Some music questions from a newbie - please be kind

Hi folks, my name's John, I'm in Scotland and after years of using a PC, I've just ordered a shiny new iMac.

I've not got the computer yet but I've got 101 questions about music files. All quite routine, no doubt...!

I would like to compile my own CDs from purchased CDs and downloads. Is there an easy way to convert mp3, wma and other non-wav (I'm assuming that CD audio are called wav files on a mac, I'm that used to windows PCs) to a blank CD so that I can play the disc in an ordinary CD player?

Is it straightforward to rip the audio tracks of those irritating DVD singles and transfer them on to a normal CD? Or do I need special software?

I've got some movie DVDs that I would love to be able to rip the audio off and burn to a normal CD for listening to. Is this possible with iLife or again, do I need 3rd party software. And if so, what is it and where do i get it?

iPods. What music format do they use? How do I convert music files to iPod files? Can I turn these files back in .wav files? Or mp3 files? Can you use mp3 files on iPods?

iTunes - is this the only way to buy legal music downloads for use on the iPod? Again, I would like to be able to legally download music in order to burn to ordinary CDs to play on my CD player. Hopefully this is possible?

Oh well, that's enough to be getting on with. Can't wait for my imac to arrive!

Many thanks in advance,
John

ourhero said:

Hi folks, my name's John, I'm in Scotland and after years of using a PC, I've just ordered a shiny new iMac.

I've not got the computer yet but I've got 101 questions about music files. All quite routine, no doubt...!

I would like to compile my own CDs from purchased CDs and downloads. Is there an easy way to convert mp3, wma and other non-wav (I'm assuming that CD audio are called wav files on a mac, I'm that used to windows PCs) to a blank CD so that I can play the disc in an ordinary CD player?

Click to expand...

Hi John, welcome to the board, I did the same a few months ago along with several others here and made the switch from long time PC user to iMac so hopefully you'll have as good an experience as I've had so far!

Wav format is cross-platform, although audio CDs aren't directly WAV files y'know. What you probably want to do is use the iTunes import function to bring your audio CDs onto the Mac. It can rip them to mp3 or WAV or a series of Apple formats. You can then burn them out to a regular audio CD using something like Roxio Toast (although someone may correct me and show a way of doing it without toast?)

ourhero said:

Is it straightforward to rip the audio tracks of those irritating DVD singles and transfer them on to a normal CD? Or do I need special software?

I've got some movie DVDs that I would love to be able to rip the audio off and burn to a normal CD for listening to. Is this possible with iLife or again, do I need 3rd party software. And if so, what is it and where do i get it?

Click to expand...

Pass - there are a variety of utilities for ripping DVDs to various formats, Mac The Ripper and Handbrake spring to mind, as to whether they can extract the audio into its own file, I'm not positive but I wouldn't think you'd have any difficulty doing this.

ourhero said:

iPods. What music format do they use? How do I convert music files to iPod files? Can I turn these files back in .wav files? Or mp3 files? Can you use mp3 files on iPods?

Click to expand...

iPods play a few different formats including MP3, AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV files. You can setup what quality / format you want to import your audio CDs to in the Preferences of iTunes.

ourhero said:

iTunes - is this the only way to buy legal music downloads for use on the iPod? Again, I would like to be able to legally download music in order to burn to ordinary CDs to play on my CD player. Hopefully this is possible?

Click to expand...

I must admit I've never used iTunes, I have a heap of CDs and like the physical bit of music ownership still (just call me old fashioned! ) so I'll have to leave this for someone else to answer definitively. Actually, you've reminded me, a mate did download an album some time ago but iTunes took his money and then offered him a 128kb/s download. He's a bit of an audiophile and was a lot less than happy with this as the quality wasn't good enough for him. Perhaps this has changed but it's worth checking out...

What's your scheduled delivery date and which model have you bought?

I can answer some of your questions:

CD Audi shows up as AIFF tracks when a CD is opened on a Mac. I believe they actually ARE AIFF tracks and the .WAV is just how Windows handles them.

You can rip Music CD tracks to MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV or Apple Lossless in iTunes. You can then burn them to a CD as CD Audio or as another format with iTunes.

For DVD Audio, your best bet is to use Quicktime to extract the Audio, then iTunes to convert it and rip it to CD.

The iPod itself will accept Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV

You can buy from iTunes or legal Music sites such as e-Music, Audio Lunch-box and others. Any site other than iTunes Music Store (ITMS) that adds Digital Rights Management (DRM) to their music will be incompatible with the iPod and likely with your Mac. Music Purchased from ITMS can be burned to CDs, I think a total of 3. Once they are on CD though, you can do whatever you want. E-Music music can be burned as often as you like.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for that, Jem and baggss. I'm starting to learn new and exciting Mac stuff already.

