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Level 1

31 points

Questions about iTunes

I come from a Windows background. I got my first Mac (a mini) in June of last year & I'm still learning.

I just upgraded my mini to Mavericcks.

I have about 200 music CDs. I want to do 2 things. I want to rip all of them in a universal (Mac, Windows, Linux) uncompressed format for archiving & I want to rip all of them in a high-bitrate MP3 format onto a flash drive or hard drive so that I can take my music with me when I travel or just to listen to in my car.

This morning, I ripped a couple of ABBA CDs. I noticed that some of the tracks are listed twice in iTunes & some are not. Why?

I'll have to get books on iTunes.

I'll bet that the next question will start a long discussion!

I can't decide between .wav & .aiff. Both will play on Windows & Apple machines. Currently, I have an Apple, but I'd also like to have a Windows machine probably using VMWare or some such program.

Windowphiles would probably swear by .wav & Applephiles would probably swear by .aiff. I've researched .wav versus .aiff & there are supporters & opponents of each.

I read on the 'net that a backup copy of .wav loses its metadata, but backups of .aiff retain their metadata. I watched a YouTube video where someone compared .wav & .aiff by inverting one of the two & then playing both. There was silence showing that the two are sonically the same. I'll bet there will be a long discussion on that! Has anybody had the experience of copying a .wav file & the copy doesn't have any metadata? Based on what I've read so far, I'd prefer .aiff to .wav.

Thank you,

David

Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Apr 3, 2014 7:39 AM

17 replies

macnerd48 Author

Level 1

31 points

Apr 17, 2014 4:14 AM in response to Limnos

As for where iTunes stores files, where they go depends upon how they are labeled and that service is provided by Gracenote which in turn gets some of its tags from users like you who, as life has it, are inconsistent. That goes double for classical recordings since the tags aren't really set up for classical music structure (plenty of complaints seen here in the past). So one person labels a CD putting composer in the artist field, and somebody else puts the orchestra there, and somebody else puts in the conductor. Thank your fellow classical music afficianados for things being scattered about.

So that's what the problem is! Can I organize the folders? I suppose that I could move iTunes folders & files around to organize them, couldn't I or would iTunes get confused?

I want to rip the CDs in a lossless format to an external hard drive. I've looked around iTunes & I see no way to use iTunes to convert lossless files on an external hard drive to mp3 files. Do I need to get a 3rd-party ripper to do that?

macnerd48 Author

Level 1

31 points

May 5, 2014 8:21 AM in response to macnerd48

I have asked the following questions before, but I haven't received an answer.

I'm currently ripping my music CD collection, using iTunes, & saving them as mp3 files on a flash drive. When I'm done, I want to start again & rip the CDs in a lossless format & save them on an external hard drive. I want to be able to connect the external drive & play the music on the drive. I've noticed that if I select a number of sequential mp3 files on the flash drive & double -click, iTunes will play the first mp3 file & then play another mp3 file, but not the next one in the sequence. How do I play sequential mp3 files on the flash drive? Every time that I rip a CD, iTunes will create a playlist &, of course, I can listen to that playlist, but it is on the internal hard drive not the external drive. I've looked around iTunes & I see no way to play a sequence of files on an external drive. I suppose that iTunes must have a playlist & it must be on the internal drive. I conclude that it isn't possible, with iTunes anyway, to play sequential files on an external drive. Is my assumption correct? Is there any 3rd- party software that allows me to play a sequence of audio files on an external drive? Is there a Terminal command that will allow me to play a sequence of audio files on an external drive using iTunes?

Related question. I come from a Windows world & I can set as default any program. Does OS X have that capability? Can I set a 3rd-party program(sorry, app) as default instead of iTunes?

Questions about iTunes