How to Change the Quality Settings When Importing a CD into iTunes

Your iTunes library is the gathering place for all of your music. You can download songs from the iTunes store. You can also import music from CDs that you own. For an advanced user, it can be helpful to occasionally manipulate the settings for importing a CD into iTunes. When you add a song to your iTunes library, it takes up space on your hard drive. As a rule of thumb, the larger the file size, the greater the quality of the sound.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computer with iTunes
• Attached CD-RW drive (or DVD-RW drive)

1. 
   View of iTunes library

   Open your iTunes application. On a Mac, it's accessed through your dock. On a PC, it's accessed through the icon on your desktop or from the Start menu.

2. 
   iTunes preferences box

   Check your current settings for importing a CD. From the iTunes navigation bar, select "Edit" then "Preferences." Click the "Advanced" tab and then the "Importing" tab.

3. Choose to save your songs in the WAV format if you have an extremely large amount of space on your hard drive. WAV files are generally quite large. This is also a good choice if you will be listening to your music on a computer that does not have the capabilities of playing MP3s. Generally, it takes about 10MB to save 1 minute of music in this format.

4. 
   Import with MP3 encoder

   Choose to save your songs in the MP3 format for an even balance of size and quality. This is also a good choice if you will be listening to most of your music on an MP3 player or on your computer. This type of file generally takes up 1MB of space per minute of music (when selecting the highest quality setting for an MP3 import).

5. Choose AAC Encoder for a quality that rivals MP3 sound. You would also like this format if you will be listening to most of your music on your iPod. This is the default setting for Mac computers. At about a size of 1MB per minute of music, it's a high-quality setting.

6. Choose AIFF for undiluted, high-quality tracks. This file will generally take up a lot of space. This is fine if you are a music guru, but you can generally get by with a different setting (such as MP3) that gives you comparable sound without giving up a lot of space on your hard drive.

7. Choose Apple Lossless Encoder for a format that only works with iTunes, and then, only with the support of QuickTime. If you will be playing your songs on an MP3 player that is not an Apple product, this will not work.

Resources

• Digital Music Superguide