How to convert iTunes to MP3

By Will Spencer via http://www.articlesnatch.com

You might have experienced being unable to play songs you bought from the iTunes Store without using your iPods. At times that can be really frustrating seeing that you bought the music and you feel like you have the right to listen to it using other players. The solution is to convert iTunes to MP3 format, which may not be as easy at it looks.

The trouble with the steps to convert iTunes to MP3 is due to the fact that the music you downloaded from the iTunes Store will be encrypted. This simply means that the music is protected from song duplication and piracy. These songs are classified as DRM protected, which simply means they could only be played a specific computer or type of media player.

It is also interesting to note that Apple continues to have a tight control over the encryption used in iTunes. It is safeguarded to the point that no other online music store can sell music with the same encryption. To the consumer, this simply means you can only get their music from them and play it on their player or software. However, if you are able to convert iTunes to MP3, which is a format that is open to all, then you can listen to the music you bought from them on a player of your own choosing.

The first method to convert iTunes to MP3 is safe and risk free, which is burning your music to a disk, while the second one, which entails using a music file conversion program, might become a bit messy.

If you opt to use a file converting program, you run the risk of corrupting your files. This may be the fastest and the easiest way to convert iTunes to MP3 but you run the risk of corrupting files. Your other option is to burn your songs to a disk then rip the songs from the disk to into MP3. You may use a burning software if that you like or that you're familiar with.

Popular CD burning software like Roxio or Nero can help you to convert iTunes to MP3. Grab a blank CD and put it in then burn the songs from iTunes into a regular CD format. Once all the songs have been burned into a CD, you now have your songs in open format. The next step to convert iTunes to MP3 using this method is to rip the music from off the CD into MP3.

You might think that this procedure is either laborious or time consuming since it will take some time to burn your songs into a CD. Another thing you should think about is the fact that you can fit 18 songs at the most to one CD. This will mean that if you want to convert more songs, you will have to do the same steps over and over.

If ever you don't want to use a third-party burning software then you can just use the CD burning feature in iTunes. This is an alternative method to convert iTunes to MP3 without using another software. Before you start burning your music, you should set iTunes to burn using your CD burner. Select your CD burner on the preferences menu.

Those who don't have a CD burner on their computer will have to use a virtual burner software like TuneClone or NoteBurner. All you have to do to convert iTunes to MP3 is to create a new playlist in iTunes, which includes all the songs you want to convert. After making your playlist then burn your music to a disk in iTunes. If you used a virtual burner, obviously you don't have to rip the music since it's already on your hard drive.

These are your options if you want to convert your iTunes music into open music formats like MP3. Some of your options are a bit risky while other options are safe but sometimes are time consuming.

M4P converter - convert M4P to MP3 WAV WMA

Are you annoyed by iTunes DRM? Do you want to remove it because you want to play the iTunes music on non-Apple MP3 players like PSP, Zune, Creative Zen, BlackBerry, PS3, iriver, Walkman, mobile phone MP3 player, etc, use it as background music in a home video, or anything else that DRM limits it to do? Many people know you can remove the DRM from iTunes music by simply burning the song to a CD, and ripping it back over, losing very little quality (if settings are correct):

1. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive.
2. Burn your playlist to make an audio CD. You cannot select the "MP3 CD" option since it requires the DRM protected iTunes music files be converted to unprotected MP3, WMA or WAV files.
3. After the audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes to import the music tracks on the burned disc as MP3, WMA or WAV files.

And the method I am going to introduce does the same exact thing but you will not need a CD-RW disc, a CD ROM drive, or even need to burn anything! It's that simple. Let's show you how to perform this.

We are going to be using a program called TuneClone M4P Converter. TuneClone M4P Converter is basically a program that acts as a virtual CD drive that allows you "burn" MP3 from iTunes and "rip" it. TuneClone "lies" to your computer saying that you have a CD-RW drive that it will burn to (like Alchohol 120%). You can use this to move your library of M4P DRM protected music to the MP3 format that you can use on any player out there worth its salt. This is a useful tool for anyone looking to break their relationship with the iPod. The best part is that it maintains all of the music file's metadata. Below is the step by step tutorial that shows how it works:

1. Create a new playlist in iTunes.


2. Add the protected songs to your playlist. Since iTunes burns the protected music with TuneClone virtual CD drive, there is no limit as to music length so long as you have enough hard drive space.


3. Launch TuneClone M4P Converter. Click the "Settings" tab. In the pop-up window, you can specify output folder, output file name format, output format (WMA, MP3, WAV), etc for the output files. Note: You can check whether TuneClone virtual CD drive is successfully installed and where it is installed in the bottom left corner of the interface.



4. In iTunes, click the "Burn Disc" button.


5. In the pop-up window of "Burn Settings", select "TuneClon Virtual_CD-RW" from the "CD Burner" drop-down list, click the radio button next to "Audio CD" and tick "Include CD Text" option. Click "Burn" to start burning.



