How to Import songs into itunes
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 4:58 pm. 25 comments
How to import songs into itunes is easy. You just put the CD in, select it in itunes, and click on advanced – convert selection to MP3.
Easy!
But…
the default setting on itunes is not the best setting to use when importing songs. In fact, there is a better way to import songs that uses a program called LAME. This article describes how to import songs into itunes using the better quality of the LAME encoder.
If you want to skip the technical stuff and go straight to having good music, jump down to the ‘How to do it’ section.
Introduction
If you go to itunes:preferences and click on the advanced then importing tab you will see some options like Import Using: and Setting: This raises a few questions.
1. Why does Apple allow me to use different formats like AAC and MP3? Which one is better?
2. There are different ‘bit rates’. If a smaller bit rate uses less space, but has worse quality, and a higher one means better quality, how high do I have to go to get the best quality? How good is the default setting of 128 high quality (See picture below – click to enlarge).
Unfortunately I assumed the defaults were the best, so I used the built in defaults in itunes to import my CD collection. But if you listen carefully to your ipod through my stereo, and compare it to a CD you will see that at 128kbps there is a noticeable difference in audio quality.
The bottom line is, if you want the best quality that still is compressed, use a little program called the ‘LAME encoder’ on the ‘insane’ setting. I have reimported all my CD collection using the LAME encoder set to the insane setting, and it sounds much better – I now cannot tell the difference between the ipod and the CD player.
What is LAME? What is insane?
Lame is an mp3 encoder that is open source, which means rather than being developed commercially, it was developed by unpaid enthusiast programmers. It was originally not as good as the commercial mp3 algorithm, but as many people worked on LAME, it actually overtook the original mp3 encoder and is now better, and free!
There are literally hundreds of possible settings to use with lame, regarding audio quality, there are lots of different ways LAME can encode. There are some standard settings, called standard (as good as the itunes defaults) extreme (better that itunes default) and insane (best possible quality). We are using insane, and even if you cannot hear the difference between extreme and insane, I would go with insane as the extra disk space used is minimal.
How to do it:
STEP 1. Download the itunes LAME Encoder.
Download the itunes-LAME Encoder from here (click on itunes LAME importer – download) and unzip it.
Download the Import with LAME script from here and unzip it.
Download the little iTunes LAME installer folder here and unzip it. This is a magic folder and anything dragged onto it will automatically be installed into the itunes script library.
You should have three files looking like this:
STEP 2. Install the itunes LAME Encoder.
Drag the itunes-LAME icon (left fiel above) onto the |||Drag here to install||| icon.
Drag the iTunes-LAME script icon onto the |||Drag here to install||| icon.
In itunes there should me a new menu item between window and help.
Step 3. Import a CD.
Open itunes and insert a CD into your computer. Make sure the CD is selected in itunes.
Select the new itunes menu item Import with LAME…
A new iTunes-LAME window will appear that looks like this:
In the window type in –alt-preset insane as you can see above. Select prefs and select ‘cache tracks to hard drive’ also in prefs make sure destination is set to iTunes Music Library.
Click import, you will have a great quality CD in itunes, in a playlist called imported from LAME. You can delete this playlist, it is only so that you can see what you just imported.
Why trust me?
I am an Electrical Engineer, I worked at ABC radio in audio electrical engineering, I have been playing with audio gear and electronics gear for over 20 years. I have read a lot of stuff from the net re the best way to import into itunes, and this is what I use. When I got my ipod there were literally hundreds of pages of information regarding which is the best format to store songs in. I have understood all the technical arguments, and apart from copying your CD into itunes with no compression (apple lossless encoder) which takes 650MB per CD, for no discernable increase in audio quality, this is the best quality you will get in itunes. I have 2000 songs fitting on my 15G ipod. If you are low on space, I think you are better off deleting some less favourite CD’s than encoding at a lower quality.
I was hoping to make this a no choices, here’s how to do it, but I’ll give you one choice. If you have an ipod nano, and a really short on space, and woudld desperately like to fit more songs, then use ‘–alt-preset’ standard instead of ‘–alt-preset extreme’. But I would use insane and have less songs on.
Happy Listening!
Fantastic!
The quality improvement is GREAT!
Thanks for easy to follow explanations & instructions.
Is it possible to use LAME when purchasing / importing from the iTunes store?
To quote from apple “Purchased songs are encoded using MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format, a high-quality format that rivals CD quality.” Apple AAC files at 128kbps are approx equal in audio quality to 160kbps mp3, so not as good as LAME insane or extreme. I buy CD’s from http://dirtcheapcds.com.au for $10 and import into itunes!
Good news itunes is now giving you the option of paying more for better quality downloads, but still not as good as with LAME!
itunes LAME’s newest version is 3.97 which works well… but is hard to access through iTunes… no extra window item … got to go into the library/itunes/scripts folder to open the app.
any suggestions?
Well itunes 7.1 did cause problems with LAME and so lame was upgraded with this:
http://blacktree.cocoaforge.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7610
TO get it back in the menu is a bit messy you need to make an alias of the “Imoprt with lame” script file and move it into the itunes scripts folder.
right click on itunes-lame.app and select show package contents
open contents
open resources
make alias of “Import With Lame…..scpt”
put alias into User/library/itunes/scripts
will be back in your menubar of itunes.
