messiah

I downloaded iTunes yesterday and like it a lot - so much so that I'm going to store a load of CD's on it to play while at work - but I want some tips on how to get the best out of it.

I think I've got the "Smart Playlists" thing sussed but...

1. Whats the best settings to use to store the tunes? MP3, AAC etc and what bitrate etc. Note I'm more interested in music quality rather than small file sizes - and a lot of the time I'll burning stuff to CD to play in the car.

2. How do I get albums to appear as albums? I see they all show up in Library, but do they also appear as seperare folders? and are they stored as such on the HDD?

3. How do you get the artwork?

more questions to follow probably...

cheers in advance.

class_A

Quick answers...

1. Stick to MP3 VBR and allow it to rip upto 320kbps.
2. Have you clicked the "Browse" button in the top right of the main window so that you get columns above your song list?
3. I get my artwork from Amazon.co.uk, just copy and paste.

Hope this gets you started,
Alex

Rob D

The only way of finding what sampling rate to use is to use your ears.
I ripped a song at different sampling rates using MP3 and AAC and tested it directly against the song on CD through my hi-fi seperates. At 192kbs I couldn't tell the difference so I ripped all my CD's for my iPod at 192kps AAC.

messiah

at the moment the tracks have been recorded using MP3 - although the stuff I've done myself was at 320kbs (is this excessive - although for some reason iTunes says it's 56kbs?)

Ah - Browse.. nice one

new question - can I get 1 track to appear on 2 albums without having it stored twice? eg - how do I get Franz Ferdinands "Take Me Out" to list under their album as well as a compilation that it's on also?

angrynorth

Only if you categorise album by playlist. As if they are on different albums they will need different ID3 info, which means 2 separate files. But if you have 2 playlists...

Rob D

It's marginal between MP3 and AAC but I found AAC to sound slightly better with the same sampling rate, but this again can vary using different ripping software.

If your going to play it through a computer then yes 320kbs is a major over kill!

You can't use the same song in different albums it has to be individual copies in the main library.

messiah

How much bigger is the file size between 320kbs & 192?

Went high to get the best possible sound when burning them to CD for compilations in the car...

I've had a play around the playlists - will probably do it that way but thought it might be done so that albums display correctly through browse.

Smart playlists I'm impressed with set some up for 70s, 80s, 90s & 00s

Bodgery

All depends on what you're going to do with the music...personally, I record in Lossless, then I can transcode to any format I want (use www.dbpoweramp.com - fantastic s/w). This saves me having to rerip all my CD's if another format comes along that I need to use.

I started using iTunes, but you can't stream to anything other than an airport, as Apple haven't released the codec...I now use Windows Media Connect and record in WMA Lossless, which streams nicely to my Roku Soundbridge.

The Roku is designed for Apple iTunes and similar - take a look at www.rokulabs.com - you can then enjoy your music on a decent hifi setup and pack away all the cd's!

Cheers

Bodgery.