Converting to Apple Lossless

Big Aura

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I originally uploaded all my CDs at 128Kbps, but now that I'm using a dock and amp, I'd like a bit more from my iTunes.

I was going to re-upload everything at 256kbps, or at lossless, for the stuff I listen to most, but I see that there's an option in iTunes to "right click" and "create Apple Lossless version". Now, on the basis that there are certain organic matters that you cannot polish, it is actually possible to enhance the sound as easily as that, or is there no quick-fix and I actually have to just bite the bullet and re-upload it all?

Ta
 

basshound

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VoodooDoctor:You can't put back what you've already lost. You have to bite the bullet and do it all again!

Yep,afraid I agree with the Doctor but once you`ve got all your cd`s into lossless you can then create lower bit rate versions if you need to cram them on to a Nano for example.
 
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Anonymous

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basshound:VoodooDoctor:You can't put back what you've already lost. You have to bite the bullet and do it all again! Yep,afraid I agree with the Doctor but once you`ve got all your cd`s into lossless you can then create lower bit rate versions if you need to cram them on to a Nano for example.

Can you explain how you do that? I'm also thinking of re-ripping my cds at loseless (originally did it at 128kps before i knew better!), but want to put them onto my 120gb classic at say 320kps and my nano (which i only use in gym/running) at 128kps.
 
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Anonymous

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jrn79:
basshound:VoodooDoctor:You can't put back what you've already lost. You have to bite the bullet and do it all again! Yep,afraid I agree with the Doctor but once you`ve got all your cd`s into lossless you can then create lower bit rate versions if you need to cram them on to a Nano for example.

Can you explain how you do that? I'm also thinking of re-ripping my cds at loseless (originally did it at 128kps before i knew better!), but want to put them onto my 120gb classic at say 320kps and my nano (which i only use in gym/running) at 128kps.

Probably the easiest option is to make a smart playlist using the bit rates. Then just have your iPod load that playlist.

The better option would be to have two libraries, one for the lower bitrates and one for the higher bitrates.

Are you saying you want three types, lossless, 320 kbps & 128kbps?
 
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Anonymous

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Think i've just worked it out. Just ripped a track at apple loseless in itunes, then changed the preference in the importing tab to AAC 128kps, right clicked on the loseless track and created an AAC version. I now have both a loseless and AAC version in itunes and in the windows itunes folder.

Presume this is the best solution to my issue? Might mean buying a new external hard drive though as mines only 160GB, so not sure it will hold all my music in loseless + a 320kps version for my classic and a 128kps for the stuff i also want on my nano!

The thing is i don't want to re-rip all my cds (500+ ) and not have them at the best possible bit rate for the future (the reason i went 128kps originally was because my first ipod was only 20gb - at the time the largest capacity available - and i wanted all my cds on one device!)
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Octopo:jrn79:

basshound:VoodooDoctor:You can't put back what you've already lost. You have to bite the bullet and do it all again! Yep,afraid I agree with the Doctor but once you`ve got all your cd`s into lossless you can then create lower bit rate versions if you need to cram them on to a Nano for example.

Can you explain how you do that? I'm also thinking of re-ripping my cds at loseless (originally did it at 128kps before i knew better!), but want to put them onto my 120gb classic at say 320kps and my nano (which i only use in gym/running) at 128kps.

Probably the easiest option is to make a smart playlist using the bit rates. Then just have your iPod load that playlist.

The better option would be to have two libraries, one for the lower bitrates and one for the higher bitrates.

Are you saying you want three types, lossless, 320 kbps & 128kbps?

I wouldn't want all the music on the nano which is on the classic (as i want the classic to hold everything to link to the stereo, car etc, whereas the nano is just for gym/running), so not sure the playlist option would work?

So yeah ideally want all my tracks in one library at loseless, another one at 320kps for putting on the classic, and some of my tracks at 128kps for the nano.

How do i create seperate libraries?

I just want the quickest/easiest solution given its going to take hours just to re-rip the cds.
 

professorhat

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I think the Playlist option will work as you just need to set the Nano to use music from the Smart Playlist which is setup for all 128kbs music, and the Classic to use music from the Smart Playlist for 320kbps. Personally, I think this is easiest, however, I can understand using separate libraries might be simpler in some ways, but less simple in others. To create a new library, on a Mac, hold down the Alt key whilst opening iTunes and you'll get the option to Create a New Library (I think you hold down either Alt or Shift if using a PC when opening iTunes, though I can't check as don't run iTunes on any of my PCs).

I think the easiest way to get the correct music in the correct library would be to rerip all music into Lossless in your main library, then change the settings as you've said to import to 320kbps (MP3 or AAC, whichever you prefer), right click and convert everything. Set up a Smart Playlist so you can see all the music at this bitrate and then export all this music out to a folder. Then, close and open iTunes to create a new library and reimport everything from this folder into this new library. Go back into the main library and delete all the 320kbps files and then repeat the procedure for 128kbps.

