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Advice on iTunes Settings for the BIG RIP.

I have a Meridian 508.20 CDP for digital playback that gets the job done. However, over the past several months I’ve been following with increasing interest the numerous dialogues pertaining to computer music servers.

I have been using iTunes for a couple years (currently v7.1.10) mostly in mid-fi capacity to stream music direct from my G5 Dual Core & iBook to my amp and also for downloading songs to my iPod.

I only have a small percentage of my CDs digitized. Currently my iTunes is a hodge podge of formats and bit rates, the lion’s share of these are in AAC format for my iPod. The idea of ripping my entire CD collection is daunting and the complexity and technical confusion has kept me from committing to doing it. But I am now ready to undertake it. However, there are still some grey areas for me that I’d like to clear up.

I want to reorganize my iTunes library and begin ripping my CDs in earnest in as high a sonic quality as possible. I want to do this ONCE and not have to revisit this and re-rip them down the road (gah!). Most of my music is rock, but every music genre is represented.

From what I’ve been reading Apple Lossless is the way to go. Can I get some advice regarding how to configure other settings in iTunes? Space between songs? Also, I have some shared music and MP3s… the sound levels are different for some of these songs…I want to avoid that in ripping my CDs so that if I use the shuffle feature all the songs will be in the same ballpark with respect to volume.

I’ve read that Apple Lossless is ‘reversible’ insofar as one can convert the Apple Lossless files to AIFF files (or to other lossless formats). Can I get a conformation on this as there is a nagging doubt in the back of my mind that at some point in time I’ll need to redo EVERYTHING when the technology changes (gah!).

I read somewhere that when ripping to Apple Lossless takes considerably more time than ripping to AIFF, and that when ripping to Apple Lossless iTunes does this in two steps: FIRST rips to AIFF and then converts it to Apple Lossless. I also read that to save time some folks rip to AIFF in iTunes, and then set their library to do a batch conversion to Apple Lossless overnight. Can someone shed some more light onto how this latter is done?

Ultimately, I would like to have a main iTunes music library consisting of Apple Lossless files which will be streamed to my 2 channel audio system (I’ll likely upgrade to some sort of stand alone DAC [+USB?] device in the near future). Complimenting this, I would also like to maintain AAC files for some songs (songs that either I only have in AAC format or songs that are dupes of the Lossless files but converted to AAC for size reasons to play on my iPod). And finally, a library of MP3 files (again, songs that either I only have in MP3 format or songs that are dupes of the Apple Lossless files but converted to MP3 for my iPod). How best to organize these three file formats in iTunes? One music library? 3 separate music libraries? It would be nice to have all the music accessible in one lump so that I could access them all with the shuffle feature for background listening.

Thanks a bunch for any illumination into working out these details.
lovegasoline
jayboard
301 posts
 
Photon, As far as I know, those settings only affect how tunes are burned to a
CD from files on your hard drive, and Love gas was asking about ripping files
from a CD to the hard drive.

The issue you describe concerning tracks that flow from one into the next
was a significant annoyance in older iTunes, but Apple implemented gapless
playback in iTunes several versions ago, so that annoyance has disappeared.

BTW, to noone in particular, the Gapless Album setting iTunes makes
available in Get Info is poorly labeled, since when you're playing through an
album, iTunes always plays the cuts just as they were recorded on CD,
without the momentary gap that appeared in old iTunes, whether or not the
Gapless Album box is checked.

What the Gapless selection does is override any Crossfade setting, if you have
Crossfade turned on, if and only if you are playing an album straight through.
The Crossfade setting will still apply if you're playing shuffled tracks or a
mixed playlist. If you have Crossfade turned off, all cuts play gaplessly,
regardless of whether you've checked the Gapless box.

There's no penalty to turning Gapless on for every single track in your library,
unless you really do prefer to crossfade the consecutive playback of songs in
an album rather than playing them as they were recorded on CD.
audioalways
13 posts
 
Whoops my post directly above was posted at the same time/after Jayboards second post. so I was referencing Jayboards 1st post. Seems like we are saying the same thing.
audioalways
13 posts
 
04-14-07: Photon46
Jayboard, when you pull down the menu for Itunes "preferences," go to "advanced," then look at "burning." There you have a menu selection for creating gap times between songs. I set my default to no gap. Otherwise, tracks that flow into the following one on the original mix don't play correctly.

Photon46, yes the preference setting you cite above does control the time gap between songs when you are BURNING a CD from your Music Library. Though it has no affect for either IMPORTING songs to the Library or playing back the songs in your Library. In iTunes 7 there is no option for customizing the length of the song gaps for music playback (from the usic Library)...I wish there was.

The Gapless Album setting that Jayboard mentions is an option not to include the very small gap iTunes places between songs by default. If you select it there will be a truley 0 sec gap during playback. This is targeted at live performance, classical, and DJ mix recordings.
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