Tutorial - Exporting to iTunes

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Revision as of 11:43, 13 September 2014 by PeterSampson (talk | contribs) (→‎AAC and Apple Lossless Encoder: WIP ignore)
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Peter 04Sep14: ToDo-2 Would this page be better re-structured with a single section on using iTunes to convert from WAV/AIFF to MP3/AAC/ALAC, rather than having it effectively repeated in the MP3 and AAC sections. I am minded to think that that would be a good improvement.
  • Gale 05Sep14: I think though we link in Forum / other support to anchor sections on this page. So specific steps to convert to a specific format are useful. Perhaps a custom TOC would help?
  • Peter 05Sep14: I'll try to find some time to make a custom TOC

Exportando a iTunes e iPod

Before exporting audio for use in iTunes it is important to consider which audio file format you want to use. WAV and AIFF files produce high quality lossless audio files but consume a lot of disk space. MP3 and AAC files are compressed so they occupy less disk space, but audio damage may result as a result of the compression.

Contents

  1. Exporting audio for loading into iTunes
  2. What format should I export to?
    1. WAV or AIFF - universal support, lossless, large files, best for CD burning
    2. MP3 - universal support, small files, lossy
    3. AAC and Apple Lossless Encoder - Apple's proprietary formats, lossy and lossless variants
  3. Export location
  4. Burning to CD in iTunes
  5. Sample workflow for exporting to iTunes


Exporting audio for loading into iTunes

In order to export audio for adding into iTunes:

  1. use the File > Export Audio... command or in Audacity (or File > Export Multiple...),
  2. choose the export format in the Export dialog, to export the particular format you want your file(s) to be in (for example WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC or OGG),
  3. move the file(s) into iTunes from the location you exported it to, using the iTunes File > Add File to Library... (or File > Add Folder to Library...) command.
You may also want to read this workflow tutorial Sample workflow for exporting to iTunes.

What format should I export to?

WAV or AIFF (universal support, lossless, best for CD burning)

If you want a perfect lossless copy of your audio, or to burn it in iTunes to an audio CD for playing on any CD player, you should choose WAV or AIFF. It is strongly recommended you export a standard "CD quality" 44100 Hz, 16 bit stereo WAV or AIFF to make sure iTunes understands the file. This means:

  1. Ensure Project Rate at the bottom left of the Audacity project window is set to "44100" Hz.
  2. Select File > Export Audio... (or File > Export Multiple...) then select "WAV (Microsoft) signed 16-bit PCM" or "AIFF (Apple) signed 16-bit PCM" in the export window
    • If you want a stereo export but your Project does not already contain a stereo track, click Tracks > Add New > Stereo Track.

Jump to here if you're only interested in burning a CD.

An advantage of exporting to AIFF is that lyrics or album art can be added to the file in iTunes, which is not possible with WAV files.

MP3 (universal support, small files, lossy)

If you want to distribute your files on the internet (for example as a podcast), you should choose MP3 as the Format in the Export dialog, as this is a space-saving (although slightly lossy) format that anyone should be able to play. To export as MP3 from Audacity you need first to download the LAME encoder and point Audacity to it (see Lame Installation).

If you want to put the files on iPod, or simply store them in iTunes in a compact form, MP3 is also a good choice. However, there are some reports that when run on battery, recent iPods can struggle or crash when playing MP3s created in applications other than iTunes. So you may want to export as WAV or AIFF from Audacity and convert the files to MP3 in iTunes instead.

To convert to MP3 in iTunes:

  1. Click Edit > Preferences (or iTunes > Preferences on Mac)
  2. Click on the leftmost "General" tab
  3. Click the Import Settings... button
  4. In the "Import Using" drop-down, choose "MP3 Encoder"
  5. Click OK and OK
  6. Select the file to be converted, then right-click or control-click over it and choose "Create MP3 Version".
After creating the MP3 you will probably want to delete the original WAV or AIFF files to save disk space.

AAC and Apple Lossless Encoder

These are Apple's proprietary formats. AAC produces lossy, small, files and Apple Lossless Encoder is as the name suggests Apples's size-compressed lossless variant (it produces lossless files that are smaller than the equivalent WAV or AIFF file, but significantly bigger than the equivalent AAC audio file). Both formats produce files with the .m4a extension. AAC files produce approximately the same quality as MP3 for a slightly smaller file size.

AAC is useful for iPod or storage in iTunes due to its small file size and reduced disk occupancy, particularly if you have an iPod with a small disk. The minimum bitrate setting you should use for music is 160 though 256 is probably to be preferred and in use on an iPod is unlikely to be distinguishable from WAV or AIFF (or Apple Lossless).


M4A files can also use Apple Lossless ALAC encoding. Apple Lossless Encoder is quite similar to FLAC, and produces larger files than MP3 but smaller than WAV.

Audacity can export directly to M4A (AAC or ALAC) by installing the optional FFmpeg library. To export to M4A (AAC), choose M4A (AAC) Files (FFmpeg) in the Export Audio window then type the file name. If you are exporting an AAC file for mobile devices, you can add the M4R (ringtone) or 3GP extension after the file name and dot as required by the device.

