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Help: Managing Apple Music Files

What is the best practices for the following scenario:

I have backed up my lossless Apple music files from a dedicated external 1GB Hard Drive (dedicated HD) to another 1GB HD (backup HD).

I now want to import music to my laptop PC from the back up HD but want to compress the files (to 256 or 320kbps AAC??).

What compression do you think I should use? These files will be used to import music to my Iphone and other Ipods since I use my laptop to manage my Iphone syncs. I have around 600 GB of losslees music on my HD's but only want to use 100 gigs or less on my laptop and will filter out about one fourth of these files in the transfer (600GB minus 150GB= 450GB to compress and transfer). I will also listen to these files on my laptop while traveling etc...

What is the best way to do this? I was told that I would need to compress these files while still on the the back up HD and then import the compressed files to my laptop. Then erase the compressed files and go back and back up the loss less files from the dedicated HD.

By the way, I am using Carbon Copy Cloner to manage back ups and Mac Drive 8 to enable the PC laptop to manage the MAC formatting of my hard drives… are these the best software for these tasks?

Thanks, Doug
128x128lokie
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Use MAX. It can translate any format to any format - and it is free. It works on Mac only. I believe that you can run it in batch mode since I was able to convert a lot of files from FLAC to ALAC by selecting all of them, right click and "Open with .. Max".

I' also using Carbon Copy and it works great so far.
erikminer
433 posts
 
Or xld
lokie's avatar
lokie OP
528 posts
 
Is xld pc compatable? It seems to me that would take multiple steps out of my process.

If I use Max I would need to erase the back up (on the back up HD)and then, utilizing Max, download on the back up HD the compressed targeted files and then move that to the PC and then erase those files and back up the dedicated hard drive again.

Do I have this right?
mozartrules
42 posts
 
This is really simple. Import all the full resolution files to your laptop making sure that the the settings are such that you don't copy on import (last tab). This is relatively fast

You then select all the tracks in iTunes and ask it to convert to your desired format. This will take a long time (hours) at the end of which you will have two copies of each track with different bitrate.

Add bitrate to the column selection and remove all the 1441kbps entries (this will not remove the files since you didn't copy them in the first place).

I do all this on a single computer for both ripped DVDs and music by using two login IDs (so they have different iTunes setup). You may decide to do this on your desktop even if the final destination is the laptop if your desktop is significantly faster than the laptop.
lokie's avatar
lokie OP
528 posts
 
Mozartrules- "Import all the full resolution files to your laptop"

I don't have that much space on my laptop. I need to compress it before it hits my laptop.
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