Making mp3 copies of my iTunes library, saving to SD card, preserving directories

[floobie]

The title says it all, but I'll elaborate.

My car allows me to play music from an SD card. This seems preferable to leaving an iPod in the car (which experiences some rather cold temperatures). Problem is, it won't play AAC files (ie. more or less my entire iTunes library).

I'm looking for a way to essentially make mp3 copies of my entire ~65gb iTunes library. I don't want these duplicates in iTunes, I want them saved to the aforementioned SD card, and I'd like the directory structure (Artist/Album/Song) preserved. And, I don't really want to do this manually (converting songs, making folders, individually copying 620 albums), using the mp3 convertor built into iTunes.

I tried using XLD to achieve this, and it seemed to work at first, but it just flat-out wouldn't read like 95% of my library. So, that's out.

Ideas? Thanks in advance!

 

[madeirabhoy]

The title says it all, but I'll elaborate.

My car allows me to play music from an SD card. This seems preferable to leaving an iPod in the car (which experiences some rather cold temperatures). Problem is, it won't play AAC files (ie. more or less my entire iTunes library).

I'm looking for a way to essentially make mp3 copies of my entire ~65gb iTunes library. I don't want these duplicates in iTunes, I want them saved to the aforementioned SD card, and I'd like the directory structure (Artist/Album/Song) preserved. And, I don't really want to do this manually (converting songs, making folders, individually copying 620 albums), using the mp3 convertor built into iTunes.

I tried using XLD to achieve this, and it seemed to work at first, but it just flat-out wouldn't read like 95% of my library. So, that's out.

Ideas? Thanks in advance!

thinking laterally, and im sure someone can be more exact with this, but im at work and cant look at itunes to double check some things.

first of create a new itunes directory, is it option or ctrl you hold down whilst opening it... cant see why you cant just choose the SD card directly, but if this doesnt work then choose somewhere else on your machine.

make sure the copy when adding isnt selected.

drag the whole of your proper directory's music folder onto itunes. it adds all the files without copying the files.

then turn on the copy when adding.

select all files. use the built in convertor to convert to mp3. it should leave you with a messy itunes with two copies listed, both mp3 and aac, but the actual folder on the sd card should only have .mp3.

if that works then you can then close itunes, reopen with option or whatever held, to choose a directory, and navigate back to your original itunes directory, and delete at your leisure the temporary one.