Converting m4a files to mp3, or joining m4a files

Hi,
Does anyone know to convert m4a files to mp3 files? or to join m4a files together?
Thanks

Use the instructions in this article to convert unprotected music to MP3 format.
(10147)

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Convert m4P & m4a files to mp3

Hi there, I tried to burn a music CD in MP3 format with some files from iTunes library but it did not work. Some files are in m4p (purchased) the others in m4a format.
Any suggestions ? I even downloaded some free/trial ware to convert files but with no luck so far. What's the best, most secure, fast and easiest way ?
Erwin

iTunes can only burn an MP3 disc from files that are already in MP3 format.
Going forward, you should either buy your songs in MP3 format from online retailers who sell MP3s, or buy iTunes Plus AACs and convert them to MP3.
iTunes protected tracks in .m4p format cannot be converted, but you can check out the one-time upgrade to iTunes Plus.

Converting m4a files to mp3

How do i convert m4a files to mp3 format? Call me old fashion but i still like to burn a mp3 disc. thanks

Are you using iMovie? Can you explain what/how you are getting to the point that you want to burn the video. My suggestions would depend on your workflow and I burn movies to DVD quite often.

Trouble converting downloaded m4a files to mp3 format

This has never happened to me before. I downloaded a full album and 3 of the 13 songs get an error saying "the file format is not valid" when I try to convert the files to mp3 format. How do I go about fixing this?

+if I do that, it will create the MP3 files all in the same iTunes Music folder as the AAC files,+
Yes, if the AACs are by artist/album
+and worse, it will probably duplicate each song in the playlist.+
No, the conversion process does not touch any playlists.
+The only thing I can think of is to either (A) have a blowaway copy of iTunes on the Windows PC, copy all the AAC files to it, import them, and convert them, or (B) allow my real iTunes to duplicate them all, make the MP3 CDs, sort by create date or file type, and delete the MP3 duplicates from the library.+
B sounds easier than A. You can also consider doing the conversions with a non-iTunes program such as Switch, which allows you to specify the destination folder for the new file.

Converting from a .m4a to a .mp3?

Is there any degredation of audio quality if a .m4a file is converted through iTunes
to a .mp3 file?

Michael:
Yes. .m4a (or AAC) is a compressed and lossy format. When you convert to another compressed and lossy format, such as .mp3, there is bound to be a degredation in quality. If, however; you are planning on using those tracks to burn discs played in a car, you probably won't hear the difference. Most automobile acoustics are pretty poor. You will definitely hear the difference in an iPod or on a decent set of speakers.
Lita

How to convert and replace itunes m4a playlist with mp3 playlist

In Itunes, I want to convert a playlist of 200 songs from m4a to mp4 but don't want to have to struggle with creating the new playlist (ie, making a list of the songs and finding them in the library and dragging them into the new replacement playlist) or deleting the old m4a songs from the library (finding them and deleting them either by hunting them down or identifying the m4a duplicates and deleting them).
I know I can convert them en masse within itunes but then I've got to hunt them down in the library to recreate the new playlist and delete the old m4as.
I can't seem to come up with a smooth way of doing that. I thought I could drag them from itunes to my desktop, or even to a flash drive, but when I drag them back into itunes they don't come back in as mp3s but remain m4as (I did set the preferences import settings to mp3 so I don't know why that aspect doesn't work for me).
Any suggestions for how to do this efficiently would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, and thanks again for your input. I will do whatever works. Conversion works fine to convert, but then I have to hunt down each of the 200 newly converted songs to recreate the playlist of mp3s, and then hunt down each of the old files in the library to delete them.
So I tried to figure out another way to do it. It occured to me that if I exported the songs and then re-imported them, then they would be imported as mp3s due to the preference setting in Itunes, but I can't make that happen (they come back in as m4a). If I could, I thought I could just import (drag them in) to a new playlist and then I could delete the old playlist - allthough the problem then would be that the old playlist songs would still be in the library, but I think I read where I could do something like option delete (from within the old playlist) to actually remove the files from the library. Then I wouldn't have to hunt for the old songs.
My ignorance is due to my not using the proper terminology. I just saw the suffix is mp3 so I figured people would know what I meant. Same for m4a which probably also has a more correct term than that.
Thanks for the reference to Doug's scripts - there's a lot of them there. If I can find a way to contact Doug, I will ask him if he has a script that will do it.

M4a conversion to mp3 files

how do I convert itune downloads from M4A file to MP3 file so I can load on USB stick for car

Click here and follow the instructions.
(110514)

Converting m4a back into mp3.

I've inherited this computer from my sister and she unfortunately converted all the songs from mp3 to m4a. While I understand the merits of m4a I'd still rather they were in mp3.
Is there a way of converting back again using itunes?

