Review on TuneClone Audio Converter

There is an in-depth review of TuneClone Audio Converter software. The author gives an average score of 4.5 out of 5.



So what do you think of this review? Is it fair and honest? Now let's take a look at the highlights of this review:

iTunes has invaded pretty much all musical use on the computer anymore, people who don't really know much about computers hear about iTunes and assume that's what they're supposed to use for their music on their computers. Case in point, a friend of mine does not own an iPod, but yet he and his girlfriend used iTunes to transfer all of his music over to his computer and it's kinda stuck there now. Well he'll be the first to admit that he really doesn't know much about computers at all, so seeing as iTunes was so popular that's what they decided to use for his music, of course they didn't ask me anything at all. They transferred over many, many songs, and of course his mp3 player, a Sandisk, can't play them so he was stuck with what to do next. So he called me for help, mind you though, most of his music isn't copy protected/copy righted etc, he's actually a world renowned Waltz or Ballroom Dance instructor, so he's got tons of music he uses for that kind of stuff, and once they spent the hours to put it in his computer via iTunes he was basically stuck, it was either re-do it all through another program, buy an iPod or figure out another way to get his music to his Sandisk player converted to Mp3 format.

So there are a few free versions out there that will help my friend out, but I needed something that was easy to use, very easy to use and I found TuneClone, which is very easy to use so that's what I've got for review today. TuneClone is a program to convert you iTunes or other music services music over to mp3 format, quickly and easily. It essentially creates a virtual CDRW drive on your computer and virtually burns the CD from the main program, iTunes of other and then TuneClone automatically rips it to mp3 format for you, so in a few easy steps you've got music that is easily transferred and played on any device.

Tech Specs, Features or the Basic Info:

Note: The information in this part is from TuneClone homepage, so please go to http://www.tuneclone.com/index.php to get to know about tech specs, features and basic info of TuneClone Audio Converter.

Installation, Testing and Comparison:

TuneClone is a download, so there are no box shots etc, just download and install, very easy to do.



There's really not much to do on the end user part of this program, most is done automatically. Load up TuneClone and hit the 'Open Media Player' button and your iTunes or whatever will open for you. If you wish you can change the output directory, and other settings like bitrates etc, but for most the default settings are fine.

To use TuneClone you just burn a CD with your program, I'm using iTunes of course, you just have to make sure the destination drive is the TuneClone virtual CD, other than that there's nothing else to change really.

As soon as you hit burn, your CD will start to burn virtually and then TuneClone goes to work converting the files to MP3 format for you automatically.

That's it, there's really nothing much more to it, very easy to use for even someone who doesn't know much about computers.

Summary and Comments:

TuneClone is a great way to free your music from one of the music services out there, it works well, it works fast and it's very easy to use.

DragonSteelMods gives TuneClone Audio Converter Software a 4.5 out of 5 score.

Pros:

-Easy use
-Fast
-Works well

Cons:

-Expensive

The full review is available at http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10186&Itemid=38

How to play iTunes protected AAC (M4P) music on PS3?

"Can I play iTunes (that I have stored on my computer) on my PS3? I know I can't just hook up my iPod to it or stream from my PC. I read something about transferring music to USB and then put that flash drive in the PS3, will this work? I want to play my iTunes on my home theater but I have no other way than to play it through my PS3. I have a yamaha 5990 receiver and it is not iPod compatible. Any options here? Thanks in advance."

As the music in iTunes is encrypted with DRM, you cannot directly transfer it to your PS3. The easiest way is to burn the music to an audio CD and then rip it back to Windows Media Player or a similar program as an MP3.

Or you can get some software to help you. TuneClone is a pretty good program to get the iTunes protected AAC (M4P) music burned to MP3.



And this page demonstrates how to remove DRM from iTunes music and convert iTunes DRM protected AAC (M4P) music to MP3 for Sony PlayStation 3(PS3) using these two methods:

1. Burn an audio CD and rip it back to MP3
2. TuneClone

And below is the tutorial page:
http://www.tuneclone.com/how-to-import-itunes-music-to-playstation3.php

So now you can listen to iTunes music while playing games with your PS3.

