Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with aac

iAm so smrt

vernondalhart — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:51:04 -0800

Is there a way to use the Genius feature on my 80 GB Ipod Classic? From skimming around the internet, I get conflicting year-old rumours stating that the genius feature will/has been added to 80 GB ipods, but it doesn't seem to be an option on mine, updated as it is. So I assume that's not true.

Now, I've sen suggestions that you simply use the Genius feature on iTunes normally, then copy the playlist over to the ipod. Which would be fine, except for the fact that my iPod is my music library. Other than copying all 72 GB back onto my 80 GB laptop, running the genius update so that I can make a few playlists at my convenience, is there any reasonable way about this? Or am I pretty much out of luck until I end up buying a newer iPod?

What's that web site?

emelenjr — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:37:39 -0800

I'm not sure if it was ever linked on Metafilter, but I remember running across a web site where bands could set up online streaming and downloading of their music, with multiple audio formats and multiple pricing options. There were also various visualizers built into the music players. Hive mind, who can help me track down the URL I've lost? It was a relatively recent find in my travels on the internets—possibly late 2008.

Streaming AAC players for OS X besides VLC?

korpios — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:36:07 -0800

Is there a streaming audio player (i.e., internet radio) that will play AAC streams under OS X, and isn't VLC? I have a subscription to Digitally Imported, a collection of Internet radio stations that I adore; since my bandwidth is a tad limited and subject to the odd congestion issue, I prefer to use the AAC streams (16 Kb/s) rather than the MP3 streams (24 Kb/s). Thing is, I run OS X; I haven't been able to find a single audio player that supports AAC streams besides VLC, and, frankly, VLC is one of the worst damned applications I've ever used. (I say this as a computer geek / programmer, mind you.) I'd even be fine with a command line player, if the interface was halfway decent (i.e., something that would let me switch between several streams ... a curses interface, perhaps?). Ideas, hive mind?

Help me organize my iTunes library!

cosmic osmo — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:53:40 -0800

What's the best way to organize and re-tag my enormous MP3 library? (iTunes, Mac 10.5, 20k+ songs) My goals for this project are to have every song in my library properly tagged (artist, album, year, track #, etc.) in a consistent format, with artwork where applicable. I'd also like to be able to distinguish sub-genres of music (i.e., neo-soul vs. new jack swing, or west coast g-funk vs. backpacker rap, or arena rock vs. shoegazer, or...), while still being able to browse by genre at large (r&b, hip hop, rock).

I've tried to do this manually using the allmusic database and infinite amounts of patience, but I have more than 20,000 songs and it's getting impractical. I have no idea what software I should use for a library this size--in the past I've used MPFreaker, but I doubt that's the best option any more.

So my questions:

1. What are some good software options to help me? I'm more than willing to pay a shareware fee to support the developers if it's a good program (again, I'm on Leopard, and I'm not willing to give up iTunes). For the most part the songs I have are already tagged, just not consistently. The songs are also a fair mix of MP3/AAC.

2. How have you tackled the subgenre issue in iTunes? Right now I have in the genre column "Main Genre: Subgenre," but I'm willing to hear other suggestions (I have no classical music to speak of, so the "category" and "grouping" info fields are up for grabs).

3. Practical suggestions about how to go about this? In the past when I've tried to organize my library, I've made one big playlist called "FIX," put the whole library in, and removed songs/albums when I was satisfied with their tags. Is there a better way?

Thanks!

ItunesFilter: Help me manage myout of control library file.

damiano99 — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:08:54 -0800

ItunesFilter: I have too much music! Help me manage my XML iTunes library! Long story short, I've collected music for alot of years. I have so much in fact that I have a nearly 300meg XML library file in iTunes.

My problem is that it makes iTunes waaaaay too slow. It's like diving thru molasses to find anything or scroll thru anything. Not just coverflow mode but even in list mode.

Is there any better way to manage my library? Any way to speed up iTunes? I'm open to any suggestions.

FWIW, my library is on my C: drive. My actual mp3s and AACs are stored on a 2tb RAID box plugged in thru Firewire. My cpu is running XP SP2 at 2.5 with 4gigs of RAM.

Why is this audio file being silenced?

copperbleu — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:34:51 -0800

AAC file possibly getting blocked by overprotective Windows. What can I do about it? Asking for a friend who says this:
"I downloaded an AAC file that is a recording of some streamed music. A minute into the 3 minute file, the audio goes completely silent. I thought there was something wrong with the recording process when I found out that others who have downloaded the same file can hear the whole thing. When I tried to open a copy of the file a friend sent me over MSN Messenger, Windows (XP SP2) told me it had decided the file was dangerous and blocked it. Can Windows be silently deciding some part of the file is bad for me, and removing the data from that point on? What can I do about hearing the audio on this file like everyone else?"