6. Upon the completion of burning the disc and encoding the music, you can open the TuneClone manager screen to show all the converted music files. To locate the output folder, simply click the "Folder" tab on the interface.

iTunes M4P and Plus to PSP 3000

Apart from a great game player, the PSP-3000 is also a very good entertainment device which can be used for playing music. Suppose you've purchased a lot of songs from iTunes Store and are trying to figure out how to transfer them to your PSP-3000. You copy and paste the songs to the PSP music folder, however, the PSP doesn't recognize them as music at all. What's wrong? This article comes to the rescue! It is composed of the following parts:

Part 1. How to put iTunes DRM music to PSP-3000

As we know, the majority of music from iTunes Store goes DRM free (iTunes Plus). However, as long as you are not a new iTunes user, you are likely to have in your iTunes Library some songs which are DRM protected. You have to pay 30 cents per songs in order to upgrade them to DRM free. It's simple mathematics. For 500 songs to upgrade to DRM free, you need to pay USD150 = 500 X 0.3.

To save money, 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 MP3 music.

Or you can turn to some software for help. I always use TuneClone M4P to MP3 Converter to help me convert iTunes music to MP3, ready to transfer to my new PSP-3000. The steps are quite simple:



1. Download and install TuneClone M4P Converter.
2. In TuneClone, click the "Settings" button and choose "MP3" as the output format.
3. In iTunes, create a new playlist and add to it the iTunes music you are going to put onto your PSP.
4. Click "Burn Disc" button. In the pop-up dialog of "Burn Settings", select TuneClone virtual CD drive as the "CD Burner", choose "Audio CD" from the "Disc Format" checkboxes and tick "Include CD Text" option (to preserve music metadata).
5. Start burning.

Part 2. How to put iTunes DRM free (iTunes Plus) music to PSP-3000

To put iTunes Plus music to your PSP-3000, launch your iTunes and then:

1. Click on "Edit -> Preferences...". From the "General" tab click on "Import Settings..." button.
2. Change the "Import Using" drop down box to "MP3 Encoder".
3. From the "Settings" drop down box select "Custom..." and choose a "Stereo Bit Rate" of "256Kbps".
4. Click "OK", "OK" and "OK".
5. Now find a file that you want to convert, right-click on it and select "Create MP3 Version" and an MP3 copy will be created.

Note: If you want to skip the trouble of converting AAC music to MP3 one by one, you can still use TuneClone M4P to MP3 Converter to help you transfer the iTunes Plus music to your PSP-3000. If you have both iTunes DRM music and iTunes Plus music in your Library, it is recommended that you get TuneClone to batch convert the music for your PSP.

How to move iTunes Library to Zune Software

You want to migrate from the iPod to the Zune but the main reason you haven't made that jump is because you have your iTunes library. I'm sure that's a very common reason for not coming over to the Zune world. (Ok, maybe not, but I'll maintain my delusion.) This is a serious issue though and if you do want to change platforms, then your only options are mostly time consuming and wasteful.

For instance, you can burn the protected M4P music files to CD-R or CD-RW disc to make an audio CD and then use some CD ripper software to convert the audio CD track back to Zune accepted MP3 or WMA. iTunes allows you to burn the protected music files to CD-R or CD-RW disc to make a standard audio CD:

1. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive.
2. Burn your playlist to make an audio CD. You cannot select the "MP3 CD" option since it requires the DRM protected iTunes music files be converted to unprotected MP3 or WMA files.
3. After the audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes to import the music tracks on the burned disc as MP3 or WMA files.

However, it would be a time consuming process if you have a big library of iTunes M4P music files ready to be converted to Zune MP3 or WMA. Moreover, the information about the M4P music files like title, artist and album will be lost after the burning and ripping process. So this method is not recommended if you have a big collection of iTunes M4P music files ready to be transferred to your Zune.

I've made a Google search for programs that can convert iTunes M4P music to Zune WMA or MP3, and TuneClone M4P Converter attracted my attention. The edge of TuneClone over other similar programs is that it applys the virtual CD burning technology to simulates the burning and ripping process.



You can use TuneClone M4P Converter to convert your library of M4P DRM protected music to the MP3 format that you can use on any player out there worth its salt. This is a useful tool for anyone looking to break their relationship with the iPod. This software does cost $34.95 to register but that price does give you what appears to be a full feature application. The best part is that it maintains all of the music file's metadata. Wordpress has a tutorial showing how to use TuneClone M4P Converter to get iTunes 8 music converted to MP3 format.

Convert iTunes M4P to WAV

In previous posts, I talked about how to convert iTunes DRM protected AAC (M4P) to MP3, convert DRM protected WMA to MP3 and convert Rhapsody/Napster music to iTunes with TuneClone. In this post, I will show you how to convert iTunes M4P to WAV with TuneClone M4P Converter.

