Importing songs into itunes is easy – you just INSERT the CD, SELECT it in iTunes, and CLICK on the menu item at the top of the screen that says ‘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 higher bitrate and even a better way that uses a program called LAME. This article describes how to import songs into iTunes with better quality .

NOTE: Since I wrote this article Apple have changed their policy and now use 256kbps on the iTunes store which is an incredible and immense improvement. This backs up what I have said in this article. The difference between Apple’s upgrade of 128kbps and 256kbps is very noticeable and it is worth upgrading your iTunes songs.

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 your stereo, and compare it to a CD you will hear that at 128kbps there is a significant difference in audio quality.

It’s not that listening at 128kbps sounds bad, but if you compare it to the original, you will notice that it’s different.

The bottom line is if you want the best quality you need to use a much higher bitrate than 128kbps. I suggest either use the built in AAC encoder at 320kbps, or use a little program called the ‘LAME encoder’ on the ‘insane’ setting. I have re-imported 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 compressed files or the originals.

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).

OPTION 1: How to do it using iTunes

1. Open iTunes, on the iTunes menu select Preferences. Then on the general tab select Import Settings.

2. On the settings window select ‘AAC Encoder’ and ‘Custom’ as follows:

3. Select 320kbps. Sample rate can be auto or 44.1 VBR doesn’t matter really. The file may be smaller if you use VBR.

Click OK and import a CD as usual.

OPTION 2: How to do it using LAME

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.

Apart from copying your CD into itunes with no compression (apple lossless encoder) which takes 650MB per CD, this is the best quality you will get in itunes.

If you are low on space you are better off deleting some less favourite CD’s than encoding at a lower quality!

These are the settings I use for good quality speech in itunes:

Stereo Bit rate: 80kbbps

Sample rate: 22.050kHz

Channels: Mono

NOTE: This results in a 40kbps file (the mono file ends up at half the stereo bitrate)
A 20 minute talk will be about 6Mb and sound good.

If I am ripping from CD for speech for my ipod, say a story, and size is not so important, I set itunes to:

96kbps,
44.1kHz,
mono.

Which gives an output of 48kbps.The place you put these preferences in is itunes:preferences and click on the advanced icon then importing tab then Setting:Custom you can set the various options according to what you want.

Click here to read how to make the filesize (and quality) lower using LAME.

1. SMALLEST FILE SIZE ACCEPTABLE QUALITY.
For very small file size (4MB for 20 minutes) and acceptable quality,
use the LAME encoder (the the separate article on Itunes songs to find out about the LAME encoder) with the following arguments in the ‘Encoding options’ Box:

-V 9 –vbr-new -mm -h -q 0

2. An even better option than above but slightly more complicated is:
Firstly convert the file to 22khz sample rate and mono, (eg in Audacity)
then use the following LAME settings:

-V 8 –vbr-new -h -q 0

3. BETTER QUALITY AND ACCEPTABLE FILE SIZE.
For about twice the size files (8MB for 20 minutes of speech) but very very good quality try this in LAME encoder:

–preset voice

OR

-V 8 –vbr-new -h -q 0

4. BEST QUALITY. Use itunes. Although LAME is better for music, and lower bitrate spoken word, itunes is great for 40kbps spoken word and above. CLick here to read about the best settings on importing spoken word into itunes here.