OT: iTunes question

[Chris Link]

I put most of my CDs on the hard drive years ago and don't recall what settings I used: MP3, Apple Lossless, etc.

 

Is there a way to determine what I used by file size or other means? For example, the first album listed is 10000 Maniacs. The first track is "What's the Matter Here". It is listed as a .m4a file. "Command i" yields all of the info. Does the sample rate of 44,100 tell me anything?

 

I am finally getting rid of all those CDs that have been taking up space and never get played.

 

Thanks.

[ElmerJFudd]

Yes. In the finder or in iTunes. ctrl+click a file and select Get Info. An m4a file is a container for one of Apple's formats... either AAC or Apple Lossless.

[RABid]

What you need to look for is Bit Rate. A sample rate of 44,100 is consistent with CD's, but the bit rate will tell you what compression you used.

[Chris Link]

Hmm... I think I'm screwed unless I want to re-rip a lot of CDs. Compared the original file size for Grover Washington's "Winelight" with the one on my HD.

 

80.3 MB vs. 7.3 MB

 

That's a rather substantial difference. But if I replace all of my CD music with lossless files, I'm not sure if I even have room on my drive.

[Chris Link]

I don't see where bit rate is shown in the information box. Sorry if I'm being dense.

[Chris Link]

Found this:

 

"Summary:

 

1. AAC is a lossy compression codec, unlike the Apple Lossless.

 

2. AAC produces much smaller files compared to Apple Lossless.

 

3. Apple Lossless requires beefier hardware compared to AAC.

 

4. The sound quality of AAC is inferior compared to that of the Apple Lossless.

 

5. AAC requires licensing fees, while Apple Lossless is a free codec.

 

6. AAC is good for mobile use, while Apple Loss is much better for home use."

 

But I don't have room (or time or inclination) to switch everything as my music files already take up about 10% of my hard drive. And I'm not exactly an audiophile with a $10000 stereo set up.

[Chris Link]

Found the bit rate by going through iTunes rather than Finder. Thanks.

 

It looks like I have bit rates all over the place from 128 to 915. I guess I could go through and make sure all of my favorites are in a lossless format.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

 

[PianoMan51]

1. Inside iTunes, select a song

2. From the Edit on the top line, select Get Info

3. Select File from the top buttons

4. The first written line will show 'kind', which for me is followed by 'Apple Lossless audio file'

[Joe Muscara]

Lossless files can be huge. Apple Lossless might have some ways to reduce file sizes without throwing away data, but I don't know if the method is public info. I believe they come out slightly smaller than CD or wav, but larger than any lossy method. Many common lossy compression algorithms come out to about 1/10th of the file size of the original, so your 80 MB vs. 7.3 MB sounds about right. It's a compromise of file size vs. quality. Bit rate and the algorithm itself are both important factors.

[Sven Golly]

Man, you guys sure like making things difficult on yourselves...

 

In iTunes, click "Songs" so that you see a listing of your tunes.

 

Right-click (or ctrl-click) on the header bar (where you see "Name", "Time", "Artist", etc.

 

From the drop-down list, select "Kind". You now have a column showing the file type (MPEG Audio File, Purchased AAC audio file, etc).

 

Repeat those steps, and add "Sample Rate" and "Bit Rate".

 

You now have an immediate display of ALL your songs, and their associated information. Sort by any of those headers, and you can quickly see what you may want to re-rip.

 

[Chris Link]

Thanks!

[jerrythek]

Drives are really cheap these days... How much room your music is taking up on your main/internal drive shouldn't be the factor in this decision. If you are forever getting rid of your physical CD's I would want to archive them in full resolution/fidelity first. Once gone you can never get them back!

 

I have two external drives that I use to keep all this sort of data, so I have at least one redundant copy of everything. And that is not really enough, I should keep a third.

 

But my suggestion is to redo everything that is really important to you as Apple Lossless. Buy a new drive or two. 3-4 terabyte drives are a steal these days.

 

Some would argue against the future-proof status of Apple Lossless, since they could stop supporting it in the future. But I'm betting it won't go away in my lifetime. 🤓

 

Jerry

[Husker]

Agree with Jerry on ensuring you have everything ripped well before you get rid of it. I have a music buying problem (I'm still one of the few guys left on earth who still buy physical discs), but I had always wanted a digitize the collection.

 

I just finished up a project to rip my entire collection (around 2800 CDs) to two formats at the same time - .mp3 and .flac (a standard agnostic lossless format). I used an application called DBPoweramp (www.dbpoweramp.com) that ripped and did metadata all at the same time.

 

I have all CDs on multiple 5 TB hard drives, and I still have room for probably 1200-1500 more.

 

 

[tfort]

I ripped 500+ CDs as Apple Lossless so I'd never have to do it again. The file size is roughly half the size of the original uncompressed CDs.

 

There's a setting for preferring compressed versions on your mobile devices, which iTunes takes care of automatically from your lossless files when you sync. It leaves the Apple Lossless version untouched on your computer.

[harmonizer]

If you put the music into one of the higher fidelity mp3 formats, such as 256kbps or 320 kbps, you can achieve significant disk space savings while preserving high sound quality. I use mp3 256kbps files a lot, and they tend to take up a little less than 20% of the space of an uncompressed wav file.

 

There is probably some loss of fidelity with 256kbps mp3 files, but it is rounding error compared to the fidelity loss I get from the speakers in my home stereo (which is a decent midgrade home stereo).

[Chris Link]

I think I will just look at keeping the CDs in some space-saving form. I have about half in "photo album" books that lose the jewel case and take up a fraction of the space.

 

Thanks for all the replies and info!