Training related, obviously. I tried this in Lavender Room, but only got one response.
Any way to convert ACC to MP3 w/o buying a program? NeroBurn does it, and has a free download, but it tells me it has expired when I try to run it.
I own all the music, but I copied it from the CDs in ACC format–about 250 of them! I would rather not do that again. They work on my iPod but not my MP3.
Can’t help you Monk, but as a general rule of thumb, when you install software with a free demo period, a la NeroBurn, make sure to set your calendar (on your computer) forwards by a decade or so. After install and runnning the program the first time, return the date and time to normal. Any of them that reference the current date and time will work until 2015 plus 30 days rolls around.
easily done in itunes (with songs you have already imported)
I think if you burn them to a cd and them upload them to your MP3 player. Do you have a mac or a pc?
Monk, seriously… follow the instructions from the article I posted.
Where did you purchase the ACC music? I know that some files are protected and can not be transferred to other players.
For example, Musicmatch WMF format files can not be converted and used on iTunes (and transferred to an iPod). At least I can not do it.
Monk, download itunes. It’s free. You can convert from one format to the other with no problems at all.
J.
I tunes will change them back also by burning an MP3 “data” disk .
easily done in itunes (with songs you have already imported)
I’m certainly not in a position to disagree, but I just tried this, and I think that once you have them in ACC format, you are screwed, except using some third party software.
Have you tried it with songs that are already ACC?
Where did you purchase the ACC music?
I didn’t. I copied about 250 of my CD’s into iTunes using the Preference “Use ACC Encoder”. Now I don’t think iTunes will cooperate in converting them to anything else, because that is the format that you buy them in from the iTUnes store, and that forces you into iPods.
Thank you for helping. I do have iTunes. It came with my iPod.
P.S. Everybody, I have been saying ACC, it is AAC, but you knew what I meant.
Here’s the skinny: as you know, iTunes defaults the encoding options (which can be changed in the preferences) to AAC. You can also use WAV, AIFF or MP3. AAC creates the smallest files, (more compression) but also sound pretty good. This isn’t much of an issue on a car stereo or an iPod. (Remember, the mp3 format is over 10 years old) - Now, if you follow the steps in that article, I promise… promise, promise, that iTunes will convert the selected songs to whatever format you have selected in the preferences.
So, to summarize: Go to the Itunes preferences, set to mp3. Then close preferences, and select all the songs in your library window. Then go to advanced > convert selection to mp3 (it will say convert selection to whatever you have set in the prefs)
BUT - it will create another “copy” of the song - basically, it will duplicate the entire library into the mp3 format.
NOW - there may be a better way to do this - if you know where your itunes library is located you can take the entire library and move it to another location. Once you have done that, you can select all the songs in your library, and delete them (if you tried to play them at this point, they would say “file can’t be found”.) Then, once your library is empty and you have set the import to mp3, go to file > import and select the folder of your itunes library, (that has all the AACs in it) and import - it will then copy all the files into your library as mp3s.
Only do this last step if you know where your library is located and you feel comfortable moving it. Oh, and FWIW - iPods will play AACs, mp3s, aiffs - whatever, it’s just a size issue.
NOW - there may be a better way to do this - if you know where your itunes library is located you can take the entire library and move it to another location. Once you have done that, you can select all the songs in your library, and delete them (if you tried to play them at this point, they would say “file can’t be found”.) Then, once your library is empty and you have set the import to mp3, go to file > import and select the folder of your itunes library, (that has all the AACs in it) and import - it will then copy all the files into your library as mp3s.
Thank you for working with me. First let me say that I am suspicious about the fact that there may have been some changes made in software versions–for example–the dbPowerAmp referenced above works just like they say it shoulf, for everything EXCEPT AAC files.
Now I will go through your procedure again, hoping I did not miss anything. BUT, I think that some software change was made so that AAC files do not show up.
First. I copied the entire Itunes Music folder (hereinafter referred to as “iTUnes Copy”). Then I Cut the iTunes Music folder from the iTunes directory and pasted it in a higher directory. Then I created a new folder in the iTunes directory and called iTunes Music–it is empty, of course. At this point, iTunes does as you say --it lists the files, but says “File can’t be found”, or something similar. Now I change the Import Preferences to MP3. Now I go to File-Import and name the folder the iTunes Copy folder. And…it will only show “Text”, “XML” and “M3U” files.
No shit, honest. Now, if I go to My Computer, Right Click, Explore, it will indeed show the files in the directory. Right Click on Properties, and is says they are in M4A format.
So that’s my sad story Bro.
yeah - AAC is a type of mp4 file, the text and xml files are the names of the artists and the albums, the m3u files are playlists. When you import the songs back in, you need to make sure to select the actual files (mp4, aac) rather than the folder that they are located in, with a select all command -
if that is not working, drag and drop your itunes copy into the main library window of itunes, it will then copy all the songs back into a new library. You will still need to convert them to mp3s, so we need to do the whole “convert selection to” deal. This time, try selecting just one song (must be highlighted) and see if it converts it. If not - something else is happening.
I’ve done this about 10,000,000 times in the last few years and with AAC files in the last year and a half, so it can be done (with all revisions of the software since itunes 1.1 - and with any of the supported formats - just not AACs purchased from the iTunes Music store - talk to the RIAA for the reasons why)
From within itunes, go to the preferences (not sure where that is in the windows version. Under the import tab, change the import format to be mp3 instead of aac. then in the main window, select the tracks you want to have as mp3, control click and there should be an option to ‘convert to mp3’. This works with the Mac version, so it should work in the windows version.
Hope this helps,
Justin.
I have iTunes 4.7.1.30(HP).
if that is not working, drag and drop your itunes copy into the main library window of itunes, it will then copy all the songs back into a new library. You will still need to convert them to mp3s, so we need to do the whole “convert selection to” deal. This time, try selecting just one song (must be highlighted) and see if it converts it. If not - something else is happening.
I copied my iTune directory , moved my iTune dir, created a new empty one where iTunes looks, dragged and dropped the iTune copy into iTunes, highlighted and right clicked “Convert to MP3”. This works, but since I have to complain, I wind up with two versions of each song. At least it is done. I can rename/move the directory, put my original iTune directory back, and then go into the new directory I created and delete the AAC version (I still have it each song in AAC version in my original iTunes dir)–only 2300 songs.
EDIT: Actually, I just looked in the directory whil it is converting–only the MP3 files appear, so I believe that I can “Select all”, copy them to a new directory, and leave the old ones behind/delete them, and have all the MP3 versions in the new directory.
THANKS FOR EVERYONE’S HELP SUGGESTIONS.
THANKS FOR STICKING WITH ME FIREFACE–you are my personal JamMaster F!