Double Library Trouble

mjlondon — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:44:42 -0800

Can anyobdy help with automatically converting MP3's to AAC's in iTunes WITHOUT duplicating the file? I'm currently running two iTunes libraries using Libra and have been dragging MP3's across to the newest one that are already stored on my hardrive. As this is for a nano however, I have been encoding them to AAC. But to do so at the moment involves a long process of dragging the originals, one album at a time, converting to AAC and deleting these new 'originals' otherwise I end up with 2 copys of the same song in iTunes. I'm keeping the libraries separate as the main iTunes is still going to be for MP3's.
Any help is really appreciated. I apologise if this is ridiculously confusing.

Converting AAC to MP3

quintno — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 15:17:58 -0800

How can I convert AAC sound files to MP3 files? For some reason, Powerpoint will not let me insert AAC files as sound files, so I'm looking for an easy way to convert about a dozen short AAC files so Powerpoint can recognize them.

Recommend a good HD-based hi-fi separate

saintsguy — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:42:28 -0800

Audio separates. Looking for standalone hard-disk based mp3 player. My father has a collection of his favourite mp3s on the PC (few hundred), and wants to be able to play them in the living room, on endless shuffle.

The device needs to store the mp3s locally, in order that it is not dependent on the PC being turned on, or the wireless network being up and running.

Loading of the songs to the device could be in the form of a wifi network connection, or by any of the common flash/sd/memory stick formats. Audio CD would not be preferred method for importing the tracks as he (or rather I) wouldn't want to have to burn everything to Audio CD first just to then rip them back to HD on the device.

Needs to be in the form of a "normal-looking" audio separate, with remote control etc. rather than, say, plugging an iPod in to his amp, or one of the standalone network streaming boxes.

I guess this could also be done in the form of a normal CD player that can handle mp3 format if anyone can recommend a good one, as the collection could sit on a couple of CDs if stored in mp3 format. That would not be the preferred solution though.

UK based, so would want products available here. No price point to aim for, so any suggestions appreciated.

Bonus points for a system that plays non-mp3 formats (particularly AAC).

transcoding mp3s? To aac?

bluejayk — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 23:39:48 -0800

I just bought a new 8gb ipod nano. I've got about 11gbs I want to shove onto the player. So, I'm thinking about stepping down the bit rates of my mp3s. How should I do it? Most of my music is 128kbs mp3. My newer rips are higher, but that's a small minority of the collection.

I'm keeping all my music in it's original form on my computer, so I'm not worried about losing some quality. I usually listen on mid-range earbuds (not the white ipod ones) in a fairly noisy environment. I'm not an audiophile, I don't think my ear is very sensitive.

So, I checked, and at 80kbs I could fit it all on my nano. But should I transcode to aac? Will that sound better than an 80kbps mp3, considering the source was an mp3?

Will I never notice with my non-expert ear, either way?

AAC with mp3 players

tirebouchon — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 14:36:44 -0800

Are there any MP3 players that will play .acc files other than an iPOD, or am I screwed I ripped all my CD's to .aac and now am considering a different player

How do I listen to an APE file?

erd0c — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 22:28:13 -0800

How do I listen to an APE file? I have a series of audiobook files in APE format.
I've searched the interenet and it seems like there are many ways.
I would prefer to convert it to a format that I can play on my iPOD.
Does anyone have an opinion? preference?
Thanks

transcode files from flac and shn to aac or mp3 using OS X?

nowonmai — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 09:04:46 -0800

How to transcode files from flac and shn to aac or mp3 using OS X? What UNIXy tools will help me? I have a lot of flac and shn files I have downloaded. I want to (a) get them off my hard drive and replace them with something smaller but still decent quality, and (b) put some of the smaller things on my iPod. This means that the something smaller should preferably be AAC, but mp3 will do.

I have OSX 10.3. I found a program called Sound Grinder that will read flac but not shn files and make mp3s with them, but that's not ideal and will cost me $40 when the 15 day demo expires. Max looks like it will do the job, but is 10.4 only.

I have installed fink and browsed the 'sound' section of the package database but ended up bewildered because I find it hard to tell which packages are actual applications and which are libraries and whatnot.

Here's my question: Is there an OSX program I have overlooked that will do what I want? If not, how to do it with either an X11 or command-line program?

AAC on non-iPod players?

jsbww — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:53:48 -0800

Any good iPod alternatives that support aac?

Music loss shock horror

selfnoise — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:34:12 -0800

What's the best way to regularly back up 10-15 gigs of music? I just realized that if my HD crashes, I'd have to re-rip 95% of my music and re-buy (WTF Apple??) the rest from itunes. I have a DVD-R burner but spanning the MP3s onto multiple discs each time I do this (once a month?) seems like a hassle. Is there a program that will span multiple DVDs automagically? Should I buy a backup HD instead? Should I protect my computer with a circle of power?

Fighting the Man

trinarian — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 02:53:54 -0800

Has anyone tried to fight the RIAA and Movie Studios by arguing that copyrights can be interpreted laterally instead of just horizontally? A 128kbs mp3 carries around 10% of the original data density of the source material – we’re loosing all but the basic foundations of the song. What’s the difference between posting that and 20 seconds, full fidelity, of a 3-minute song (which is legal)? You're just cutting the data at different ends.

