How to: Importing Multi-CD, Multi-Tracks, Change to MP3 & Store as Audio Book

The Join CD tracks option only appears if the CD is sorted on the left-most column of numbers in ascending order and two or more consecutive tracks are selected.

Note it must actually be that left column, not track number or album by artist, or another column which could give the same order, but not enable the option.

tt2

I'm not an expert on audiobooks (the few I've got are not set up perfectly, but only because it's not that important to me), but here are some of the points that you need to consider:

• You do not import the CD and then convert the tracks, instead you set iTunes to import to the format you want. See the next point
• set your iTunes to rip (at import time) from the CD as MP3. Look on iTunes' top bar menu for Edit - and select Edit/Preferences/General (1. in the screenshot below). Towards the bottom of the General tab you will see When you insert a CD (2.) and Import Settings (3.)
  • set When you insert a CD: to Show CD (2.) This will allow you to join the tracks before importing them (more detail below)
  • set Import Settings/Import Using to MP3 (3.) and choose the quality in setting below that (see the screenshot). If the audiobook is only speech (with atmospheric music), you can use 128Kbps in Setting. You are unlikely to notice any improvement in quality by using a higher setting than 128Kbps, but you will use up unnecessary storage space if you do

That's the settings sorted out.

When importing the CD:

• when iTunes shows you the CD, this is the time to join the tracks
  • the CD must be listed in the default order; that is track 1 at the top, through to the last track, at the bottom
  • you can only join adjacent tracks; in the (screenshot) example below:
    • I highlighted tracks 1, 2 & 3, clicked on Join CD Tracks (and hey presto, it's set to import those as one track)
    • I highlighted tracks 5 & 6 and repeated the Join CD Tracks step
    • I highlighted tracks 7 & 8 and repeated the Join CD Tracks step (notice that each join is done separately)
    • I currently have highlighted track 12, 13, 14 & 15 and as you can see, the option is to Join CD Tracks. Note that the option only shows when you have this step ready. If you have no tracks, or non-adjacent tracks selected, you will not see the Join CD Tracks option:

• • you can join all tracks on a CD as one track, if that's what you want
  • once you have prepared the join tracks, click on Import CD. A joined track will use every track title to name the joined track. You will be able to rename each track later, if you wish

Once imported:

• all the tracks will be listed under "Music" and as "songs". We can change this in a later step (if you need to)
• You will need to decide whether to keep the book as "music" and "songs", or change it to Audiobook, which gives different options
  • if you decide to keep the tracks as music, you can set them to skip when shuffling, so that they don't play while listening to music - and to remember playback position, which means you can play from the point you left off, even if you play something else in between. You can choose a genre specific to audiobooks (note: the genre does not make it an Audiobook)
  • if you decide to change them to audiobooks, select each track individually (to allow you to set unique track information) and click on Edit/Song Info/Options>media kind>Audiobook. Do not click OK yet
  • now switch back to the Details tab, where you can edit information such as title, chapter, release date, author etc. (none of which will be shown until you change the media kind to Audiobook)
• Keeping the chapters together as one book and in the correct order is simply a matter of consistency in naming the title and using the correct track numbers
• If there are several CDs for one audiobook, make sure you also set the disc X of X option on each track (on the Details tab)

That should be all there is to it (yes, there's quite a bit!)

Oh!

Don't forget to use the genre (now that you've made the CD an Audiobook) to create an appropriate genre for the book. The genre will separate thrillers from historical fiction, from true life accounts etc.

I don't think you can make much use of this in your iTunes Library and possibly not even on your iPod etc. (where Audiobooks appear in the Books app), but you can use the audiobook genre to control Smart Playlists.

See also Audiobooks on iPods for more on this topic.

tt2