Music to SD card for Apple Mac Users

[StewartK]

There have been lots of posts about getting your music from iTunes onto a SD card to play in the Bolero in the Yeti but they have mainly focussed on Windows users (unless I've missed some posts).

As an Apple Mac user with an 8GB SD card lying around I thought I'd have a go at transferring music from iTunes to the card to play in the Bolero. The Bolero will play only mp3 and wma? files and of course all my iTunes songs are encoded as .m4a files. I tried a couple of programs I found on download.com before coming across Music Man http://download.cnet.com/mac/rippers-converting-software/3150-2140_4-0-2.html?tag=page;page

This is a 15-day demo version of the software but I figured I would only use it a couple of times. After you've installed it click on "Demo" on the start screen. It will convert m4a files to mp3 and copy playlists to the SD card you are using. From the main screen you can choose to convert the whole library of playlists, I thought I would try it out with the "On the Go" playlist that I think iTunes creates by default. I chose to convert and then copy straight to the SD card which might have been a mistake, it was certainly a mistake choosing "On the Go" . I set it off and went away as I reckoned it would take a while. Three hours later it was still converting and copy songs beginning with E (doing it alphabetically). I looked at the playlist in iTunes, Oh my gawd, 2132 songs.

When I got up this morning it had finished and I had 8k of free space on the 8GB SD card and 2132 songs. Stuck the SD card in the Bolero in the Yeti and it worked, hit the mix button and that worked too. Most of my music is now on the SD card so I don't need to mess around anymore unless I want to setup some playlists. Obviously I can't choose artists or albums as it's just one big alphabetical list but I like to play my music on shuffle so this suits me.

Stewart

[Macdemon]

There have been lots of posts about getting your music from iTunes onto a SD card to play in the Bolero in the Yeti but they have mainly focussed on Windows users (unless I've missed some posts).

As an Apple Mac user with an 8GB SD card lying around I thought I'd have a go at transferring music from iTunes to the card to play in the Bolero. The Bolero will play only mp3 and wma? files and of course all my iTunes songs are encoded as .m4a files. I tried a couple of programs I found on download.com before coming across Music Man http://download.cnet.com/mac/rippers-converting-software/3150-2140_4-0-2.html?tag=page;page

This is a 15-day demo version of the software but I figured I would only use it a couple of times. After you've installed it click on "Demo" on the start screen. It will convert m4a files to mp3 and copy playlists to the SD card you are using. From the main screen you can choose to convert the whole library of playlists, I thought I would try it out with the "On the Go" playlist that I think iTunes creates by default. I chose to convert and then copy straight to the SD card which might have been a mistake, it was certainly a mistake choosing "On the Go" . I set it off and went away as I reckoned it would take a while. Three hours later it was still converting and copy songs beginning with E (doing it alphabetically). I looked at the playlist in iTunes, Oh my gawd, 2132 songs.

When I got up this morning it had finished and I had 8k of free space on the 8GB SD card and 2132 songs. Stuck the SD card in the Bolero in the Yeti and it worked, hit the mix button and that worked too. Most of my music is now on the SD card so I don't need to mess around anymore unless I want to setup some playlists. Obviously I can't choose artists or albums as it's just one big alphabetical list but I like to play my music on shuffle so this suits me.

Stewart

Hi Stewart, as an iMac user and owner myself I can help :yes:

All you have to do is find the tracks you want on the SD card and 'right click' then choose 'create Mp3' as per my screenprint. As you can see, I'm a secret Genesis fan

It worked for me

[StewartK]

Hi Stewart, as an iMac user and owner myself I can help :yes:

All you have to do is find the tracks you want on the SD card and 'right click' then choose 'create Mp3' as per my screenprint. As you can see, I'm a secret Genesis fan

It worked for me

Hi Mac,

My boat is called Genesis We don't know whether it's named after the band or the other thing. I would'nt mind it being named after the band if it were the Peter Gabriel era Genesis. :p

My iTunes offers to "create aac version" which is why I was looking for an alternative method of converting to mp3 other than iTunes. A dig in iTunes, Preferences, General,Import settings showed that if I changed import settings to mp3 then right clicking a song gave me the option to create an mp3 version. Seems a bit strange that changing import settings alters what format you can create a copy in but there you go. Anyway Music Man did the job with a few clicks so I don't need to use iTunes. Thanx anyway.