Just noticed a typographical error in the first question in ‘Introduction’. You ask why Apple allows you to use different formats like ACC and MP3. It should read AAC.
Fixed thanks!
thank you for the step-by-step! not being a coder, that makes all the difference for me. now i’m happily importing cds into itunes on the insane setting and it’s sounding excellent.
i have one curiosity: is it possible to have folders of music on one’s hard drive and somehow get itunes/LAME to recognize them as something to import? sorry if i’m exposing untold ignorance by asking, i’ve just been copying cds onto my hd for easy portability and sharing, and now i want to import them into itunes with LAME to free up the space. what would be the intelligent way to do that (that wouldn’t create duplicates in itunes)?
First go to itunes preferences, the Advanced tab, and make sure that the box that says “Copy files to itunes Music folder when adding to library” is NOT checked. This stops it creating duplicates in itunes.
Then make a new playlist, and drag all the CD audio files that you want to convert into that playlist.
Now select them all and import using lame.
Then delete the playlist, and, if you are game, after you’ve checked the import worked, delete the original files to save space.
Nice tutorial, just what I was looking for. But in Step 1 you say, “Download LAME version 3.95.1″ but the link leads to a page to download version 2.0.9t4. I couldn’t find any other versions on their site.
I’ve also seen other references to the 3.x versions thru the same website, so I know it’s not just a typo on your site. I’m a bit confused what happened to the 3.x versions of the LAME encoder. Do you know what’s going on?
You can get the latest version of lame from here:
http://lame.sourceforge.net/index.php
Click on “get lame”, then click on the link that says “file area”.
It looks like the latest version is 3.98, but 3.97 is the recommended version.
There is a great discussion about lame here:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lame_Compiles#Recommended_encoder_compiles_and_source_code
I’m new to Mac, new to Ipod and overall confused. I’m on a Mac OS X v 10.4.11 with the new Itunes v 7. In my research in how to import my CD collection to Itunes I came across your site. Very informative, but every time I try to follow your instructions it doesn’t work. I’m not sure if I’ve got the download saved properly. For whatever reason, it keeps going to the desktop. I searched and found some bundles with the enabling software for the Lame Encoder but still nothing. I don’t get that “added” tab between Window and Help, I don’t see in Preferences where I can change it from the AAC to LAME. I’d wait to ask my kids but since they are only 3 & 4 yrs old, and can’t read yet – I’ll be waiting a long time. I’d really like to be up with the times, era, before they beat me to it. Thanks Wayne!
Dear Wayne,
I just followed your directions for installing LAME on my Mac, and when I click “here” the version of LAME I get to download appears to be 2.0.9t4, not 3.95.1. Then, when I download this LAME what I get on my desktop (iMac PPC) is the iTunes-LAME icon, rather than the four icons where I move the iTunes-LAME icon into the folder icon. I have tried putting the icon into Library/iTunes/Scripts, but this doesn’t seem to accomplish anything. At the same time, the iTunes-LAME window appears, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. In addition, when I go to switch the alt-prest to “insane” it is not an available option (nor is “extreme”). What do you suggest?
By the way, I have iTunes 7.7 (43).
Donna and Mark.
I have totally rewritten the instructions and also provided an installer folder. See how that goes and get back to me.
to get the best quality would it better to start again importing all my library with each original CD?
I just wanted to say a huge thank you for posting this how to and providing the install scripts. It worked beautifully!
I have been looking for a good solution to ripping my CDs for a long time and this is just perfect. Combining the power of the LAME encoder and the Gracenote database in iTunes means I can rip through them much faster and with excellent quality than with other LAME encoding programs that use the frankly limited freeDB or MusicBrainz databases…
You guys rock!
Can someone tell me where to find my music folder
Frank, I only have my best CD’s done at insane quality, and the ones I don’t listen to much at lower quality. But, yes, if you really want good quality, go again!
Your music folder is in your home folder, then a folder called Music, then iTunes. But the simplest way do delete ones you don’t want is just to delete them from within itunes.
I just downloaded 3.98 from Soundforge, but when I unpacked it, there are a bunch of files & not just the 1 file like the old one. I’m currently using the Lame Encoder from step 1 but how can i install this new one?
Hi,
i have a netbook and it doesn’t have a cd drive. I recently managed to use another computer to download my cd’s to memory stick save them to my computer and put them on to itunes but this morning my iTunes won’t let me add the new files on my memory stick onto my iTunes. Any suggestions to another way to get around it?
My son is in the army. He bought a jump drive and had it sent to me so I could put all of his music…over a hundred cds…on it. The first two took 30 minutes each! I was just reading about using Lame and am wondering if it will help speed up this process or if you have any suggestions.
Thanks
Nope LAME will make it better quality, but if anything slower as the files will be larger.
If you and he both have macs, it will be faster if you reformat it as a mac drive using disk utility, but then you can’t read it on PC’s.