83. Import (or "Rip") an Audio CD  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 30 Configure Networking Manually
 SEE ALSO 82 Purchase Music from the iTunes Music Store 85 Create (or Burn) a Custom Audio CD
iTunes exists to help you build your music collection through legitimate purchase of music. Buying it from the iTunes Music Store is rapidly becoming the preferred means of getting more music, but untold numbers of CDs are still sold every year, and you undoubtedly have a lot of CDs that you would like to import into your iTunes music Library for use as flexible digital audio. The process of importing digital music from an audio CD is popularly known as ripping . To rip a song from a CD, iTunes must copy the uncompressed CD Digital Audio (CDDA) data from the disc, convert the audio stream to the compressed MP3 or AAC format, apply the song names and other data to the new file's info tags, and add them to the iTunes Library . Before iTunes, this was usually a process that involved three or four laborious steps; now, however, it's usually a one-button operation. NOTE Before importing music from a CD, make sure you're connected to the Internet! It's possible to import successfully without an Internet connection; but if you do, the music tracks that you import will not have any titles or other useful organizing information embedded in them, and you will have to enter the track names and artist information manually. If you have an Internet connection, however, iTunes will usually be able to download this information automatically from the central database.
KEY TERMS Ripping Creating new MP3 or AAC audio files for use in iTunes by copying them in raw form from a CD and compressing them. CD Digital Audio (CDDA) The raw, uncompressed digital audio format in which music is stored on audio CDs.
| 1. | Insert a CD Find the CD from which you want to import music and insert it into your Mac's CD drive. Wait for it to spin up and mount, a process that could take up to 20 seconds. 83. Import (or "Rip") an Audio CD  | | 2. | Wait for the Track Listing to Download If you're connected to the Internet, iTunes will query the centralized CD track database at http://www.cddb.com. If the CD is found there, iTunes downloads the track names, album title, artist name , and other information, and applies them to the tracks that appear in the iTunes window when the CD is selected in the Source pane. If you're not connected to the Internet, or if it's a rare CD that isn't in the database, the CD's tracks will appear with generic names ( Track 1, Track 2 , and so on). You will have to change these names yourself, either before or after importing, by clicking in the field showing the name and typing the correct title. TIP After the CD has been mounted and the track information downloaded, the CD appears in the Source pane at the left side of the iTunes window. Select the album and click the Play button to play audio tracks from the CD directly or double-click the CD to open its track listing in a separate window. This separate track listing can be helpful if you want to work in the main iTunes window and listen to your existing music while you import the CD's songs in the background. | | 3. | Make Necessary Edits to Track Names Although the track information from the central CD database is usually accurate (it contains information for nearly every CD ever produced), there is always the possibility of typos and other errorsafter all, the information is provided by millions of volunteers like you, who are only human. Check the track names for spelling errors and inconsistencies; to edit any field, simply click it and edit it as you would a filename in the Finder. You can edit the fields after importing, of course, but it's better to fix the information before importing so that Mac OS X will remember the CD's information as accurately as possible in the future. WEB RESOURCE http://www.allmusic.com The All Music Guide website contains comprehensive information on virtually all music albums ever released, including reviews, ratings, and album art images. This site can be an invaluable reference for determining accurate track names, release dates, and songwriting credits. If you were unable to connect to the Internet, you can manually enter the track names here as well. To enter the artist and album name for all the tracks at once, select them all (press  ) and then open the Info dialog box with  ). Enter as much common information as you want and click OK . Use as many of the info tags as possible in your song files. Click a song and select Get Info from the File menu to see all the available fields you can set. The more fields you fill in, the better you will be able to organize your music. If you have a multiple-CD set, the query that iTunes makes to the cddb.com database might assign album names with suffixes such as (Disc 1) or (1/3) . Consider removing these suffixes (so that all the discs share the exact same album name), and instead use the Disc Number field to define which tracks belong to which discs. This will allow iTunes to sort the tracks in the correct order, from the beginning of the first disc to the end of the last, while keeping your album list clean and organized. | | 4. | Import the CD Tracks
When you're satisfied with the appearance of the track data, click the Import button at the top-right corner of the iTunes window. The songs begin importing; depending on the speed of your computer, this can take anything from a tiny fraction of the time it would take to play back the CD in real time (1/20th of the time or less) to as much as one-fourth of the time. When the CD has finished importing, the songs appear in your Library listing.
If you only want to import certain songs, rather than the entire disc, use the check boxes next to the song names to select the songs you want to import. By default, all the check boxes are selected; deselect check boxes for individual songs to exclude them.
| | 5. | Add Album Art Album art can enhance your music enjoyment in many ways, from providing visual atmosphere when using the iTunes visualizer or listening to your iPod Photo, to letting you print mosaics made up of album art as jewel case inserts for custom mix CDs. iTunes allows you to insert as many pictures as you want into the info headers of your music files, opening the possibility for you to embed scans of complex album booklets full of lyric sheets and band information. NOTE Since album art pictures are actually embedded into the contents of your music files (and not maintained as separate attachments), the files will grow in size as you add pictures. Very high-resolution pictures (such as scanned lyric books) can increase your files' sizes significantly, though most picture files are only a small fraction of a music file's size . Music purchased from the iTunes Music Store comes with images of the album art already embedded in every track; but if you rip your music from CDs, there won't be any album art in the song files. You'll have to look up the album art pictures on the Internet and add them yourself. Fortunately, this is not difficult to do. First locate an image file of the album art you want to addusually a scan of the CD cover, which can be found at music information archives like the All Music Guide or fan sites for the artist or band in question. Save this file to your Desktop. Next, make sure the Album Art pane is visible in iTunes. Click the Show Album Art button if it is not. Drag the image file from where it is saved in the Finder into the Album Art pane in iTunes. The image is immediately added to the song and embedded in the file. Click the small "thumbnail" version of the picture to view it full-size in a separate window. | TIP An even quicker way to accomplish this step is to drag a picture directly from your web browser into the Album Art pane of iTunes; this skips having to save the picture to your Desktop at all.
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