Stewart

[sdenny]

Hi Mac,

My boat is called Genesis We don't know whether it's named after the band or the other thing. I would'nt mind it being named after the band if it were the Peter Gabriel era Genesis. :p

My iTunes offers to "create aac version" which is why I was looking for an alternative method of converting to mp3 other than iTunes. A dig in iTunes, Preferences, General,Import settings showed that if I changed import settings to mp3 then right clicking a song gave me the option to create an mp3 version. Seems a bit strange that changing import settings alters what format you can create a copy in but there you go. Anyway Music Man did the job with a few clicks so I don't need to use iTunes. Thanx anyway.

Stewart

Look at the preferences, and change the cd import to mp3. You'll then get the create MP3 rather than create AAC

[rockhopper]

Look at the preferences, and change the cd import to mp3. You'll then get the create MP3 rather than create AAC

Unless they are protected tracks, then you will have to get some software to remove the protecton first.

Mike

[Jock]

As an ex-Genesis roadie (Gabriel era) and now iMac / MacBook user, I tend to use .mp3 as my standard format (my wife has a Creative Zen), so I can simply select tracks or albums, burn then and stick them in the Bolero, no problem at all.

I haven't tried the SD card option yet - all my SD cards have pictures on them - I really must get around to getting them into iPhoto.

[stuartm]

any idea why my tracks on my sd card don't show all the track info? e.g. the tracks show fine in my mac's itunes, but on the sd card my bolero only shows the track name?

[rockhopper]

any idea why my tracks on my sd card don't show all the track info? e.g. the tracks show fine in my mac's itunes, but on the sd card my bolero only shows the track name?

How do you copy them to the SD card?

Mike

[Yetiman140]

How do you copy them to the SD card?

Mike

Mike

The easiest way I have found to copy Itunes files to SD is to simply drag them to the SD card as a drive. But your files need to be MP3s which the ITunes sofware will easily convert if you tell it to (set your Preferences to record as MP3 if you intend to play files on your Bolero off your SD card regularly). Save your recorded albums as Tracklists (File option) - they appear down the left hand side of the ITunes screen display. Easiest to use the column presentation on your iMac and find ITunes Media/Music which should show all your ITunes Tracklists (sometimes grouped under artist). Stick the card in the slot on the side of the iMac and it comes up as a drive. Simply grab the files from the ITunes list and drag them to the SD card drive until it goes blue (selected) and drop them. You will then see the file loading onto the SD drive. One thing to be aware of is that the folder structure you are using on your Mac is used when copying onto the SD card. This can result in no file being apparent on your Bolero screen but step through the folder levels using the up arrow (cranked arrow at top left of screen) and you should be able to find your files. I get album names and track names and most duration times. Hope this helps.

[rockhopper]

Thanks Yetiman.

I just copy the files direct from the iTunes music folder and drop them into the SD card. That way I don't have my iTunes files structure. I then organise them on my SD card in the folders etc I want them in.

Mike

[900000]

As an Apple Mac user with an 8GB SD card lying around I thought I'd have a go at transferring music from iTunes to the card to play in the Bolero. The Bolero will play only mp3 and wma? files and of course all my iTunes songs are encoded as .m4a files. I tried a couple of programs I found on download.com before coming across Music Man http://download.cnet...l?tag=page;page

Thanks for this. I got the software but on opening the Readme file it says it cannot convert DRM protected iTunes files. So back to square one for me since most all my iTunes files are in fact bought from iTunes in the bad old days of DRM. My latest files are fine though since they sensibly removed the DRM now.

[rockhopper]

Thanks for this. I got the software but on opening the Readme file it says it cannot convert DRM protected iTunes files. So back to square one for me since most all my iTunes files are in fact bought from iTunes in the bad old days of DRM. My latest files are fine though since they sensibly removed the DRM now.

I found one, not free, called AppleMacSoft DRM Converter. Seemed to do the trick as I had the same problem.

Mike

[900000]

I found one, not free, called AppleMacSoft DRM Converter. Seemed to do the trick as I had the same problem.

Mike

Thanks Mike. I will look it up!

I'm not short of music. I have nearly 4000 MP3 tracks. But have thousands of new tracks that I want to listen to in the car!