You can convert from non protected AAC files to MP3 with iTunes.
You have to set MP3 in "Import Settings" on the general tab in preferences.
Then you get an option to create MP3 version on the advanced menu.
The iTunes MP3 encoder is widely thought to be rather poor so you might do better with another program anyway.
If the files were Mp3 and have been converted to AAC, then the second conversion may loose appreciable quality as both AAC and MP3 are lossy formats. It would be best not to do it unless you really have to.

ITUnes converted all the wav files on my computer to m4a. How do I recover them?

iTunes took it upon itself to convert all of the .wav music files on my computer to .m4a, a much lower-quality format. How can I get the .wav files back?

Hi someonefromminnesota,
Depending on how the tracks were imported/converted, the original .wav files may still be located in their original location, and an .m4a copy may have been added to the iTunes Library. You may find the following article helpful:
iTunes 11 for Windows: Import music and video already on your computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12493
iTunes: How to convert a song to a different file format
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1550
Regards,
- Brenden

Itunes is copying/converting 500gb of music from .wma to .m4a files that are on an external drive onto my laptop which doesnt have enough room. how do i reroute these newly converted files somewhere with enough space for them?

itunes is copying/converting 500gb of music from .wma to .m4a files that are on an external drive onto my laptop which doesnt have enough room. how do i reroute these newly converted files somewhere with enough space for them?
new to itunes, used windows media player before that and always ripped music directly to an external hardrive and accessed it through the player. now that i downloaded itunes it is taking from the external hardrive and copying a second file for each song onto my lap top hard drive which does not have the capacity for all my music. as itunes converts music files i want them saved back onto my external drive or another location i have space for rather than the lap top. how do i change the setting to move the itunes media folder to another location. assuming that hitting copy and past and dropping it in a random location will cause a few errors.

When I have done this, all I did was network the two machines and copy the contents of the iTunes folder to the other machine, and that's it.
My understanding (which may not be 100% correct) is that the one file that is absolutely necessary is iTunes Library, and that the XML file is actually a copy auto-generated from the iTunes Library, appearing in a different format only for non-iTunes apps that take advantage of the iTunes Library data.
As far as I know, if you simply have the Library (database) file and all your original music files, iTunes on that computer should operate as it did on your old computer. I believe that the Album Artwork, Genius Data, and XML files can be regenerated from the Library file. Not sure about the Extras file.

Why are my mp3's and m4a files no longer recognized?

All of a sudden, 95% of the 10,000 music tracks in my iTunes Library has become unplayable. It concerns mp3 and m4a files with music that I purchased and ripped over the years. Wifi syncing to my iPhone 4s made it worse: now the Music app on my iPhone won't play them either.
All tracks added before Mid September 2012 are dead. They can be seen in the library and metadata can be read in iTunes. But when I click on the file, nothing happens. Newer files do play normally, though. MP3's that were not located in the iTunes library also still are playable.
I tried opening the files with VLC player, Quicktime and even on a windows machine. All I get is a message that songitle.mp3 cannot be played because it's format is not recognised.
It has been over a week since I first noticed the problem and I spend many late hours. What is going on? Has Spotlight messed with my music's metadata? Is Apple denying me access to my own files? HELP!
What I tried:
- restore files from Time Machine backup: same problem
- play files on other machines: same problem
- repair a file with MP3 Scan+Repair. It says: ERROR: Unknown file format!
- decrypt HD by disabling FileVault: no improvement and Time Machine won't work anymore (Stupid)
- do a fresh install of Mountain Lion: no improvement
- restore files from Carbon Copy Clone: same problem (has Spotlight done this while indexing the external HDD?
- boot from the Carbon Copy Clone (turned out impossible due to the Verbatim external drive that won't boot-should have tested that before I ran into trouble )
- find solutions in apple discussions, google etc for almost ten days: no solution
What struck me in Console
Some messages in Console struck me, but did not lead me to any useful clues:
25-11-12 22:33:48,000 kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(317) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd
26-11-12 21:06:44,919 sandboxd[970]: ([963]) QuickTime Player(963) deny file-read-data /Users/MyName/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Folder/Album/Song.mp3
25-11-12 22:51:01,030 mdwrite[422]: *** Assertion failure in +[MDKeyRing _copyKeychainAtURL:canCreate:], /SourceCache/Spotlight/Spotlight-707.3/xpc-services/mdwrite/MDKeyRing.m:131
25-11-12 22:53:18,757 mdwrite[525]: Metadata.framework [Fatal]: Couldn't add Spotlight Metadata Privacy password to keychain! [osErr:-50]
26-11-12 21:19:59,863 com.apple.PassXPCService[1166]: PAPassValidator: _signatureIsValid failed to load signature file
Software Versions:
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
iTunes 10.7 (21)
Quicktime Version 10.2 (603.6)
On iPhone 4S: iOS 6.0.1
Hardware
MBP 13" Late 2011,
2.8 GHz Intel Core\
6 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

