How to setup iTunes for ripping CDs
How To...
If you are building a library of music in iTunes, it's important to setup the CD transfer (RIP) process just the way you want. iTunes default setting is to compress the music you copy from a CD using their AAC encoder at 128kbs. Many of us building music libraries do not want to compress the CD because of the loss of audio quality.
Before you spend all the time required to import your music library, decide what you want to do with your library in the long term. For our library setup, we prefer FLAC (Free lossless Audio Encoding) for a number of reasons, compatibility with nearly all music server systems being chief among them. See our How To tip on FLAC and Exact Audio Copy for details.
An Apple based system is essentially a closed system although an increasing number of music servers now support Apple libraries. If you wish to use iTunes to import your library, check with the manufacturer of your music server to see if it is compatible with the server. Most are.
However, if you choose to stick with iTunes for your library, this article will help guide you how to setup iTunes properly.
Go to the Edit tab. Click on Preferences . In the general preference tab you will see a menu item labeled 'when you import a CD ' and a window that gives you a set of choices. Next to the window is the 'Advanced ' option button. Click this button and the advanced option menu will open.
From here you can select your quality level options. Using the drop down box labeled 'import settings ' you will see a number of options, including WAV, AIFF, Apple lossless, MP3 and AAC.
WAV and AIFF are lossless full 1:1 copy settings. Since a typical audio CD has approximately 750mB of data stored on it, using these settings will require approximately 750mB of hard drive storage space to copy the CD.
WAV files are difficult to attach cover art and meta data to as they are not designed to carry this. So if uncompressed music is your choice, the AIFF would be a better choice in iTunes. The two uncompressed formats are identical in performance.
Apple lossless will reduce the size requirements of a CD in half without any loss of data. Thus, a 750mB CD is reduced in size to 375mB. Our recommendation would be to use Apple lossless for your entire library. It is sonically indistinguishable from either WAV or AIFF and easy to attach cover art to. Further, Apple lossless takes up only half the space of either WAV or AIFF.
AAC and MP3 are lossy compression methods. MP3 is the lowest quality copy method available on iTunes and we recommend avoiding it. AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is a better lossy coding method and if you really need the extra hard drive space, choose this instead.
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