Protected AAC Files and Traktor

[Play]

OSX 10.4 and Traktor FS 2.0.3

Traktor crashes when I attempt to import from iTunes. After talking with tech support they say to move all the protected AACs (that I downloaded from iTunes music store) meaning, "dont use them." Well, I have a lot of these files, all of which I want to use in FS2. I bought FS2 so I could quit burning CDs and of course play totally on decks. Now it looks I will have to still burn all of these files as audio cds and reimport as mp3. Well I tried using the LAME encoder but am getting mp3s that have no audio!

Does anyone have a work-around?

[shawn@sharpdjs.net]

There's a program called JHymn that will convert all of your m4p's (protected iTunes songs) to mp3 or m4a. Personally I htink that the m4a is higher quality but it will let you convert to either format. I dont have the web address for the program but it is a free download. And just to cover all the legal stuff, it is to be used in conjunction with the iTunes Licsencing agreement. (In other words, don't rip them to mp3s and then give them away) I hope this helps.

[Play]

I knew something like that had to be out there! I just want to be able to play music I purchased without having to take days off of work to get it there! I wont share my music, so I never look for it for free.

Thanks.

[djsteve]

In case you haven't found it yet, here is the address for JHymn:

http://hymn-project.org/

I definitely recommend "scrubbing" to m4a (AAC files) rather than converting to mp3. This maintains the original sound file and simply strips the DRM. A conversion to mp3 involves a second stage of lossy compression (iTMS files have already been compressed once to AAC) which can cause noticeable sound degradation.

-djsteve

[Play]

I actually already converted to mp3 at 320 kbs. However, I did back up my original protected AAC files, so I could redo it later as AAC. The reason I am waiting on doing them as AAC is because of the posts I read about noise at the beginning of AAC tracks in Traktor. I guess NI is working on an update to cure that. So I was waiting on that update. I did my first show with all my converted tracks this past weekend and I did sorta feel that some tracks sounded slightly scratchy, but thought it could be just me listening too closely, or my FS settings, as I have not yet tweaked it to the best performance. Our LJ said everything sounded fine to him... I dunno... Should there be a noticable difference, even if converted at 320kbs?

Thanks!

[romerom]

jhymn is the shizzle bizzle dizzle

[djsteve]

Play wrote: Should there be a noticable difference, even if converted at 320kbs?

You should be OK with 320kbps MP3, since it is such a high bitrate - I doubt you'll hear any added artifacts. You are paying the price in disk space, though, since you are doubling the filesize as compared to the originals. Good call on archiving your original protected AAC files. This lets you re-scrub to AAC when NI gets their problems fixed, and (more importantly) protects your iTMS investment - Apple has in the past and probably will again in the future be able to detect "scrubbed" files and render them unplayable. At that point your only recourse is to wait for a newer version of JHymn to be released and then start over from the original files.

It would be nice if NI would finally fix their noise problems with AAC files...

-djsteve