PDA

View Full Version : Converting AIFF & MP3 songs to AAC in iTunes

18spheres
10-22-2004, 09:54 PM
I have over 5000 songs which takes up over 44GB. So I cannot fit them all on my soon to be purchased 40GB iPod. How can I convert my AIFF and MP3 songs in iTunes to AAC so they will fit.

I purchased AAChoo to do the conversion but:

After the conversion I highlighted one of the songs and a small grey icon appears which lets me know that the song is actually not there. If I double click on the song a message appears saying that "The song could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" I click Yes and have to go to the folder I call Music on my external hard drive and choose the converted song. It will then put the converted AAC song in iTunes.

My problem is that if I have to do that for every song that it will take me a very very long time to convert all my 5000 songs.

Also when I drag the folder say for Alicia Keys to AAChoo it converts each song to AAC but in iTunes the album cover artwork is deleted. I don't want to use this type of conversion with the album artwork disappearing

But more importantly, does anyone know of there is an easier or quicker way where I can drag all the songs into a software program and it will convert them all to AAC?
TazmanDman
10-22-2004, 10:06 PM
Not sure why you would want to convert mp3 to aac (lossy to lossy conversion), converting just your aiff files would make much more sense.

The problem is that the iTunes library still indexed your songs as the old formats after you did the conversion - either that or you have duplicates in your library now (old mp3/aiff and new aac files).

You could delete your iTunes library .xml file located in /Users/username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.xml), this will clear iTunes of your entire library catalog - then drag your new converted folder onto iTunes and it would recognize them correctly.

Hope this points you in the right direction.

- Taz
guardian34
10-23-2004, 12:16 AM
http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=quickconvert
Jacob Spindel
10-23-2004, 12:37 AM
Just select whatever songs you want to convert (hold command for multiple noncontiguous selection) and choose "Convert to AAC" from the Advanced menu.

For restoring the artwork, you may find my script "Arthur" useful:
http://www.scriptbuilders.net/category.php?search=arthur
Arthur fills in the artwork for a track, if you already have the artwork for that album stored elsewhere in your library. It's pretty simple, but I have found it to be extremely useful. Put it in your iTunes Script menu and select all the tracks you want to restore the art on, and run Arthur from the Scripts menu.
Another handy script I put in the Scripts menu is "Set Play Count...," but the code for this is so trivial that I have not posted the script.
18spheres
10-23-2004, 05:42 PM
Thanks for the information. I discovered that I didn't need AAChoo at all. I highlighted over 4000 songs that were AIFF, right mouse clicked and chose convert to AAC. Every song gets converted leaving my artwork intact.
ltegethoff
04-02-2005, 01:40 PM
My husband has a Mac IPOD, I have Windows. I want to copy some of his music to my computer, but his files are all AIFF and mine are AAC. His files are so big that it's taking forever to copy his files to my thumb drive and then to my computer where I end up converting to AAC after. Is there a way to convert HIS AIFF files to AAC before I put them on my thumb drive? This would save SO MUCH SPACE and TIME!
Thanks,
Lisa
TazmanDman
04-03-2005, 07:52 PM
My husband has a Mac IPOD, I have Windows. I want to copy some of his music to my computer, but his files are all AIFF and mine are AAC. His files are so big that it's taking forever to copy his files to my thumb drive and then to my computer where I end up converting to AAC after. Is there a way to convert HIS AIFF files to AAC before I put them on my thumb drive? This would save SO MUCH SPACE and TIME!
Thanks,
Lisa

If your husband uses iTunes he can convert his songs to AAC by right-clicking (or ctrl-clicking) and choosing "Convert Selection to AAC" - you could then copy those tunes to your thumb drive.
blubbernaut
04-03-2005, 07:54 PM
Same process. You choose the conversion setting in iTunes -> Preferences -> Importing. Then you select the songs you want to convert within iTunes, then go to Advanced -> Convert selection to AAC