Even before you get an iPod, you can download Apple's free iTunes software and beginning using it to manage your CD & Mp3 collection. It runs on Macs and Windows.

This is all pretty detailed in some descriptions here and the reasoning behind the recommendation just so you have all of the information. Once you have it setup, you practically NEVER have to look at it again, it'll be automatic you won't even have to think about it so don't let the details here scare you off. After you spend 20 minutes here, you can forget all the jargon and details. It's easier than programming your VCR and your clock radio. It's slightly more difficult than opening a cereal box, I swear!

What is iTunes?

iTunes is a jukebox for playing any type of music and "CD-ripping" software for converting your CD audio files to Mp3 (or some other compressed format).

Once you've downloaded and loaded iTunes ... it will look something like this:


This is the Mac version but the PC version looks much like this.

On the left hand side, you will see the following choices:

LIBRARY (where all your songs will go)
RADIO (there are several hundred "internet radio" stations built in for listening - no cost to listen)
MUSIC STORE (iTunes Music Store - more later)
UNTITLED PLAYLIST (More later)

Let's Put in a CD ...
UPDATE - if you running iTunes 6 or later, iTunes will now AUTOMATICALLY search
the internet for your CD track & artist info so you can skip ahead ...




As you can see the left side has a "new" line - it will read AUDIO CD and the number of music tracks will be listed in the right column as Track 01 to Track XX.

Of course, it would be tedious to have to type in EVERY freakin' bit of info for every CD, the internet (as usual) comes to our rescue! There is a user built music database called GRACENOTE  - of course for most users, it's nearly invisible.





Make sure you have clicked on the words AUDIO CD (on the left) then under the ADVANCED menu, select GET CD TRACK NAMES. Presuming you have a broadband internet connection, it should take you about :30 seconds to get information back.



VOILA!

Sorry I reduced this screenshot a little too low-res but trust me, all of the information is there - artist, album, track name & track length. There are actually about 20 categories you can choose to display depending on what info you like to see. To listen to any track, just click on that track and hit PLAY in the upper left hand corner.




You can also view track info by selecting GET INFO. This gives you greater flexibility - sometimes there is an error or in this case, perhaps you would prefer that the album name be listed as KISS IN TIME, although iTunes is smart enough to ignore "The" and "A" in alphabetizing. You can also enter in "GROUPING" info for your own personal reference (ie: CD's left by EX, etc ... :-) and in COMMENTS like "Favorite" which will help you create "Smart" playlists later on so you can do a search and play just songs named as Favorite's. You can also change the GENRE - most often it's incorrect - you can use the stock ones or just type your own preference's like SULLEN TROUBADOURS :-)

UPDATE #2 - The new iTunes 6.x menus looks slightly differently but once you select PREFERNCE
& then ADVANCED - the rest of your nenu choices are exactly the same.

Gettin' Ready to Rip

"Rip" is the term of converting CD audio files into computer audio files (mp3's, mp4's, etc ...) Contrary to belief, it is NOT short for rip-off but short for a reference to ripping out (like pages in a magazine) but it is a confusing word, 'converting' makes much more sense.

Basically, your music files on a CD file have a "tiny fence" around them and while you can play a CD fine in your computer, the music industry did not want you to be able to copy files directly off - for instance, dragging the icon of TRACK 01 from the CD does not work - however, you can convert that CD audio file to dozens of file formats. To make an EXACT duplicate, you can select from AIFF from iTunes' choices and you have a file that sounds just the CD - however, even with today's cheap storage - it's sort of pointless  to essentially back up your CD on your hard drive.

Mp3

What exactly is an Mp3? I'm resisting the urge to explain what it stands for :-) - instead, I'll just tell you that it's a digital compressed file of your CD audio file. While you are converting, (in this case, iTunes) it analyzes your music track to see what information is taking up room that is redundant and reduces or deletes that.

The end result is that for about 80%-90% of the fidelity of a CD track, you can get a file that's about 10-20% the size of a regular CD audio file - cannot beat that - and the beauty of the Mp3 format is that you can choose the encoding rate - from 128 kbps to 320 kbps (though no one really even uses the Kilo-Bytes-Per-Second abbreviation, everyone just says 128 or 320 ...). The higher the rate, the "less" that is tossed away. So on acoustic tracks, at 128 the strings might sound a little less warm but would sound much better at 224. For the RAMONES, it sounds pretty much exactly the same at 128 as it does at 320. It all depends on the range and depth of sound of the original track.

There is an additional Mp3 setting called "Variable Bit Rate," (VBR) which you should turn on. I don't think you really want to read a discussion on sine waves so trust me, just check it on.

