ITunes user query
Hi can you tell me how to change my M4A files into WAV files on ITunes on my computer?Thanyou.
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I realise it's none of my business, but I need to ask (rhetorically if you prefer) why you want to do that, because there are several disadvantages and I'm not sure there are any advantages.
Disadvantages:
- WAV files are very large, typically ten times the size, which will use up a lot of your storage space on your computer and most definitely on any portable device. As far as I'm aware, the reason mp3 was designed in the first place (and subsequently m4a) is to reduce the storage space used but with very little loss in quality
- there will be no increase in the quality of the audio (music or speech) by converting to a higher bit rate. None at all
- artwork cannot be embedded into a wav file. In other words, although you can "add" artwork to a wav file using iTunes, it is not actually added to the wav file. Instead, iTunes remembers that you want a piece of artwork with a particular piece of music. The artwork will not move with the file to any other player. Artwork in an m4a file, or an mp3 file, is "in" the audio file itself, so it automatically moves and copies with the file
Advantages:
- the only one I can think for at the moment is that you can then burn the wav files to an audio CD that can be played in a CD player that is not able to play mp3 or m4a discs. But I would have thought that all modern CD players should be able to play digital files, such as MP3 and possibly even the m4a files, so that would mean converting to wav would not be necessary
If the m4a files are not suitable for your purposes, it may be wiser to convert them to mp3, which is a standard that all modern players use.
To convert an existing m4a file, in iTunes, you first need to change a setting in your iTunes Library. It may not make sense, because you need to change the "import from CD" setting, even though you're not importing from a CD, but that's the way Apple have designed it:
- go into Edit/Preferences/General>Import Settings (towards the bottom of the dialogue window)
- set Import Using to WAV encoder
- leave Setting on Automatic
- Click on OK and then on the next OK button as well, to save your changes*
- Now that you have set iTunes to convert to WAV, select (highlight) the files that you wish to convert. You can select several at once if you wish
- click on File/Convert/Create WAV Version. If the text says create "any other" version, then you have not set iTunes as described in the previous paragraph
- that's it
Note that iTunes creates a new version, which means you will now have two copies of each song you've converted; the original and the new version
* Post edited by author after initial posting, to add additional information