It is very easy to complete the burning (in iTunes 8 ) and encoding (in TuneClone) process. You only need to choose TuneClone virtual CD drive as the CD burner in iTunes. The best three parts are:

1. well preserves the ID3 tags information;
2. works great for batch converting iTunes playlist;
3. no need for real discs.

The only difference from converting iTunes M4P to MP3 lies in that, when you make settings in TuneClone, you need to choose "WAV" from the "Output Format" options.

How to convert iTunes Plus to MP3?

The other day Apple announced that it was making about 80% of the iTunes store DRM free, with the remaining 20% to follow shortly. DRM-free iTunes means that in theory you should be able move your music to other computers and devices easily...

But... iTunes Plus DRM-free music comes in .m4a format which is based on the MPEG-4 part 14 standard. Problem is, far more devices don't recognize what to do with .m4a than do (and its video sibling, .m4v). MP3 is a far more popular format.

So, can you convert .m4a files into.mp3 files? Yes you can, and you can do it all from within iTunes (iTunes 8)! Here's how:

1. Click on Edit -> Preferences.... From the General tab click on Import Settings... button.



2. Change the Import Using drop down box to MP3 Encoder.

3. From the Settings drop down box select Custom... and choose a Stereo Bit Rate of 256Kbps.



4. Click OK, OK and OK.

5. Now find a file that you want to convert, right-click on it and select Create MP3 Version and an MP3 copy will be created.

Note that you'll have now both versions of the song in your library, so you’ll have to do a little housekeeping.

Note that if you want to upgrade your previously purchased iTunes tracks to DRM free, you need to pay 30 cents per song. You can't pick and choose which tracks to upgrade. Start by going to the iTunes Store home page, and clicking on "Upgrade My Library" under the "Quick Links" heading. Once there, you'll see a list of all the songs and albums that are available for upgrading, with a price next to each. But the important number to look at is the price next to the buy button, since that's how much it'll cost to upgrade your library.

So if have an extensive music collection with many songs (i.e. 500 songs) purchased from iTunes and wanted to get them freed from DRM protection, you will have to pay USD150 for the upgrade. And in order to listen to them with your MP3 player or mobile phone music player, you still need a further step - convert the AAC music to MP3 one by one (as the steps show above). It not only messes your iTunes library up but also costs you a great deal of time and money. Therefore, if you really want to play the previously purchased music tracks from iTunes Store with MP3 players or mobile phone music players, you just need to get TuneClone Audio Converter to help to remove the iTunes DRM protection and convert the iTunes music to the popular MP3 format. Also, if you get iTunes Plus DRM-free music files and want to play them with the MP3 players or mobile phone music players incompatible with Apple AAC format, you can still use TuneClone to turn them into MP3 format, saving the time to create MP3 version for the songs one by one.

Transfer iTunes Library to Zune

If you have moved from Apple iPod to Microsoft Zune, you probably have some songs that you purchased from the iTunes Music Store that you would like to move to the new device. You will run into a hurdle if you try to transfer the files directly as Apple's copy protection prevents the song from playing on another device. There is a workaround to this however...

1. Create a new playlist in iTunes.


2. Add the protected songs to your playlist until you have 72 minutes of music.


3. Click the "Burn Disc" button.


4. Click the radio button next to "Audio CD" and tick "Include CD Text" option.


5. Upon completion of burning the disc, rip the songs to MP3 using Windows Media Player.


6. Open the Zune software and sync the newly created MP3's to your Zune device.

Alternatively, you can use TuneClone Audio Converter. It automatically generates a virtual CD-ROM drive during the installation. The virtual CD drive tricks your PC into believing that you are burning a CD. Therefore, the DRM protection is removed without wasting a CD and the speed is very fast. Below are the steps:

1. Create a new playlist in iTunes.


2. Add the protected songs to your playlist. Since iTunes burns the protected music with TuneClone virtual CD drive, there is no limit as to music length so long as you have enough hard drive space.


3. Launch TuneClone. Click the "Settings" tab. In the pop-up window, you can specify output folder, output file name format, output format (Here we can choose MP3 or WMA since Zune accepts MP3 and WMA music), etc. for the output files. Note: You can check whether TuneClone virtual CD drive is successfully installed and where it is installed in the bottom left corner of the interface.



4. In iTunes, click the "Burn Disc" button.


5. In the pop-up window of "Burn Settings", select "TuneClon Virtual_CD-RW" from the "CD Burner" drop-down list, click the radio button next to "Audio CD" and tick "Include CD Text" option. Click "Burn" to start burning.



6. Upon the completion of burning the disc and encoding the music, you can open the TuneClone manager screen to show all the converted music files. To locate the output folder, simply click the "Folder" tab on the interface.


7. Open the Zune software and sync the music in the output folder to your Zune device.

Done.