How to convert protected WMA to MP3 for iPod

"The majority of my albums are in my Windows Media Player and I would like to transfer those albums to my iPod. Now I don't know how to. All I know is that WMA is not compatible with Apple iPod. So how do I rescue my songs? I tried to use limewire to download free music but it is a mess."
If you meet the same problem, you got the right place! The following tutorial details how to put both protected and unprotected WMA (Windows Media Audio) music files to iPod.

If the WMA files you are going to play on your iPod is unprotected, you just select and drag them into iTunes Library and they should be automatically converted to whatever iPod format you selected in iTunes preferences for importing.

If they are WMA files protected by DRM, it is not that easy. You need to use some software to strip the DRM off your WMA files and then convert the WMA files to the much more widely-supported MP3 format.
Note: As with any transcoding, the quality will go down. But if you've got a lot of protected WMA files you'd like to get on your iPod, this solution would do the trick.

In this tutorial, I'd like to show how to remove DRM from WMA files and convert the WMA files to MP3 format using TuneClone Audio Converter. Let’s take a look at how it performs:

1. Settings at TuneClone



Download TuneClone (fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista) and install it. After launching TuneClone, click the Settings button. In the pop-up dialog of Options, you can specify the Output Folder, Output Filenames, Output Format (here we choose MP3), etc. for the output files.
Tip: You can get the output protection removed MP3 music folder by clicking the Folder button after the whole process.

2. Burning at Windows Media Player(WMP 11)

Create a new playlist and drag into it the WMA files you are going to enjoy on your iPod. After that, click the Burn button and select Audio CD from the drop-down list. On the right panel of CD Drive, click Next Drive to locate the CD drive to TuneClone's Virtual CD Burner.



Note: If you are unsure whether TuneClone's Virtual CD burner is successfully installed or where it is installed, please refer to the bottom left corner of TuneClone:



Then, drag the playlist you created just now to the Burn List and click the Start Burn button to start burning the playlist. While the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the WMA playlist to MP3 files. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.
Note: If you get the output files formatted as 01-1.mp3, 01-2.mp3, etc., please click the output MP3 songs in the manager screen and drag the counterpart original WMA songs to the Track Info panel of TuneClone one by one. The information about the artist, album, title, etc. will be changed accordingly. It would be a time-consuming process if you are burning a big collection of music. However, since Windows Media Player 11 doesn't support CD-text burning, this seems to be the only way to get the information back.



After you get the output MP3 files converted from the WMA playlist in your Windows Media Player, you can now begin to transfer the MP3 files to your iPod with the sync of iTunes.

How to Convert iTunes 8 M4P to MP3

More than two months ago, I wrote a tutorial entitled How to Convert iTunes M4P to MP3. In that post, I introduced the way to convert iTunes M4P (protected AAC) music to MP3: using TuneClone. With the release of Apple genius iTunes 8, this way of converting iTunes M4P (protected AAC) music to MP3 with TuneClone isn't applicable, as there's some difference between iTunes 8 and its previous version. So, I'd like to post the step by step tutorial about how to convert iTunes 8 protected AAC or say M4P music to MP3 with TuneClone below:

1. Download TuneClone from http://www.tuneclone.com/tuneclone_setup.exe and install it.

TuneClone is fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. A virtual CD burner will be installed. This virtual CD-RW will be used to convert music files.

2. Make settings in TuneClone



Click the "Settings" button at TuneClone. In the pop-up window, you can specify the "output folder", "output filenames", "output format", etc. for the output files.

Note: Apart from MP3, TuneClone also allows you to convert iTunes M4P to WAV and unprotected WMA.
Tip: You can get the output protection removed music folder by clicking the "Folder" button after the whole process.

3. Make settings at iTunes

Create a playlist, and then add the files you want to convert into the playlist.



After you have created the playlist ready to be burnt, click the "Burn Disc" in the bottom right of iTunes.

In the pop up window of "Burn Settings", make the settings as highlighted below:



4. Start to burn

Click the "Burn" button to start burning.

After the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the music file to MP3, WMA or WAV. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.



The most important step is to choose the CD burner. Then the software can convert the music files automatically. It is exceedingly easy when you want to batch convert lots of files.

