Need some help with music downloads/burning

[steve208]

I have recently downloaded the i-tunes player and would appreciate some advice with regard to how it all works.

I am not too concerned about downloading a lot of music as i have a huge cd collection, so i have started to take my favorite tracks from the cd's to my music libaray. It converts them to AAC files?!

Now i have looked up what AAC is but all these terms are alien to me, im just not good with computer language!

Anyway, i think i might get an mp3 player for my birthday or maybe christmas. My questions are:

Does the player i get have to be an i-tunes one? and if it is not then how can i convert the files so they might player on a cheap mp3 player?!

Also i want to make some cd's for work....can this be done using these tracks i have put on my libaray. TIA

[alunrw]

You can convert any of your CDs to MP3 with a free programme (something like Cdex ) - these would play in "any" mp3 player
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos/)
or theres loads of others available - worth also having a look on google for "aac to mp3 convertor" and this will convert all those you already have.

[steve208]

Thank you.

So where would i keep the tracks that i convert into mp3? in my itunes libaray?

Also my dad tells me that for my music to play of the cd player at work when i burn the tracks to the cd they have to be in wav format? is this right??!!

[alunrw]

you can make an mp3 CD or an audio CD- to make an audio CD that plays in any "normal" CD player, using a programme like "Nero" for example) you would just use the "make Audio CD" option as opposed to "make mp3 CD" - with the latter you can get an awful lot more on one disc, but certain players don't play them.
As to where you keep the MP3 files, you could set up a folder on your desktop for example named "mp3's (or whatever you would like to call it ) to keep them separate from Itunes - if you get a new mp3 player I guess you'd have different ********, "musicmatch jukebox" or something similar , but the principle is the same as Itunes and you just use the library with that and synchronise to your mp3 player.
As you can see Im no expert, but theres loads of programmes out there that covert one format of music to another.

[steve208]

ok thanks will try to get to grips with things.

[Fanriffic]

I thought the following links might help you with iTunes:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum =93118

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum =301917

You can get iTunes to convert your CDs' to MP3 rather than AAC when importing them.
Go to Prefrences > Advanced > Importing then choose Import Using. Select your choice here.

Also, when I want to burn a CD to play on my Hi-Fi or in the car, I prefer to use another program (Toast) as I find the sound quality rather quiet when burned from iTunes.
I convert my files to AIFF then fetch them from the iTunes music library folder, then burn an audio CD with the files in Toast. I'm a Mac user.

I hope all this info is helpful to you.