Lossless to mp3

[timm]

I have a slew of apple lossless files on my pc. Is there an easy way to take them all and create mp3 copies? My wife has an 8 gig sansa and needs more compression. Thanks. Tim

 

[amey01]

Just batch convert them, keeping the original of course. There are may apps that do it well - dBPowerAmp, BonkEnc, Foobar, et al. Heck - even iTunes.

 

[timm]

Ok I have to check iTunes. Everytime I use that thing it seems real clunky. Maybe I got old guy syndrome.

 

[Feltran]

It is quite easy to do from within iTunes, though not as intuitive as maybe it should be (or maybe there's a way I don't know about). Anyway, here's how you do it:

In iTunes preferences, with the General tab selected, there is a button lower down in that window that says Import Settings, click on that.
Then, choose whatever settings you would like to convert to (MP3 256kbps or whatever). Then accept the new settings and go back to your music library. Now, select any/all of the music you want to convert (you can do it one song at a time, or select multiple items by holding down the shift or command keys while selecting stuff). Once you have selected the music you want to convert, either right click one of the selected items, or pull down the Advanced menu, and in either case there should be an option that says something like "Create MP3 version" (this option will vary depending on what you set your import settings to).

 

[amey01]

Ok I have to check iTunes. Everytime I use that thing it seems real clunky. Maybe I got old guy syndrome.

No - it's iTunes - it is old, clunky, bloated and generally awful to use.

Foobar is great if you like a nice, simple and snappy app! And you can even do a portable installation on a music HDD and do your conversions in the background at work!

May as well make use of all that CPU power sitting on your desk while you use network/server apps, right?

 

[timm]

It is quite easy to do from within iTunes, though not as intuitive as maybe it should be (or maybe there's a way I don't know about). Anyway, here's how you do it:

In iTunes preferences, with the General tab selected, there is a button lower down in that window that says Import Settings, click on that.
Then, choose whatever settings you would like to convert to (MP3 256kbps or whatever). Then accept the new settings and go back to your music library. Now, select any/all of the music you want to convert (you can do it one song at a time, or select multiple items by holding down the shift or command keys while selecting stuff). Once you have selected the music you want to convert, either right click one of the selected items, or pull down the Advanced menu, and in either case there should be an option that says something like "Create MP3 version" (this option will vary depending on what you set your import settings to).

I'll give that a go. I assume it saves the mp3 file in the default directory which I specified? I'll give this a whirl. I'm old - but not THAT old.

 

[timm]

Ok. That worked like a trained pig. I set my dir to the mp3 dir. iTunes still finds the lossless dir (it is not nested). It saves the mp3 to the mp3 dir I changed to. So in the end the mp3 files and lossless files are in seperate non nested directories. Cool?