Now the big decision is what rate to set your recordings at. Most places that offer free tracks (legal or otherwise) generally offer it at 128. The minimal acceptable standard for music (you can record at lower rates but unless your recording is of people speaking - do NOT set it lower than 128 - not worth it). Most people consider 192 a good high standard. Personally, I think hard drive disk space is cheap and even if you have a iPod mini, I think 224 VBR is the way to go and I figure if I encode it at a higher rate, I don't have to do it again but it's your call. Frankly, with most rock 'n roll, you'd be hard pressed to hear much a difference beyond 192. Some people just find it easier to choose one setting and never think about it again. In addition, the higher the encoding the more room the file takes - for instance, a 4-minute song at 200 is about 6 MB. That same song at 320 is 9 MB so if you have an iPod mini, that's about 33% less songs you can hold so you can experiment. Encode a couple songs and listen and see what you think. You might be perfectly happy at 128.

By the way, there is also a lossless format - meaning that they throw away as little as possible but still manage to compress portions - however, the files sizes are much, much larger - that same file above as an Apple Lossless file is 24 MB. Uncompressed from the CD, it's probably about 40 MB so you can see at 200 kbps, you have probably 90% of the fidelity of the song at 20% of the size - not a bad tradeoff.

There is also an Mp4 format which is about 10% smaller than an Mp3 file with the same fidelity. It plays fine on iTunes and iPod but it may not play in other software - which can be a good thing if you think people might ask you to share your files, you can innocently ask, "mp4 okay?" and they might shake their head and walk away. Personally, it doesn't sound significantly better and mp3 is definitely going to be around for a while.

So before you begin converting/ripping your CD - you want to make sure you have all your iTunes preferences set correctly. Go to PREFERENCES and click on IMPORTING.

The other PREFERENCES are not really covered here - just drop me an email if you have questions. iTunes will automatically put your music files in a specific place so unless it don't want it in MY MUSIC folder, click on ADVANCED - that's where your converted/ripped tracks will be placed.


This is what it look like on the Mac, I believe the PC version looks pretty similar. When you click on the POP-UP menu next to IMPORT SETTINGS, the screenshot below is what your pop-up format choices are: AAC (which is mp4), AIFF (CD audio), Apple Lossless, Mp3 & WAV (Windows audio format).



Presuming you decide on Mp3 as your format of choice, make sure Mp3 is checked. Then you will be asked to select your ENCODING rate from the pop-up menu marked SETTING.

There are three choices programmed in your for you: 128 (good), high (160) and higher (192). I recommend you select CUSTOM so you can click on VBR and select a higher rate but you are certainly free to use one of the three presets:



You can see there are there are settings from 24 to 320. For music, start with 128. The VBR checkbox is hidden under that pop up menu but you can check after selecting your rate. I also recommend checking SMART ENCODING and not checking FILTER ....



Then click OKAY and you and OKAY again and you'll be returned to the main window with your CD track info. HIGHLIGHT all the tracks you want to convert - if you want the entire CD, select ALL. If you only want specific tracks, just click on those tracks so they are highlighted.

Then (making sure they are still highlighted), go to the ADVANCED menu and select CONVERT SELECTION TO MP3. If you have selected AAC (Mp4), the menu will read CONVERT SELECTION TO AAC (Mp4).




And that's it!

Now that you have it setup, the next CD will take you seconds. Insert CD, get track names and I'll even give you a shortcut - highlight the track you want to convert and drag it to the LIBRARY playlist (left side) and it'll begin converting using your last settings (this shortcut works on a Mac - not sure about the PC but you can try it). The reason I didn't give you this shortcut before is that Apple sets it automatically to AAC Mp4 as your encoding choice - so don't jump to this shortcut before changing the preferences from AAC to Mp3 (I'm guessing for most people).

What's also great, next time you pop in that CD (once you have gotten track info), it remembers it so you don't have to search for track info every single time.

If you already have Mp3 on your computer, just open that folder and drag into the LIBRARY file and iTunes will keep track of them. Even if you NEVER get an iPod, you can play songs right from iTunes, stream them throughout the house and so forth.

And when you get your iPod?

The first time you plug in your iPod, it will ask you to name it so it can keep track of this particular iPod (it knows you'll end up with 5 :-) and then unless you turn off auto-sync, it will launch and load every song that's in your iTunes LIBRARY file onto your iPod - depending on which connector you're using, this will take minutes to less than an hour. For 90% of people, that's a good thing - you don't have to remember what song is where and if it's in your computer but not in your iPod or vice versa.

The iPod will show up in the SOURCE column under MUSIC STORE (which I'll get to in a minute) as "MY" IPOD (or whatever you named it). It will have a triangle. Click on the triangle and it will "open" up to reveal "IPOD LIBRARY" and of course, every song from LIBRARY has been duplicated & transferred to IPOD LIBRARY.

