Getting your music into iTunes

There are 3 main ways of adding music to an iTunes library; purchased downloads from the iTunes Music Store, ripping CDs directly into iTunes, and importing files that are already on your hard drive into your library.

Files from the iTunes Music Store can not be decoded by Scratch Live, so we'll focus on the latter two.

Setting up iTunes to import

The iTunes import settings panel

The default settings in iTunes are to encode AAC files, which at the time of writing aren't supported by Scratch Live. To change this, the encoding settings are under preferences, advanced, importing.

These settings would be a good start for new users:

Bitrate - 224 kps

VBR

Joint Stereo


Besides the encoder and it's settings, the other option which simplifies importing CDs is the second check box: "Automatically retrieve CD track names from internet". As long as your computer is connected to the internet, this option will fill in the basic track information when you insert a CD to rip, which can save a lot of time typing names into iTunes.

For more detailed information on encoding audio files, check out my article on encoding.

Ripping/encoding CDs

Once you have the encoding options set correctly, ripping and encoding in iTunes is a very simple process.

1) Insert the audio CD into your computer.

2) Retrieve the track names from the CDDB

3) Select the Audio CD in the source list

4) Click the import CD button


Once the import is complete, the tracks on the CD should now be files on your computer, usable both in iTunes and Scratch Live.

Adding files to iTunes

If you already have audio files on your system. Importing them into iTunes is easy.

You can either drag them in your library from the operating system, or use the import files dialogue in iTunes itself, which is in the file menu -> Import.