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Purchasing music from Apple

8 years ago

I have been using iTunes on my Windows computer for years now, but only have music which I own, as a CD or a vinyl LP which I have digitized. I now want to download some music from Apple, but don't know how to do that. I tried logging onto my iCloud account, but still cannot access anything to purchase.

Another question: once I pay for and download the file, what format will it be in? Will I be able to put it on a CD and/or copy it to another computer? What is the quality of this kind of download?

Featured Answer

Elmer J Fudd

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

You can rip directly to ALAC (Apple Lossless) in one step, if using iTunes to rip CDs. There's no need to use WAV as an intermediary step. WAV often makes tagging the files awkward too because the basic WAV file standard doesn't allow for metadata (tags). If ripping directly to ALAC, iTunes will usually find and add the tag info to each file. That's very useful. Other programs that are very useful for ripping CDs are Foobar and EAC (Exact Audio Copy), the latter especially so for people who are neurotic about rip accuracy. For cleaning up tags, I like MP3 Tag (though I'm not sure if it works on ALAC files, it does work on MP3s and FLACs). All mentioned are free programs.

If you play your music on other than Apple equipment, you might want to consider the FLAC lossless file format. Completely equivalent to ALAC in its losslessness and the ability to back up and be reconstituted in a bit perfect way to WAV or other format it came from but it's in the public domain. It will forever be compatible with the rest of the audio world. Apple could decide to pull the plug on ALAC and some might get stuck.

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Comments (7)

Elmer J Fudd
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Start iTunes and then click on iTunes Store to get to where you buy music. There you can buy albums or songs and they will download to the folder specified in the "Settings" section of the iTunes program. To change the location, or if you don't know where it is, depending on the iTunes version you have, it's somewhere like "Edit, Preferences, Advanced", or some flavor of that. Or, buy one track and then search for it.

iTunes downloads are usually in AAC format, which is Apple's equivalent of MP3. Usually in the 256 kbps choice, which is lossy/compressed and sub-CD quality. Most non-Apple devices will play AAC files but not all, sometimes files need to be converted. Apple devices will play MP3s as well as its own AAC type files.

The files are not copy protected and they can be moved to devices of any kind (phones, players, other PCs, CDs) as you wish.

Amazon also sells music files, usually of the same quality as iTunes but in MP3 format.
mtvhike
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks, Elmer. I don't want to purchase AAC or MP3 format files. When I rip the CDs I own, I use WAV, then convert them to Apple Lossless (which appears in Windows as M4A), and seems to be better quality than AAC.
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Transferring music files off a CD is called "ripping". This can be done to use your PC as a music repository (like a jukebox) or as an intermediate step for music to be transferred to a portable player or smartphone. Many programs do this and most can add album metadata (called 'tags") to the files by accessing online music data sources. Any one of the following popular programs will fill the bill: Windows Media Player, Itunes, EAC (Exact Audio Copy). They all do about the same thing, people typically prefer one over another based on the user interfaces. All are free and easy to use.
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LL, 95% of my music is in mp3 format and some are left in the reg, they all play when they are in itunes folder. You don't have to convert them I did because I put them on an IPod and because I would burn them to a cd for the car and I could get 22 songs on the CD instead of 10 or 12. I convert them to MP3 by using Roxio, but other software will do it also. I make a playlist in Itunes...under file, "new",name it, then copy and past the songs from my music folders to the playlists in ITunes. It may take some practice. I have a playlist for my favorite songs. When I hear one I really like, I copy and paste it in favorites. It will then be in my favorites and in songs. If I had it to do over I would copy and paste them straight to the playlist and they automatically goes to "songs". I had a lot of duplicates leaning how to do this. If I want to listen to one particular singer or all songs I click on the right option and I set the controls to random. You can delete any songs from the playlists. It will ask "from the computer or just the folder". I would suggest when you get this set up like you want it back the music folders so you don't have to do this all again. If you buy a new computer and need to install Itunes again it will/should install with your folders just like they were. Aren't computers wonderful? I don't travel any more and don't need an ipod so I bought a radio with an ipod dock and can listen to a thousand songs in random if I want. The radio is a Memorex and sounds as good as my Bose. Very nice. I love music, I call it therapy for the soul. My taste in music has changed over the years, I love some of all music.
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Steve J
8 years ago
Ditto what Elmer says

Mtv, unfortunately iTunes does not yet offer lossless audio, only lossy aac. The itunes store is geared to people that listen to their music on their idevices speakers and earbuds, and its compressed to save space on your devices. For lossless audio, you need to use a site that offers it, such as https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php, but the catalogs will not be nearly as big as an itunes store, and they will normally come as flac files that you need to convert to alac if using on an apple device. I so wish Apple would get their heads out of their rears on this and offer FLAC support like everyone else. SMH.
mtvhike
Original Author
8 years ago
Actually, I don't plan to put this music on an Apple device, just my home computer. I would probably burn it onto a CD (or, I could just buy the CD if one is available)! I was searching for a particular piece of classical music, and got a link to Apple music. They wanted $9.99 for the piece, which is about the same price as the CD from Amazon.
Steve J
8 years ago
Going to assume you use iTunes to play your music then? If so, they use the same format as apple devices, (ALAC, not FLAC). If you're not using iTunes, then i wouldn't convert them to ALAC as it's Apple's proprietary format. Use fLAC instead.
Elmer J Fudd
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
If ripping to ALAC is the only choice (as with iTunes), converting the resulting files to FLAC is easy. Foobar will do it. It's a lossless conversion.

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