Converting songs to AIFF
 

I just bought two songs on CD and am having trouble converting them to AIFF to import into FCP. Any suggestions?

I tried converting them to AAC in itunes but that still doesn't seem to work.

Thank you for your help.
Dan

Get Roxio Toast.

Did you go to preference, click advanced, and change to import using AIFF encoder?

If you have FCP, you have a Mac. You can import CD audio into iTunes as .wav files after you change iTunes import preferences to .wav files. FCP recognizes .wav files.

Regards,

Ty Ford

iTunes
 

I ran into this problem when I first started using FCP, but the solution is real simple. I usually import all my music as AAC files (although it doesn't make a difference how you import them), and then I go to the preferences and depending on which version of iTunes you have either click on "Import" or "Advanced" (and then click the "Importing" tab). Then in the pull down menu labeled "Import Using" click on AIFF. Close preferences and click the song or songs you want to convert, and then either control click or go to advnaced on the menu bar and click convert to AIFF. You could probably import them originally as AIFF files, but I've never done that. The files are put in the Music folder on the startup disk and I generally copy the AIFF files into a project folder for the video I'm working on and then delete the AIFF version from iTunes. However, that is certainly not necessary. Hope this helps.

If you've got a mac (FCP is mac only, so I guess you do) and osx, you can simply drag the files from the cd to the desktop and it will extract them as aiffs automatically. This is how I rip cds now, just drag n drop.

There are two free-ware programs to assist:

For Audio capture (analaog + digital; internal + external), you might want to look at: Audio Hijack.

For Audio Editing, you might want to look at: Audacity. Audacity allows for format conversions.

Nice, small, simple programs for quick tasks.

rj

bummer- chris beat me to it. i was chuckling at all of the advice. double click the disc, drag the files to your hard drive.

now, if you need it to be 48khz, which is preferable if you're working in a dv seuence in fcp, then do what min lee says and set your itunes prefs to import into aiff. then, for the "setting" popup, switch from "automatic" to "custom."
sample rate:48 khz
sample size: 16 bit
channels: stereo

if you leave it at automatic (or just drag and drop,) you'll get 44.1khz aiffs which will go into fcp fine, but you'll probably need to render multi-track sections where the cd music is coinciding with dv (48khz) audio. if you get everything into 16 bit 48khz first, you'll be able to layer many tracks of sound and get realtime playback on a decent system.

sound to aiff
 

if you have a Mac , go to iTunes preferences and set the file format to Aiff. then controle cliuck the songs who's format you wish to change and bingo its done.