So let me get this right - CD audio is called AIFF files on the Mac and that's the format I would keep to, in order to burn ordinary CDs? Great.

Baggss, you said that Quicktime would be able to rip the soundtrack from a DVD. Would that let me edit the soundtrack to remove huge chunks of silence and dialogue? Or is it iTunes that would allow me to do this? Is it easy to use Quicktime to do this?

You mentioned the DRM system of protection from download stores - are they obliged to tell users if such a system is compatible or not with Macs and can these things be converted to AIFF?


My iMac is scheduled to arrive on 29th November. It's my first compter in 7 years and is a 17" screen with the 2.16Ghz intel duo processor, 2Gb RAM and big 500 Gb HDD. The only software I'll have is iLife 06 and iWork 06.

Thanks again, folks!

Now that I think about it, you will likely need to use an App like Handbrake to rip the video from the DVD and then you can extract and edit the audio. Yes, Quicktime would allow you to edit out parts of the audi track as you desire.

Most places will specifically tell you if they are Mac compatible or not. Most big name places like Napster (DRM) are not, but the smaller ones like e-Music (no DRM) are. As long as the tracks don't have DRM, you can convert them to AIFF or simply burn them to CD Audio in iTunes. In fact, it's the DRM on places like Napster that make them incompatible with the Mac. MS went with it's "Plays for sure" DRM system, in competition with Apples "Fair Play" DRM, and the MS version doesn't work on the iPod and the sites will not let you download on a Mac.

Thanks, Baggss. So is handbrake quite an essential program for what I'd like to do?

Any pointers to the best place to purchase such software?

Handbrake is Free and can be found HERE. There are also Handbrake forums (in which I am rather active) which can be found HERE.

Handbrake would be essential as it is probably the easiest way I know of to do what you want (I have done it myself). There may be a better way and hopefully someone else here will be able to assist you more.

baggss said:

I can answer some of your questions:

CD Audi shows up as AIFF tracks when a CD is opened on a Mac. I believe they actually ARE AIFF tracks and the .WAV is just how Windows handles them.

You can rip Music CD tracks to MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV or Apple Lossless in iTunes. You can then burn them to a CD as CD Audio or as another format with iTunes.

Click to expand...

Hi. My iMac came today (yippee!) I've got it all connected up and, although everything looks quite friendly and sophisticated, I feel completely overwhelmed by the non-windows environment!

Aaaargh!

Um, I *know* these questions are very basic stuff but... how exactly do you rip music CD tracks with iTunes - how do you actually say what format you want the tracks to be in.

If I download a podcast, say, from iTunes or maybe an mp3 track then how do I actually convert the format within iTunes?

Please bear with me!

You control the import format from within iTunes Preferences. Open up the Prefs (click on iTunes in the top menu) and select the Advanced section (represented by a cog). There are 3 sections in there, choose the Importing button and you'll see all the options you have.

You can tell iTunes what to do whenever a CD is inserted into the drive, you can tell iTunes what format you want it to use when it imports music, in the Import Using pull down menu.

So when you're done setting up the Prefs, just pop in an audio CD and the rest should be easy peasy.

Whatever format you choose to import music as, there is always a right-click/ctr-click option to convert any track in your library that was encoded using a different compatible format (AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless Encoder, MP3, Wave), to that pre-selected format.

So if you have AAC files in your library but want to convert them to MP3, set the Import Using option to MP3 and then right-click/ctrl-click on the file and there will be an option to convert to MP3.

Thanks for that, Marty - most helpful!

When I pop a DVD music single into my iMac, it recognises it as a DVD and when I open it, there are two folders - audio_TS and video_TS.

Opening the video displays a load of files but when I open the audio, the folder appears to be empty.

Is this where I need to get Handbrake or is there a neat trick I can use in iTunes or QuickTime to import the audio tracks? If so, how?!

Many thanks,
John

OK, well using handbrake, I've now managed to rip an audio track off a DVD single. It is now a mpeg-4 movie.

Using iTunes I managed to convert to... well actually, all I've succeeded in doing is duplicating the file! I think I tried using the 'convert for iPod' (even though I don't have one yet).

I tried doing what has been suggested but I can't seem to convert into any audio format!

Is there any freeware converter must-have utility?

Also - I was thinking of upgrading to QuickTimePro but Safari can't seem to open the page! Is this a known fault?!!