[How To] Rip mp3s using iTunes in Windows?

[Big D]

Start by downloading iTunes here if you don't have it and then run the installer - just keep clinking yes or next and it will install and associate all music files with iTunes (iTunes will open and play if you double click a music file in windows).

When you first run iTunes it says do you want it to organise folders for you. This means when you change the file tags in windows it will also change the folders in windows - useful if a mistake was made with the tag in ripping the song - so I would recommend selecting YES.

Now you should see the iTunes program. We are going to go to EDIT then PREFERENCES. A new window opens with all the preferences - we want the IMPORTING tab.

First thing to do is change the IMPORT USING to mp3 and then click on SETTING and select custom. A new menu will appear.

We'll ignore stereo bitrate for the minute. First tick USE VARIABLE BITRATE ENCODING (VBR) and change QUALITY to highest. SAMPLE RATE and CHANNELS should be set to auto. STEREO MODE should be changed to normal. Keep the two bottom boxes ticked.

Back to the quality. This is a really personal issue. Myself I wouldn't use less than 224kbps as this is very close to CD quality for me. It depends on how many songs you have (or expect to have) in the near future. You will get about 2500 songs at 224kbps on the iHP-120 and it will probably appear to be CD quality to most people. If you have to then go to 192 or 160, or if you have the time do some testing to see what quality level sounds good to you. Now click OK.

The only other change to make is to go to the ADVANCED tab in the same preferences menu. If you want to have music ripped directly to the My Music folder (rather than 2 folders deep) by iTunes then delete the

\iTunes\iTunes Music

from the end of the MUSIC FOLDER LOCATION.

Now just click on ok.

You are back in iTunes proper. Now insert a CD into the drive and a little window will come up telling you it is accessing the database (you need to be connected to the internet for any of these type of systems to work). It will either find the CD or not. If it doesn't then you will need to enter the data manually (we'll come to that in a minute).

Check the info that has automatically been entered. If there is anything to change for a single track (e.g. title) then just click once on the track, pause a second, then click again on the title of the track. You should now be able to enter text in the box, just press return when finished.

To edit all the tracks of a CD (e.g. genre) in one go because they are wrong then select the top track of the CD then go down to the bottom track HOLD shift then click on the bottom track in the list. The entire CD should be highlighten now. Right click on the highlighted area and select GET INFO. A window appears that allows you to edit the tags common to all the files, e,g, album, genre, year, etc. To change any tags you must select the tick box to the left of the tag information you want to change or it will not happen. Once the tick box has been selected just change the textbox. Then click OK to action the change or CANCEL to cancel.

Remeber that you can always do this tag editing by the same process after the song has been ripped just by selecting the relevent tracks in iTunes.

Now we are ready to go. Just click on IMPORT in the top right corner of iTunes and go for a well earned cup of coffee or beer while it is ripping. It should take about 5-10 minutes depending on your computer.

Repeat the ripping process for each CD (all the red text)

The songs will appear in LIBRARY on the left hand SOURCE menu. Just click LIBRARY and all your ripped tracks will appear.

iTunes will have created a folder structure in My Music for you of:

Artist -> Album -> 00 Track (where 00 is the track number)

Just go to your My Music folder and you should see all the artist folders. Just select them all and right click on the highlighted area. Now select COPY. Now open Windows Explorer and right click on the iHP icon (you need it connected!! ) now click on PASTE. Note that the iHP must be plugged into the mains power when you do this in case it runs out of juice. This time you can go for a longer coffee or beer!! It takes my PC about 70 minutes to transfer 35Gb. Don't worry if it takes about an hour or two to transfer 19Gb as PCs are notoriously variable with transfer speeds.

Close all windows using the iHP and safely disconnect in Windows.

You now have all your music on your iHP!!