The main disadvanatge of different libraries that I can see is, you'd need to ensure iTunes was open with the correct library whenever you wanted to connect a certain iPod, otherwise it would prompt you to erase and resync said iPod.
 

idc

Well-known member
jrn79:

Think i've just worked it out. Just ripped a track at apple loseless in itunes, then changed the preference in the importing tab to AAC 128kps, right clicked on the loseless track and created an AAC version. I now have both a loseless and AAC version in itunes and in the windows itunes folder.

Presume this is the best solution to my issue? Might mean buying a new external hard drive though as mines only 160GB, so not sure it will hold all my music in loseless + a 320kps version for my classic and a 128kps for the stuff i also want on my nano!

The thing is i don't want to re-rip all my cds (500+ ) and not have them at the best possible bit rate for the future (the reason i went 128kps originally was because my first ipod was only 20gb - at the time the largest capacity available - and i wanted all my cds on one device!)

There is an alternative way which is to use the check boxes to the left of each track to determine what your various ipods sync with. Highlight what you dont want, right click and uncheck selection. The advantage of this method is that you can have your whole collection at the best Lossless rate (500+ albums should fit onto a 160gb hard drive). You treat your ipod like a CD muti player where you go and get what you want to listen to for the next while and load it. You say you want all of your CDs on one device, but is that really necessary?
 

John Duncan

Well-known member
The only disadantage of having it all the one library is if you use an iPod Touch to control your music library (as I've found). You can use smart playlists to filter out the right bitrates and sync each ipod to only those playlists, but when you want to remotely control using that playlist, the sort options in a playlist are poor. Go back to the 'all music' library and choose an album, and suddenly you have three copies of everything and no way of knowing which is lossless and which isn't.

So, fine if you're not using Remote, otherwise separate libraries might be better.
 
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Anonymous

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I'm not sure I understand this, then. What is the point of going back into your lower bit-rate library, and creating lossless versions of everything. Are you saying that you get no sound quality improvement, but you do get the inconvenience of having used 4 times the space on your iPod?
 

John Duncan

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davidkirbs:I'm not sure I understand this, then. What is the point of going back into your lower bit-rate library, and creating lossless versions of everything. Are you saying that you get no sound quality improvement, but you do get the inconvenience of having used 4 times the space on your iPod?

Other way round. If you have a lossless library, but only limited space on an iPod, it's worth creating a lower bitrate library to get more music on your iPod. No point in creating lossless versions of files that were ripped at 320, since you can't get back what isn't there.
 
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Anonymous

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Indeed. So the answer to my question is "there is no point". Wish I knew all of this before ripping my entire CD collection to iPod.

Hmm....
 

cram

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I've ripped in 128 then 256 and am now going to lossless....

Re earlier point about keeping lossy and lossless versions within the same library. There is another alternative albeit on Macs. See linky below, basically a set of apple scripts to convert songs on the fly from lossless to aac when syncing to an ipod. Haven't tried it and would imagine that it would be slow

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=losslessaccworkflow
 

John Duncan

Well-known member
cram:I've ripped in 128 then 256 and am now going to lossless....

Re earlier point about keeping lossy and lossless versions within the same library. There is another alternative albeit on Macs. See linky below, basically a set of apple scripts to convert songs on the fly from lossless to aac when syncing to an ipod. Haven't tried it and would imagine that it would be slow

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=losslessaccworkflow

FanTAStic, am having a go at that - it does it already for the shuffle, but only to 128k, but have been clamouring for a while to have it configurable to any bitrate and for it to work with all iPods...
 
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Anonymous

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Sorry if I missed it, but did anyone actually give an answer to the OP? I've had to rip a track using .wav through Nero because iTunes fell over everytime. I'm now stuck with one .wav file within a whole library of Apple Lossless files. The biggest problem is that the track is now out of order within the album, appearing as track 1 when it is actually number 9. How very dare it!

Being the big silly that I am, I can't anything within iTunes or Nero to convert .wav to Lossless, although iTunes does give me the opportunity to turn a .wav into a .wav... I cannot stand the disorder!
 

John Duncan

Well-known member
Change your rip settings in iTunes to 'Apple Lossless'. Then the right click option will change to "Create Apple Lossless Version".

As for track order, do a right click/get info for each track, and make sure the track number is correct for each one (the rest are probably fine, probably just need to do the WAV one).
 
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Anonymous

Guest
All sorted now. It was actually the fact that I hadn't specified "disk 1 of 1" in the new file that caused it to not be in the correct order. Didn't realise iTunes was quite so picky...
 
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Anonymous

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Converting to Apple Lossless....

From FLAC.

Is it possible?

Best way to do it?

I use iTunes and prefer to keep using it as my player/music library app of choice (for now).
 

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