You're welcome: I am happy you are thinking along.
We may me on to something: I could not access my account on Sep 11 and did a restore from TM. It did not go too smoothly, but it worked. That's when I decided to pick up the habit of making carbon clone copies again.
Now if something would have been wrong with the songs in the iTunes/Music folder, it must have been copied just as wrong to the carbon clone. Hence the reason why my backed up songs won't play. So you could be right that the files were probably messed up Mid September and not just two weeks ago.
But why haven't I noticed it before? Probably because all the music I like to hear is in my iPhone, that apperently doesn't do to many wifi syncing? It is strange though that for two months I could still play the music on my iPhone.
What did happen just before I could not play them anymore, was the iOS update to 6.0.1. My phone's battery was draining fast and it became hot. Maybe the phone's Spotlight had to re-index? I don't know.
FV was there since Jan, when I set up this machine. I did not run some kind of utility particularly on my music files.
I think you are wise to stick to your OS version as long as it works well. Upgrading usually comes with some issues.
About my setup:
I started out on another MBP (mid 2009) with 10.5. Upgraded to 10.6 then to 10.7. Had some kernel panic issues, but solved them.The machine got stolen in January and I got my current MBP (late 2011) with 10.7 on it that I upgraded to 10.8 this summer. I started using FV in Jan with the new machine. The theft made me wonder if I shouldn't be more Utilities I use ever so infrequently:
Onyx
Drive Genius
ClamAV
Carbon Copy Cloner.
Syncing/Backup takes place to
Time Machine (full drive)
iCloud (limited data)
SugarSync (limited data)
Dropbox (limited data)
Google Drive (limited data)
Carbon Copy Cloner (full drive)
Other things:
I put a hardware password on my laptop and a use Prey tracking software (not that it helped me to find back my old laptop btw)
I can't remember what utility I was running at the time of the lockout in September. Maybe there was something like Drive Genius running when I had to close my MBP and leave. But since the music on my TM has the same problem, the whole lockout may not be the reason of the corrupted songs.
Perhaps I should just accept my losses. I found an older backup with the oldest 90% of the songs that work. It's just that I am curious to know what went wrong to keep it from happening again.
About moving to another forum: what do you think would be the best choice? OS X Mountain Lion?

My new car has a USB port and requires music in MP3 format to play. How can I convert my mountain lion Itunes 11 m4a albums to mp3?

My new car has a USB port and requires music in MP3 format to play. How can I convert my mountain lion Itunes 11 m4a albums to mp3?

I found this on another discussion forum it may help
Niel
Re: how to save music as mp3 on itunes
Nov 24, 2011 11:21 PM (in response to dadywak)
Click here for information.

Export M4a files as MP3

I think that I used to be able to do this from within iTunes, but I am not sure. *I want to take some of my songs, which I imported from a CD and export them as MP3s, so that I can play them on my other MP3 player, which is not an iPod and only plays MP3s.* How can I do this, either with iTunes, Automater or something else (GarageBand?) that came on my Mac? If none of these will work, is there a good utility, preferably freeware, that will do the job?
Thanks,Mark

It would probably be faster and the quality of the results would be better if you just re-ripped the CD as mp3 files. In iTunes, go to Preferences>Advanced>Importing and change your importing preferences to .mp3 then re-rip the CD.
You could convert the existing files by going to Preferences>Advanced>Importing and change your importing preferences to .mp3 then selecting the files you want to convert and then selecting "Convert to mp3" from the Advanced menu. However, whenever you convert from one lossy format to another, there is always some additional loss in quality. My experience has also been that converting takes longer than re-ripping.

