Wav files on iTunes PC to a MAC

Hi.
I am a DJ and currently use a PC laptop with iTunes on it.
All the files are .wav format, the best quality for the DJ program I use which is Ableton Live.
I am thinking of buying an Macbook Pro for all the benefits.
I know that .wav files don't support tagging. Therefore I'm worried about having to re-type all the info again if I import the tunes over. I'm talking thousands of tunes.
Whenever I've bought another PC laptop I have gotten over this by copying the whole iTunes folder to mymusic and reinstalling iTunes. It has found the info no problem.
Will this work on a MAC?
My other option is to covert everything that is .wav on the latop to apple lossless in the hope that it tags all the tunes. Then importing them onto the MAC. Then converting them all back to .wav.
Has anyone had this experience before?
I would like to know if it will work or not before I make a purchase?
Many thanks.

I have not tried this personally, but if you copy over the iTunes folder, it should all show up. I am sure someone else will reply who has migrated over from the Windows version of iTunes.

Hello!
As far as i would judge your problem you should convert your .wav files to .aiff file which actually can hold metadata. But before you rely on this, please test!
Another way could be to put everything into a big playlist which is stored as a .txt file and can be imported on a mac as well.
But i am not really sure... if there's any mac user around you, a check with 1 song should give you the answer to both of my suggestions.
i doubt that copying a pc-based iTunes folder will work on a mac.
once you have converted your files to AIFF you can just drag and drop your iTunes-music folder (the one holding the songs) to a new playlist in iTunes.
In case the metadata was written to the AIFF files, i can say for sure it works.

all other suggestion are not confirmed


Good luck.

markus

Thanks for your replys.
Is aiff not a lossy format?
I DJ in a club with over a 1000 people in it so I need perfect sound?
I agree with what you said about the iTunes folder coverted on a PC.

First, welcome to Mac-Forums!

Second, I agree with dtravis7, it's been awhile, but last time I did this you could just transfer your library between Mac and PC without an issue. We've got a bunch of heavy music people here on the forum, I'm sure one of them will pop in here and confirm it.

Nildefects said:

Is aiff not a lossy format?

Click to expand...

No worries, just like .wav it's a PCM format, no compression, no loss at all.
cheers,
m

So does that mean I can convert from wav to apple lossless and back to wav with no loss?

Try copying the folder over. I am pretty sure it will work.

AIFF is just like WAVE and totally uncompressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Interchange_File_Format

dtravis7 said:

Try copying the folder over. I am pretty sure it will work.

Click to expand...

i assume you mean the folder holding all songs. .wav is not able to hold any metadata with the files, that would mean if Nildefects would copy the whole folder he would just get the songnames, not any further information he may have added.
I tried that with a soundlibrary for sound effects and this ended up in filenames that very long and kindof unusable in any additional software (he mentions Ableton as his DJaying software, importing soundfiles that hold all information including the added one into another application will cause very long filenames that might be hard to handle, in some earlier versions of Pro Tools or Logic for example files/songs with more than 32 characters in the filename couldn't be imported). For me it worked better with aif files. i used extra columns for the additional information to the filename. I am currently using this library with a mac and a pc, whatever is needed or provided at my customers.
If the filename is all he would like to have and keep, you are definetly right, but can you say that for all other kind of information, too? Didn't work when i tried that. He wrote he is a professional DJ so i guess he will have added some information like "mood" or "BPM" or "Style" to the songnames, in case he is booked to do a Drum and Bass set, or a wedding, preproduced mashups of songs...

excuse me, if i'm wrong, but i thought he meant more than just
"Queen - We will rock you".

cheers, m

The iTunes folder also has the saved info from iTunes. That would also copy over. It can't hurt to try it. Look at the screenshot below. See the .XML file? That is where all the info for your songs is.

Hi,
Yes you are right.
I have bpm's and key of each song saved in the comments etc.
I understand that importing would lose all this data.
My question is, if I copied the entire iTunes folder over would it work? The folder contains the data. At least it does from PC to PC.

dtravis7 said:

The iTunes folder also has the saved info from iTunes. That would also copy over. It can't hurt to try it. Look at the screenshot below. See the .XML file? That is where all the info for your songs is.

Click to expand...

WOW! Thank you for telling me... uhm i guess it would have worked in my case, too.
Are you using .wav as your fileformat? It's been a while since i set up my library so i may have forgotten one or two things when trying to solve this problem for me... that means the .xml file would import on a mac and carry all extra added info like the mentioned BPM and key?
In this case, i'm sorry for causing confusion.

All I know is years ago it worked and with WAV files also. Unless things have changed with iTunes, it still should.

Just to clear up a point of confusion that came up in this discussion ... let's not confuse AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) and Apple Lossless. They are two entirely different formats.

AIFF is uncompressed and not lossy, but the files are huge. MP3 and MP4/AAC create dramatically smaller files, but are lossy.

Apple Lossless was created as a half-step. It is not lossy, but creates files about half the size of AIFF -- still a lot bigger than MP3/AAC, but 50% of the size of WAV or AIFF.

Being based on the MP4 standard, Apple Lossless files support tagging.

Hey guys,
Thanks for all your help.
I have an answer for you.
I purchased the apple macbook pro and copied my itunes entire folder over from my PC laptop before opening itunes on the mac for the first time. It then goes through the usual set up questions etc. It discovered my entire library of wav files and all their info.
Amazing!
Thanks to all.