Remove iTunes DRM on Windows & Mac

There are many ways to remove DRM protection from iTunes music. On Windows OS, you can remove the DRM from iTunes music using the burn-and-rip method or you can turn to programs like TuneClone and DoubleTwist. On Mac OS X, iMovie is the perfect solution to removing DRM from iTunes music. Besides, freewares like FairGame is also a pretty good choice. So this article is dedicated to introducing several methods of removing the nasty DRM from iTunes music on Windows and Mac OS X. It is divided into the following four parts:

Part 1. Remove DRM from iTunes music on Windows with burn-and-rip method
Part 2. Remove DRM from iTunes music on Windows with TuneClone
Part 3. Remove DRM from iTunes music on Mac OS X with iMovie
Part 4. Remove DRM from iTunes music on Mac OS X with FairGame

Part 1. Remove DRM from iTunes music on Windows with burn-and-rip method

A. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive. You'd better use CD-RW disc as it can be used for more than once.
B. Burn your playlist to make an audio CD. You cannot select the "MP3 CD" option since it requires the protected music files be converted to unprotected MP3 files.
C. After the audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes or Windows Media Player to import the music tracks on the burned disc to MP3 files.

Part 2. Remove DRM from iTunes music on Windows with TuneClone

A. Download TuneClone from http://www.tuneclone.com/ and install it.

TuneClone is fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. A virtual CD burner will be installed. This virtual CD-RW will be used to convert music files.

B. Set the default CD burner to TuneClone virtual CD-RW at iTunes.

Click menu "Edit", select menu item "Preferences...", and then select "Advanced Tab". In order to keep the music information about artist, title, etc., the "Include CD Text" option should be checked.
Note: If you are using iTunes 8.0 or above, please skip to this guide about how to remove DRM from iTunes 8 music.



C. Create a playlist, and then add the files you want to convert into the playlist.

D. Click "Burn Disc" button at the bottom right of the main screen of iTunes.

While the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the music file to MP3, WMA or WAV. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.

The most important step is to choose the cd burner. Then the software can convert the music files automatically. It is exceedingly easy when you want to batch convert lots of files.

Part 3. Remove DRM from iTunes music on Mac OS X with iMovie



In the iMovie window, select the 'Media' tab located between 'Themes' and 'Editing'. You will notice that the top right portion of the interface now offers a media browser. Select the 'Audio' tab and locate the playlist which contains purchased music, or search by artist/title.





Select the DRM-laden song and drag the file from the media browser into the iMovie timeline where it says "Drag audio here to build your project."



In order to export the song, iMovie requires that a visual image be associated with the audio track - iMovie thinks that it is going to be exporting a movie. Simply drag a blank image (or any other image) to the track above the previously imported audio file. Once iMovie has processed the image, select the 'Share…' sub menu item from found inside 'Share' in iMovie's menu bar.



Ensure that 'Expert Settings' is selected in the "Compress movie for:" drop-down menu. Selecting 'Expert Settings' mode will provide the options to export the file as an audio file. Select the 'Share' button.

In the Save as… dialogue, select "Sound to AIFF" in the Export drop-down menu, Choose an appropriate directory for iMovie to export to, title the file, and select 'Save'. Depending on your machine configuration, iMovie will compress and export the movie project as an audio file in 15-40 seconds.



Locate the exported AIFF audio file and drag to your iTunes Library. Right-click on the file and select "Convert Selection to AAC". Once completed, 'Get Info' on the new file, edit meta data, add album art, and trash the originally purchased and AIFF audio files from your iTunes library.

Part 4. Remove DRM from iTunes music on Mac OS X with FairGame

FairGame is freeware to remove DRM protection from iTunes music on Mac OS X. It will convert the DRMed songs you bought on the iTunes Store to an unprotected format (using iTunes default encoder) and keep all the original metadata, lyrics and artwork. FairGame doesn't do lossless DRM stripping. It re-encodes protected AAC files purchased in iTMS into unprotected AAC file using Apple's iMovie software.



What you MUST DO (only once) to get FairGame to work:

• Enable "Access for assistive devices" in the "Universal Access" system preference


• Select "Place clip in Movie Timeline" in the "Import" preference of iMovie HD

Then you can simply:

• Select some songs in iTunes


• Click on the "Process songs" button

Don't touch anything and wait until it's done...(FairGame is scripting iMovie's interface to process the songs, don't interfere)

TuneClone V1.20 Free Download

TuneClone V1.20 was released on September 3, 2008!