ITunes M4A vs Amazon MP3, ripping in iTunes, cloud services

Sorry to ask 3 different questions in 1 thread, but they're all kind of related..
1) I've been struggling for a while to decide which service to use for digital music. Until recently, I always bought physical CDs and ripped them to my computer at 320Kbps. Then, Amazon started to attract me with all of the deals they have and free credits, not to mention the Cloud player. So I started buying from Amazon. I also had some iTunes credit, which I used and was surprised to find quite a difference in quality. Both are 256Kbps, but Amazon uses MP3, while iTunes apparently uses AAC M4A files. The thing that stands out to me is that the audio is louder and clearer.
Has anybody else noticed this? Everywhere I look online people say there's no difference in the two, but I swear there is. If you download the same song from Amazon and iTunes then listen to them back to back at the same volume, you should notice the difference. Preferable some kind of rock song with louder music where it may be a big harder to make out the lyrics. It's not so much "quality", like the MP3s sound "bad" compared to them, or are missing parts of the audio. It's just that the M4A files are louder and seemingly clearer, making it easier to understand lyrics. It's different than just turning up the volume, the words really stand out more in an M4A file.
So is it just me, or is AAC really that much better than MP3? The 256kbps M4As from iTunes even sound better than the 320kbps MP3s I've always ripped from my CDs via Windows Media Player. I've not, however, compared to the 320kbps MP3s from Google Play, maybe I will try that sometime.
2) Assuming that it's better, that means I need to re-rip my entire CD collection. Will ripping within iTunes to M4A 256kbps give me the same quality as if I bought the file from iTunes and downloaded the file? Also, it looks like you can rip all the way up to 320kbps. Is it even worth it with AAC files, or will I likely not notice a difference over 256kbps?
3) Finally, cloud services. This is the one that has me the most confused. I have 2 goals really: #1, be able to listen to all of my music on my work computer in addition to my home computer and #2, have access to all of my music in some cloud service to access on my Android phone and Android tablet. I have 3 main services to chose from, Amazon, Google, and Apple, each with pros and cons.
Amazon
Pros - lower prices, lots of sales and free credits, all MP3s purchased there are automatically added to my Amazon Cloud, as well as any albums that have the "AutoRip" feature, Amazon Cloud Player seems sufficient both on my desktop and mobile devices.
Cons - lowest audio quality out of all services, can only store 250 personal songs for free, $25/year to upgrade to 250,000 songs
Google
Pros - lower prices than iTunes and sales, but not sure if they're as good as Amazon, all MP3s purchased there are automatically added to my play library
Cons - the desktop web client and mobile app aren't very good, IMO. You don't have much choice over how to view/organize the music. Amazon Cloud player seems better in every way.
iTunes
Pros - best audio quality, iTunes Match for $25/year to have my entire iTunes library in iCloud, including songs not purchased from iTunes (no size/# limit that I'm aware of), iTunes desktop app works fairly well and could be installed on my work computer and play my entire library with iTunes Match
Cons - highest prices, no client for Android devices, iTunes Match costs $25/year
(if I left off any pros/cons, please point them out and I'll add them to the list)
So here's my predicament: I want to start ripping all of my CDs and making all of my digital purchases in iTunes, mostly because of the superior audio quality. But, doing it this way I'll have no good cloud option for my phone and tablet. I could pay for the Amazon Cloud Pro to be able to upload my entire library there, but I would lose the quality of most files (they would match the files with their versions). I could upload my library to Google Play, but I would lose the quality there as well AND I hate their web client and mobile app.
Alternately, I could start purchasing all of my stuff from Amazon. Then, I could pay for iTunes Match to upgrade all of my songs to the better quality files, but I still couldn't use it for cloud-purposes, and it seems the only way to get the files onto your computer is to delete the source file then download it from the iCloud, but a lot of people are saying that's risky.
So, I just don't know what to do. Is there something I'm missing here that would offer me a better solution? I wish Amazon would just start offering better quality audio files, that would solve everything.
Note: I'm aware I could just store my music ON my Android phone and tablet, but 1) that would take a lot of manual work and upkeep and 2) I wouldn't have enough space on my tablet for my entire library (or on the phone without buying a 32GB microSDHC card). So, I really don't want to go that route.

AAC is a more modern codec than MP3 and thanks to advances is able to be more efficient at compressing audio than MP3. This means that at the same bit rate e.g. 256Kbps AAC will retain more of the original quality than MP3 at the same bit rate. Most of the articles I have seen say that roughly a 256Kbps AAC file would be equivalent in quality to a 320Kbps MP3 file meaning the AAC file is up to 25% more efficient.
You could if you wish rip CDs at 320Kbps AAC and that in theory would sound even better compared to a 320Kbps MP3 file. However for most people listening on a portable media player (aka. iPod) with standard earphones you would not be able to tell. In a home playing through your HiFi speakers then you might be able to tell the difference.
By the way, it is now possible to rip all your CDs in Apple Lossless format meaning it is exactly the same quality as the original CD, and still have iTunes automatically convert to AAC when copying to your iPod/iPhone. This way you get full CD quality in your home, but use a smaller slightly lower quality file on your iPod/iPhone.

Converting mp4 files to mp3 files

could someone tell me how to convert mp4 files into mp3 files? thanks

Now this is clear.
You didn't have an .mp4 file or even a .m4a file. Yours is .m4p.
The "p" stands for protected.
The rules say you can burn your .m4p files to CD. The CD file will be in .aiff format.
Drag the .aiff file into iTunes and then "convert" (using the options in your preferences for bit rate and extension).

Converting m4a files to mp3, or joining m4a files

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