How to Burn Music CD from ALE to MP3 or AAC?

Question

Level 1

8 points

How to Burn Music CD from ALE to MP3 or AAC?

Tell me there's a way in iTunes to burn a Playlist from my Apple Lossless music library to a CD in either AAC or MP3 so I can fit more songs then a typical CD and listen to it in my car stereo.

24-iMac8,1, Mac OS X (10.5.7), 2.8 GHz, 4 GB, 320 GB, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro, CalDigit VR, AEBS, iPhone 1G

Posted on Jun 5, 2009 7:41 PM

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Answer 1

ed2345

Level 9

63,602 points

Jun 5, 2009 7:53 PM in response to Sakahara

iTunes can only burn an MP3 CD from songs that are already in MP3 format. So, find the songs you want, and create MP3 copies of them. Do this by setting the Import preference to MP3. Then find the track you want, right-click its library entry, and choose "Create MP3 version." This creates an MP3 version of the same song and adds it to the library; it does not affect the ALE original.

After they are in MP3 format, put them in a playlist. Click "Burn Disc" and choose the option for MP3 CD.

When you are done, if you have no further use for the MP3s, you can delete them and only keep your ALE copies.

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Answer 2

Sakahara Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 10, 2009 7:40 PM in response to ed2345

So you're saying I'll need to unpack my 500+ CD's from storage, dig through them to find the songs I want, and reimport them into MP3? That's not going to happen. I didn't spend all that time importing my CD's in Apple Lossless to have to import them again, compressed, so that I can burn a playlist to a CD. That's absurdly redundant and tedious. iTunes should be able to convert a high-resolution music file into a compressed format and then burn to a CD. And why does iTunes offer 'Create Apple Lossless Version'. Not from a compressed audio file I hope. But from WAV or AIFF perhaps? Why would anyone want a larger file made from an inferior compression (MP3,...)?

Since the iTunes Store doesn't offer full resolution downloads I only import from CD's in Apple Lossless for playback in a high-end audiophile system. Any other way would be pointless and negate the reason for buying CD's in the first place. AAC (iTunes Plus) isn't bad, but it's still not full resolution. And MP3 is out of the question. I only saw it as a means to burn a lot of songs to a CD and play in my car. But I'd rather get an iPod adapter now.

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Answer 3

ed2345

Level 9

63,602 points

Jun 10, 2009 8:01 PM in response to Sakahara

+"So you're saying I'll need to unpack my 500-plus CD's from storage, dig through them to find the songs I want, and reimport them into MP3? That's not going to happen."+

That is not what you asked, and is not what I said. Pls reread my post and you will see how to convert the files to MP3 within iTunes, and then you can use them to burn an MP3 CD.

If you are trying to burn an audio CD, you can do so directly from the Apple Lossless files.

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Answer 4

Sakahara Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 12, 2009 10:46 AM in response to ed2345

Now I understand what you were saying after searching iTunes Help and reading; 'Saving a copy of a song in a new file format'. It didn't make any sense to me at first because why would I change the 'Import' file format setting since I'm not importing a song and which already exists in my music library. Yet another unclear and illogical UI feature of iTunes. And here's an added bonus of inconvenience with this approach if your intention is only to burn a Playlist to CD in a smaller file format; the songs are copied next to the original songs/album, not in the Playlist, so you have to find those songs to recreate the same Playlist. Not to mention more disc space being taken up and then having to locate and select to delete these new files afterwards. It would be much more sensible to have iTunes convert to a new file format while burning a CD.

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