To create a playlist in your iPod, just select NEW PLAYLIST from the MENU. It will be UNTITLED PLAYLIST until you click on it and type something like MORNING COMMUTE. Now drag whatever songs you want from IPOD LIBRARY to "MORNING COMMUTE."  Any songs you don't want in MORNING COMMUTE anymore, just highlight and hit delete. The song is NOT deleted, just from that playlist. What's great is you can put the same one song in 200 playlist if you want but it doesn't take up the room of 200 songs since the playlist is smart enough to play from the IPOD LIBRARY.

If you don't want that playlist anymore, just highlight and delete - playlist gone - songs ALL still there.

Now to really remove a song from the IPOD? Go to IPOD LIBRARY, click and hit delete - now it's deleted from your IPOD but not from your computer LIBRARY - hope that makes sense.

Again, easier than reading this. You'll get it in 3 minutes and wonder how you ever lived without iPod and iTunes.

Master of my iPod ... So Far, What's MUSIC STORE?

Glad you asked. The MUSIC STORE (under SOURCE) is the iTUNES MUSIC STORE. As long as you have broadband - click on it! If you do NOT have broadband - DO NOT enter, it's graphics intensive! In fact, go to PREFERENCES and turn off MUSIC STORE so you don't accidentally click it. Sorry for the low res screenshot but you get an idea.



You can click on everything you see on the screen. There is a free track every week, there are movie trailers & videos (free to view), there are celebrity playlists (you can upload yours also), and a great search. For instance, you want "Classic Holiday Songs," just click on that upper left box, you'll be sent to a page that looks like your regular iTunes page (see next graphic) - every song has a :30 second preview so you can click on it and click PLAY to hear :30 seconds.

Or the search - in the upper right hand corner, type in your info. In this case, I typed Graham Parker:


These are the Graham Parker songs available to purchase. You can't actually see it but at the bottom it lists how many turned up in the search - in this case - 80 tracks. You can click and play any track. You can sort by song name or album - or if you want to buy the entire album at once - just click on the gray arrow to the right of the album name listing and ...


You jump to that album's page - if you want to buy the entire album - click on GET ALBUM right next to the price above or if you decide you really only want three tracks. On the right of each track are the words BUY NOW or ADD SONG. It's different depending on how you have it set up. To buy, you need a credit card (or a prepaid iTunes card) and you can set up your account for instant gratification - if you click BUY NOW, it begins downloading your song - or if you're like me, it puts everything into a shopping cart and then I have to select OKAY, BUY NOW - so the choice is yours.

In my case, you can see the SHOPPING CART line under MUSIC STORE and whatever is purchase (using either method) gets automatic placed in the PURCHASED MUSIC and LIBRARY playlist so next time you plug in your iPod, it's automatically loaded and synced.

Now, the format you buy from Apple is called AAC M4p (versus the other one which is AAC Mp4). It has a higher fence around it - thanks to the record industry. I'm not going to go into great detail but basically, it's locked to your account. You can play it as often as you like on your computer and on as many iPod's as you have - you just cannot "give" the track away as it will not play on any other computer. Now, this isn't as onerous as it sounds. To make a backup unencumbered with any copy protection - just burn it to a CD (yes, you can do it right in iTunes) - this CD will play on any computer, CD or DVD player worldwide. You can load it back into iTunes and your iPod free of any copy protection. While this is annoying, it's actually the best method devised so far - most of the Windows ones are much more restriction or have stranger hurdles so this file format may not be for everyone but it's actually the best under the circumstance.

Remember that you still have the option of buying CD's - and it's another option - you don't have to buy an entire CD to get one track or drive to a store and hope they have it or try and decide if $18.99 is worth it for three tracks. It will load automatically onto your iPod and you have a built in excuse not to loan out that track.

And keep in mind, this is just to help you get started with converting your CD's into Mp3's - itunes & ipod have about 100 more features that you can learn by just experimenting or even reading the manual :-)

Podcasting?
Thousands of people & organizations have created internet radio broadcasts wrapped as an Mp3 you can download to listen to. They range in quality, production values and information that ranges from ESPN to NPR to the guy down the street. Previously, you could either go to many websites to download these files or use a 3rd party piece of software to scoop up a bunch everyday for you or now - itunes 4.9 includes a podcast directory of hundreds available out there that you can listen to and/or donwload to your iPod for listening. As of now, all podcasts are free or donationware.

Video
If you have the "large" 30/60 GB new ipod, you of course can also purchase videos.

More - so much more!
And of course once you are passed the newbie stage - there are hundreds of great itunes Applescripts add-ons to make using iTunes easier ... want to get rid of of a bunch of UNDERSCORES in a title? Instead of having to go through each one, just download a free Applescript, highlight and select ...

Apple's iTunes Applescripts - good starter set.

Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes - 300+ and Counting!

MacScripter iTunes Applescripts - Not as well organized as Doug's.

Well, good luck!  I'll repeat the iPod buying info here.

Or jump back to
Or of course, which is the best Mac to get, our Mac Recommendations Page.