iTea

[mishalak]

Bit of a weak pun there, but it was the best thing I came up with when my iPod asked to be named. I now own one, obviously. Early birthday present from my parents. So for some reason instead of my usual very utilitarian names for things I came up with this silly one (thanks Cat for inspiration).

Now I'm replacing a decade worth of .mp3s I ripped using winamp. I suspect the .aac format to be of a bit better quality. I know that it is proprietary and all, but I don't care, I expect by the time I replace the iTea they won't be that proprietary anymore. After all just the other day Apple announced it would be offering DRM-free music on the iTunes Store from EMI.

So I'm listening to the music from Waking Ned Devine as I figure things out.

Comments

[ckd]

AAC isn't Apple proprietary except in the DRM-encumbered form. My SonyEricsson phone plays AAC files just fine, in fact.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Good to know.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

AAC isn't as proprietary is it looks. It's the same compression technology used for Dolby Digital audio on DVDs.

That said, MP3 is perfectly fine if slightly less efficient. While several players on the market besides the iPod support AAC now, I don't bother with AAC except for iTunes Music Store tracks.

I don't rip in iTunes anymore, though. I use Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) to rip the disk and pipe the output to LAME (http://lame.sourceforge.net/index.php) to compress it to 175k variable bit rate ("V3" in LAME parlance) MP3. Then I drag and drop the tracks into my iTunes library.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Okay, that sounds like work. (Especially for someone like me who's clueless.) I just want to put lots of my collection onto my iPod. Mostly for my flight to Hawaii this week. Though I might see if I can put a book on there.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Open iTunes. Find your folders with your WinAmp files. Select all the files. Drag the batch to the iTunes window over the "Library" header in the left-hand column. Drop. Watch all the files get added (copied) to your iTunes folder.

easy as that.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Actually they're low quality and I did not rip that many. I'm happy re-ripping. What sounded like work was using some other program and then compressing them and all. For me it is a lot simpler just to use the program I already have.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Apple uses the Fraunhofer MP3 encoder, the market leader for commercial encoders (because Fraunhofer owns most of the patents on MP3). While it's integrated (and as such, simple), Apple has configured it for speed at the expense of sound quality and compression efficiency. I wouldn't be surprised if they chose this configuration to encourage people to use the AAC encoder.

LAME is an open-source project and by many peoples' tests is superior to the version of Fraunhofer that is part of iTunes.

EAC and LAME are two different programs, but EAC is designed to work with LAME (and a number of other compression tools). Once EAC and LAME are set up, it's just a matter of adding the location of lame.exe to the EAC configuration, and it's all magic. Looks and works like one program. Click on the "rip to MP3" button and it asks you where to save the files. When it's done, drag the files on to iTunes.

I haven't noticed a difference in frequency range between iTunes MP3 and LAME MP3 (the biggest "complaint" made about lossy audio compression formats), but I have noticed that the dynamic range and general levels of tracks ripped through iTunes is pretty crunched compared to LAME or the original CD.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

and yeah, EAC and LAME are a bit more work when you start doing new CDs, but the rewards are worth it.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Enlighten me as to the rewards. What makes variable mp3 so good?

[bovil.livejournal.com]

iTunes can do VBR, it's just a matter of settings. The rewards aren't just from VBR, it's a combination of things.

EAC has some really sophisticated error-checking functions that deal well with some of the "slack" in the audio CD specification. A perfectly mastered audio CD ripped on a perfect burner will always produce a stack of .wav files that's identical to the last rip, but we know how well "perfect" and "technology" go together. Factors including "gapless" CDs, mastering errors, dirty discs and player errors can all contribute to subtle (and in some cases, unsubtle) problems.

Once the .wav data is ripped, it needs to be compressed.

Now VBR is nice; it sets a "floor" bit rate for the least-complex groups of data frames, but increases the bit rate to provide more fidelity in complex frame groups. More detail where needed, less total storage than constant bit rate. This is a big deal in classical music (with its wide frequency range), but isn't inconsequential with any music.

Where LAME wins out is in its multi-pass compression process. It's more discriminating about what audio data is discarded during compression, providing a more "true" representation than other codecs at the same bit rate. It does a better job of adjusting the variable bit rate on the fly, again providing a more "true" representation in a smaller file.

That's not to say that other MP3 codecs couldn't do the same thing, it's just that many commercial developers choose to be a bit more sloppy.

According to the graphs, AAC is more efficient and precise overall. MP3 is universal, though, and newer MP3 codecs are approaching AAC in quality/compression.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

BTW, there's an even easier option than the find, drag, drop.

pull down the "Advanced" menu.

Select "consolidate library"

iTunes will find and suck in any compatible media files on your computer.

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

WOOT!

Welcome to the wonderful world of portable music bopping!

BTW - you should be able to import the mp3s into iTunes. I certainly was.

[housespinner.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday tomorrow! :)