I'm working under the root assumptions that I know of copyright law, wherein you can distribute and/or alter a certain percentage of an artists work w/o permission and royalties.

Is 128kbps AAC enough?

nickerbocker — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 09:05:15 -0800

Do you think that 128kbps AAC files are good enough? I was checking out the Apple Music store (for the first time), and was actually very surprised on what kind of selection they had, and their prices are hard to beat (are they?). The DRM bothers me, but not too much as there are ways around it if need be. I'm use to buying audio CDs and ripping them as ~196-256 vbr mp3s. After they are ripped I package up the CD (unless I want to read the booklet) and put it away in a box and really don't ever pull it out again. Thinking an Online Music store would probably be better for me, but how close will the sound quality come to what I'm use to? 128kbps doesn't seem like enough for something I payed money for.

AAC for iPod?

krisjohn — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:05:15 -0800

My iPod is full. I used to encode MP3s at 128k, more recently VBR at 80%. Can AAC give me quality around the latter with a file size smaller than the former?

How do I burn music CD's using AAC files?

blueshammer — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 06:26:43 -0800

Waugh! (Pronounced the Snoopy way or the Evelyn way.) My iTunes will no longer burn AAC files onto CD. I've followed Fearless Leader's lead and de-DMRed all my Apple Music Store purchases with hymn, but I can't burn protected songs that have been hymned, protected songs that haven't been hymned or unprotected songs that used to be hymned. (I guess I didn't try an AAC rip since I mostly rip to mp3, so there's a missing data point.) When I go to burn a playlist, it deselects all the AAC tracks, although it will burn mp3s made from unprotected AAC files. Does anyone know what's up? Is there another Mac app for making audio CDs from AAC files? I'm not much of an audiofile, but don't want to go through the quality loss of converting 128 kbps AAC to 128 kbps mp3 for all these songs.

Moving my iTunes songs to a bigger drive

grumblebee — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 13:51:20 -0800

PC verson of iTunes: all my mp3 & aac files are on my C drive, which is almost full. I want to lighten the load on that drive by moving all the songs to my E drive, which has much more space. Is there a way to do this without wrecking iTune's database? I don't want to have to re-import everything.

What's the best way to turn protected AACs into regular AACs for a large amount of files?

tetsuo — Thu, 09 Sep 2004 14:05:26 -0800

iTunes question..what's the best way to turn protected AACs into regular AACs for a large amount of files?

AAC to MP3 for fair use?

grumblebee — Thu, 02 Sep 2004 07:16:09 -0800

I've been buying my wife tracks from iTunes and putting them on her Archos Jukebox. Since the Archos doesn't accept the aac format, I have to burn them from Archos onto CDs and then rip the CDs back into my PC and then download the ripped files onto her Jukebox. (I don't feel like I'm cheating Apple out of revenue, because only my wife listens to this music.) [More Inside.] According to my research, this is the only way to move music from iTunes Music Store to a non-aac device. But I'd LOVE to find a method that is less complicated and also cuts analog out of the process.

So here's what I'm wondering: There are all sorts of virtual CD programs out there -- you know, the kind of app that fools your PC into thinking part of your hard drive is a CD in a CD drive. But the only way I've ever seen these virtual drives work is with an image of an actual CD. Why should this be the case? Why shouldn't you be about to create a virtual CD image (a virtual virtual)? In other words, why can't you create a file that never came from an actual CD but which your computer THINKS came from a CD? It's all 1s and 0s, right?

If I could do this, I could burn a fake CD from iTunes and then fool the Archos into downloading MP3s from that fake CD.

Does this app not exist because no one has bothered to create it? Is there a technical issue that makes it impossible? Or does it exist and I just don't know about it?

Crackles Three Seconds Into Any MP3/AAC Played in iTunes?

bonaldi — Tue, 04 May 2004 15:53:36 -0800

Crackling MP3s/AACs. I'm encoding with iTunes, and a lot of my tracks have a noticeable crackle about three seconds in. It's regardless of choosing AAC or MP3 as my format. What's causing it and how can I fix it?

What is the best Windows application for creating reports of digital music collections?

agregoli — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 19:40:57 -0800

What is the best Windows application for creating reports of digital music collections? I need it to support both MP3 and AAC. I would prefer customizable HTML output but would settle for Text. I have tried several popular applications but none have supported AAC and their reporting capabilites have been minimal. I am looking for something that can create reports with just artist and album titles as well as the more typical every file/song reports.

Are CD's ripped with iTunes AAC less portable than MP3s?

scarabic — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 21:12:40 -0800

If I rip my CDs with iTunes, and select the "AAC Encoder," will the files be any less portable than MP3s? Can most MP3 player apps/devices handle them? Are they all intrinsically copy-protected? Are there real quality benefits? (I'm asking on behalf of someone who has already invested serious time in ripping, using iTunes' - you guessed it - default settings).