Audio File Questions

[lukin]

Hello all, I'm fairly new to mac and any help is appreciated.

I've recently purchased a 1TB external hd and am reimporting my CD's to the drive as apple lossless. I'm not sure that apple lossless is what I want, but I'm going to put out what I'm thinking and would like some feedback.

I want to keep lossless copies on my external and convert them to lossy mp3 or something for my laptop/iphone/etc.

1) Is apple lossless the best way to store cd quality music?
2) If I have a folder full of artist folders/albums and their music a lossless format, how can I easily convert all of those files to mp3 or aac or some other lossless and get them on my laptop?

Thanks for any input

 

[LtRammstein]

Hey, welcome to the Apple Family!

Apple Lossless is actually a pretty good lossless format to go with. There are other formats like .flac to use. I'm not an audio guru, so I can't tell you much different. What I can tell you is that no matter what with any lossless format you will have some loss in data and quality, but not as much as the lossy formats.

If you are using iTunes for your music, you can convert your lossless to lossy MP3 by right-clicking (yes we have it) on the song and it will have a selection with "Convert Selection to xxx." (xxx is the format you selected in the iTunes Preferences under the Import Settings.)

Now if you want to not use iTunes to convert the selection, you'll have to find a batch converter for it, which a good trip to Google.com will do you well.

Good luck!

 

[lukin]

Hey, welcome to the Apple Family!

Apple Lossless is actually a pretty good lossless format to go with. There are other formats like .flac to use. I'm not an audio guru, so I can't tell you much different. What I can tell you is that no matter what with any lossless format you will have some loss in data and quality, but not as much as the lossy formats.

If you are using iTunes for your music, you can convert your lossless to lossy MP3 by right-clicking (yes we have it) on the song and it will have a selection with "Convert Selection to xxx." (xxx is the format you selected in the iTunes Preferences under the Import Settings.)

Now if you want to not use iTunes to convert the selection, you'll have to find a batch converter for it, which a good trip to Google.com will do you well.

Good luck!

Thanks for the response.

I do have a follow up:

If I have all my library in lossles and do the itunes convert to mp3... does it create new files that are mp3 and leave the originals? Or does it actually convert my lossless? I want to keep the lossless and keep the original and have a new lossy copy to put on the phone and laptop.

Thanks

 

[MasterNile]

Thanks for the response.

I do have a follow up:

If I have all my library in lossles and do the itunes convert to mp3... does it create new files that are mp3 and leave the originals? Or does it actually convert my lossless? I want to keep the lossless and keep the original and have a new lossy copy to put on the phone and laptop.

Thanks

It creates copies in mp3 format and leaves the originals.

 

[lukin]

It creates copies in mp3 format and leaves the originals.

Thanks!

I guess I should put this out there though: Does anyone else have a better method than I do for this whole thing? I have to think that getting a lossless copy backed up is good and then I can convert them to any format.

I do worry about future formats and the ability to convert to that format. I hoep apple lossless will work with all formats!