Have your say & ask the experts

I'm looking into setting up a computer-based music source and have pretty much decided upon a MacBook + Cyrus DAC-X for my main system, with an Airport Express to serve a second system. I've decided that I'm going to use uncompressed AIFF rips of all my CDs, however this is going to make my library too big to fit on my ipod (160gb classic) and I'd only be able to fit a handful of albums on my iPhone.

So is it possible to create 2 iTunes libraries on the same computer - e.g. one for all my music ripped as AIFFs and another with everything ripped as say mp3 @ 256kbps.  Then I could use the main library for music replay at home and the second for syncing with my ipod. Or is there another solution to the problem that I'm missing?

Obviously what I'm trying to do is avoid having to selectively populate my ipod and retain a reasonable quantity on my iPhone, but quality of replay at home is of paramount importance.

How good would Apple lossless rips be in comparison to AIFF - I think if I had my entire library in Apple lossless it would still fit on my ipod, but I wouldn't be prepared to accept a reduction in quality when replayed through my main system. 

Any thoughts appreciated, thanks. 

daveh75:

Not sure about seperate libraries,but you could set up a "smart playlist" to only include tracks of a certain bitrate!

Thanks Dave, I guess that's sorts out syncing the ipod/phone if I duplicated the whole library in AIFF and mp3, but still a right faff to choose the right version of the album when listening at home.

To create a new Library in iTunes on the Mac, hold down the Option (or Alt) key as you load iTunes (Shift key on the PC) - you can then choose to setup a new Library. To switch between Libraries, close down iTunes and do the same.

As far as I know, there's no way of automatically populating one Library with lower bitrates from the other so easiest way would be to rip to a lossless format in one Library, then convert all of these to AAC or MP3 at whatever bitrate, export from first Library and import to the other new Library. Finally, delete the MP3 / AAC versions from the initial lossless Library.

professorhat:

To create a new Library in iTunes on the Mac, hold down the Option (or Alt) key as you load iTunes (Shift key on the PC) - you can then choose to setup a new Library. To switch between Libraries, close down iTunes and do the same.

As far as I know, there's no way of automatically populating one Library with lower bitrates from the other so easiest way would be to rip to a lossless format in one Library, then convert all of these to AAC or MP3 at whatever bitrate, export from first Library and import to the other new Library, Finally, delete the MP3 / AAC versions from the initial lossless Library.

 

Absolutely perfect! Thankyou Prof! 

You're welcome

professorhat:

To create a new Library in iTunes on the Mac, hold down the Option (or Alt) key as you load iTunes (Shift key on the PC) - you can then choose to setup a new Library. To switch between Libraries, close down iTunes and do the same.

As far as I know, there's no way of automatically populating one Library with lower bitrates from the other so easiest way would be to rip to a lossless format in one Library, then convert all of these to AAC or MP3 at whatever bitrate, export from first Library and import to the other new Library. Finally, delete the MP3 / AAC versions from the initial lossless Library.

 

Hi - As per my signature I'm up and running with my new kit (opted for a CA DAC Magic in the end rather than the Cyrus DAC X), and after many days of hard graft have got all my CDs imported in Apple Lossless format - everything sounds great.

Now I want to turn my attention to getting all my music on my iPhone.  As per the prof's advice above I can create another library, but does anyone know how to convert a duplicate my existing library into a different file format/bitrate (I hope it is possible, I'm not sure I can handle ripping everything again)?

What I'm ultimately looking to end up with is a second library which contains my whole collection as 128kbps MP3s which I will sync with my iPhone.

Any help greatly appreciated as always! 

professorhat:

As far as I know, there's no way of automatically populating one Library with lower bitrates from the other so easiest way would be to rip to a lossless format in one Library, then convert all of these to AAC or MP3 at whatever bitrate, export from first Library and import to the other new Library. Finally, delete the MP3 / AAC versions from the initial lossless Library.

 

this is the way i do it, just gets a bit annoying when you have to do it each time you rip some new cd's.  if anyone knows of a way of doing it automatically when ripping a cd, i'd love to hear it.

Dan Turner:

does anyone know how to convert a duplicate my existing library into a different file format/bitrate (I hope it is possible, I'm not sure I can handle ripping everything again)?

JohnDuncan:

Dan Turner:

does anyone know how to convert a duplicate my existing library into a different file format/bitrate (I hope it is possible, I'm not sure I can handle ripping everything again)?

Easy peasy. Change your CD import rate to 128k mp3 (or AAC), go back to your library, select the whole lot, right click and there will be an option 'Create MP3 Version' (or 'AAC version'). Do that, then follow prof's instructions for getting those into the new library.

Fabulous - I had got as far as selecting and right clicking, but only saw the option to create apple lossless version - makes sense now that the option presented is as per your selected import setting! Thanks JD! 

al7478:

Can two libraries be made on a PC too?

OK, I've successfully got to the point of creating an AAC copy of my lossless files.  The only issue is that when it does that, it creates those files in the same album grouping as the originals, and it's not possible to differentiate between the originals and the copies without right clicking and selecting 'get info' (and even if it was it would take an age to select them all individually to remove from the original library, move the files, and reimport them to the new library).

I realise that I may be missing something really obvious here, but does anyone know how to create an AAC copy of my entire lossless library in a different place, for easy import into the new library?  Or is the setting that I can make in the preferences of the new library (I have looked but cannot find) that will automatically convert imported files into AAC format? 

Sorry for being such an amateur!