Exporting to ALAC only works if you export using (external program). Click the Options... button, enter the following command

ffmpeg -i - -acodec alac "%f"

then add the M4A extension after the file name and dot. See Exporting to an External Program for more help.

Alternatively you can export to WAV or AIFF and convert to AAC or Apple Lossless in iTunes:

  1. Click Edit > Preferences (or iTunes > Preferences on Mac)
  2. Click on the leftmost "General" tab
  3. Click the Import Settings... button
  4. In the "Import Using" dropdown, choose "AAC Encoder" or "Apple Lossless Encoder" as required
  5. Click OK and OK
  6. Select the file to be converted, then right-click or control-click over it and choose "Create AAC Version" or "Create Apple Lossless Version" as appropriate.
After creating the AAC or Apple Lossless version you will probably want to delete the original WAV or AIFF files to save disk space.

OGG format (open source, small files, lossy)

Audacity supports the Ogg Vorbis format (a lossy compressed format similar to MP3/compressed AAC, but of higher quality for the same file size than either). An iPod cannot play OGG files, but iTunes can with a hack. To play .OGG Files in iTunes or Quick Time , install the OGG codecs for QuickTime. Alternatively you can download and install Oggdrop which as well as allowing you to play OGG files in iTunes or Quick Time functions as a standalone application allowing you to encode CD tracks or audio files in other formats to OGG.

There are several advantages to using a compressed format on iPods. The two main benefits are that you can fit many more songs into the device (for 256 kbps files you can fit about 10 times as many songs), and compressed files improve battery life (because disk reads are relatively heavy on battery power).

Export location

You can choose any location for the export such as a "Music" folder on your Desktop or even the iTunes "Music" folder if you have one. However you must still import this file from the exported location into the iTunes Library (which makes it visible in Library > Music on the left hand panel of iTunes). There are two ways to import your exported audio files into iTunes.

  • Use the File > Add File to Library... or File > Add Folder to Library... command from within iTunes, to add a single audio file or a folder of audio files.
  • Select Library > Music in iTunes and drag the file from the location you exported it to, into the iTunes window. If you just want to burn the files to CD, it's best to drag them directly into an iTunes Playlist in the left-hand panel. See the section below on burning to CD.
Alert By default iTunes is a "virtual" Library containing no actual files but only links to them. To avoid losing your files, do *not* delete the exported files from the location you exported them to, unless you have already gone to Edit > Preferences > Advanced in iTunes and enabled "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library".

Burning to CD in iTunes

Peter 04Sep14: I'm not sure why we're teaching folk how to do stuff like this with iTunes - surely this belongs in an Apple manual rather than the Audacity Manual. This page is a tad along anyway.

ToDo-2 Can we just excise this section?

  • Gale 05Sep14: I think removal could increase the support workload on the Forum. I have seen points in the Troubleshooting section below asked recently on the Forum. Our text should probably still remind to burn to audio CD in any case. If you have a good external help link by Apple that would be better than what we have here, please put it in an ednote here.
  • Peter 05Sep14: "If you have a good external help link by Apple ... " ROFLMAO - I learnt everything I know about iPod/iTunes from a non-Apple book that I borrowed from the Astra Zeneca library when I was working there (and from playing with the app and the device) - the material from Apple was pretty useless :-)) I think you're supposed to go to the in-store "Genius Bar" and pay to learn how to use the device you've already paid handsomely for ...

    But yes, we can certainly leave this little section here it does no harm - it just irks me having us do Apple's work for them (especially when they are a rich corporation and we're just Open Source volunteers.

  • Gale 05Sep14: I found http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38263 (no longer maintained). Apart from the images I don't think it adds anything to our text.

The files also have to be in an iTunes Playlist before they can be burnt to CD.

  1. Drag the files from the iTunes Library window into the playlist you want in the left hand panel.
  2. Then right-click on the playlist in the left hand panel and click on the "Burn Playlist to Disc" in the iTunes drop-down menu.
  3. Select the burner speed, the gap between songs if you are burning multiple files onto the CD.
  4. Most importantly make sure "Audio CD" is selected. Unless you choose Audio CD, the CD won't play on most CD players.
Troubleshooting:
  • If you receive a "computer not authorized" error, double-click the file in the iTunes playlist and enter the password you use to login to iTunes store.
  • You cannot burn a playlist containing protected M4P files that have been burned more than seven times. In many cases you can re-download iTunes Plus versions of the songs without Digital Rights Management by subscribing to iTunes Match.
  • If you receive "Error 4880", burning cannot initialise because of a hardware defect or because the burn speed is too high.

For more general help on burning to CD, see Burning music files to a CD

Sample workflow for exporting to iTunes

See also this tutorial with a sample workflow giving a set of example steps that can be used to get Audacity Projects (LP and tape transcriptions for example) into iTunes.

Submitting a podcast to iTunes is a different process than exporting an Audacity file to iTunes; two broad steps are required:
  1. upload your podcast file and an RSS feed to an online file server.
  2. submit the feed to the iTunes Store.
See our Tutorial on Tutorial - Mixing a Narration With Background Music for more help with creating a podcast.
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