- Buy from iTunes Music Store
- Burn CD of tracks using iTunes
- Import tracks from burned disc as MP3 files (you can do this using iTunes too!)

Street · 19 Aug 2010 at 16:37

cotton31 said:
- Buy from iTunes Music Store
- Burn CD of tracks using iTunes
- Import tracks from burned disc as MP3 files (you can do this using iTunes too!)

Ta, I'll give it a go.. Just seems like a stupid way of doing things to me! Probably why I've never bothered with Itunes in the past!

Meatball · 19 Aug 2010 at 17:04

The music files you purchase from the iTunes Store are .AAC files encoded at 256Kbit. A lot of software is compatible with .AAC files, worth checking whether your headunit can decode .AACs. If not:

1) in iTunes select the "edit" tab and then "preferences".
2) You should see a section saying "when I import a CD" and then a button called "import settings", select this.
3) Under the "import using" drop down box select MP3 (You can change the desired bit rate here)
4) Go back to your music library, highlight all the music tracks in the album, right click and select "Convert to MP3".
5) Locate the newly converted MP3 files within your "my music/itunes/media/music" folder and drag to your pen drive.

Doing it this way saves wasting a CD-R and preserves all the metadata within the file (Artist, album, track name, album artwork etc)

cotton31 · 19 Aug 2010 at 17:08

Meatball said:
The music files you purchase from the iTunes Store and .AAC files encoded at 256Kbit. A lot of software is compatible with .AAC files, worth checking whether your headunit can decode .AACs. If not:

1) in iTunes select the "edit" tab and then "preferences".
2) You should see a section saying "when I import a CD" and then a button called "import settings", select this.
3) Under the "import using" drop down box select MP3.
4) Go back to your music library, highlight all the music tracks in the album, right click and select "Convert to MP3".
5) Locate the newly converted MP3 files and drag to your pen drive.

Doing it this way saves wasting a CD-R and preserves all the metadata within the file (Artist, album, track name, album artwork etc)

Didn't think you could do that with tracks purchased from iTunes due to the DRM?

Meatball · 19 Aug 2010 at 17:09

cotton31 said:
Didn't think you could do that with tracks purchased from iTunes due to the DRM?

iTS (iTunes Store) has been DRM free for a while.

Raumarik · 19 Aug 2010 at 18:36

I did this recently on about 12000 tracks which were all painstakingly imported into itunes one CD at a time. I just wanted to make MP3 CDs!

Anyway, copied my entire itunes folder and used a little freeware util called "Format Factory" to convert them all. I had to do it in batches of around 2500 files a go but it worked fine - did take a few hours though

Ratbag · 19 Aug 2010 at 20:11

Transcodes often sound crud though [regardless of bitrate], so if there is an alternative - do it.

Street · 19 Aug 2010 at 20:30

Meatball said:
The music files you purchase from the iTunes Store are .AAC files encoded at 256Kbit. A lot of software is compatible with .AAC files, worth checking whether your headunit can decode .AACs. If not:

1) in iTunes select the "edit" tab and then "preferences".
2) You should see a section saying "when I import a CD" and then a button called "import settings", select this.
3) Under the "import using" drop down box select MP3 (You can change the desired bit rate here)
4) Go back to your music library, highlight all the music tracks in the album, right click and select "Convert to MP3".
5) Locate the newly converted MP3 files within your "my music/itunes/media/music" folder and drag to your pen drive.

Doing it this way saves wasting a CD-R and preserves all the metadata within the file (Artist, album, track name, album artwork etc)

Just done some research and apparently my headunit does play AAC files! Should have checked that out before hand really..

That other info should come in handy too, thanks!