TuneClone V1.20 is a powerful DRM cracker and music converter for unlocking iTunes DRMed M4P music and protected WMA music and converting M4P, M4A, M4B, WMA to MP3, WAV and unprotected WMA.

TuneClone V1.20 allows you to remove DRM protection from purchased music files by applying the virtual CD burning technology. It strips the DRM from protected iTunes M4P or protected WMA so as to help you enjoy DRM-laden music on media players or MP3 players like Microsoft Zune, Sony PSP, BlackBerry, Creative Zen, iriver, SanDisk Sansa, Sony Walkman, Cell Phone (Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia N-series, Samsung Anycall, LG, etc.) Pocket PC, PDA and so on.

TuneClone V1.20 also lets you virtually burn music files with media player software like iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WinAMP, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.

Key features of TuneClone V1.20: http://www.tuneclone.com/

1. TuneClone V1.20 is easy to install and easy to use via a simple user interface.

2. TuneClone V1.20 converts DRM protected music to MP3, WAV and unprotected WMA at very high speed with very nice CD quality.

3. TuneClone V1.20 easily and quickly removes DRM from purchased music files by applying the virtual CD burning technology. Compared with using real CD-R or CD-RW disc, the virtual CD burning uses the maximum writing speed so that your music files can be converted at a very high speed.

4. TuneClone V1.20 supports converting protected music for playback on all kinds of music players like Zune, PSP, BlackBerry, Creative Zen, iriver, Walkman, etc.

5. TuneClone V1.20 enables you to virtually burn music files with iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WinAMP, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.

6. TuneClone V1.20 is specially designed for batch converting large song collections.

7. TuneClone V1.20 well preserves ID3 tags for artist, album, title names, artworks, etc.

8. With TuneClone V1.20, the converted songs will have no DRM restriction any more.

Availability

More information about TuneClone V1.20 is available at http://www.tuneclone.com. You can free download TuneClone V1.20 via http://www.tuneclone.com/tuneclone_setup.exe for a try. The full version of TuneClone V1.20 costs USD 34.95. If you have questions about or show interest in TuneClone V1.20, please feel free to contact its support team via support@tuneclone.com

How to Transfer iTunes M4P to BlackBerry Storm

One of the great new features I am starting to enjoy on my BlackBerry Storm is the ability for it to play multimedia files and specifically audio (music).

And below are the formats supported by BlackBerry Storm:

Video format support: MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.264, WMV
Audio format support: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WMA ProPlus

However, I bet there are not a few people who'd like to enjoy music songs from iTunes on their BlackBerry Storm. What frustrates them most is the fact that the iTunes tracks they purchased or downloaded from iTunes Store are in a "protected" AAC or M4P audio format and they are unable to play them beyond iTunes environment. The DRM-ed iTunes music songs are not recognized by BlackBerry Storm at all.

Don't give up, anyway! The posts I previously wrote How to convert iTunes M4P to MP3 with TuneClone and How to Convert iTunes M4P to MP3 are right there helping you to get rid of the headache. You can choose either the burn-and-rip method or that of using TuneClone Audio Converter elaborated in the posts.

After you get the output MP3 files (actually you can also output M4P to WAV), you can now begin to transfer them to your BlackBerry Storm:

1. Connect your Blackberry to you computer via the USB cable.
2. If you have properly enabled your Blackberry as a Mass Storage Device, your Blackberry's microSD card will show as a removable drive on your computer. For this guide, it happens to be on "Removable Disk" G:. Double-Click.
3. Double-click on the Blackberry folder
4. Double-click on the music folder
5. The folder should be empty.
6. Copy your music files to your Blackberry. Depending on the size, transfer time may vary.
7. Disconnect your Blackberry from the USB cable and go to the Multimedia icon on you Blackberry. You need to disconnect when you use the Mass Storage device method as it disables direct access from the Blackberry when connected to the PC via the USB cable.
8. Click on the Music icon.
9. Click on the Media Card folder
10. Select your Music folder
11. Select your Song
12. Play your music and enjoy!

Done.