HugoLarge

I know this topic is nothing new but it’s actually new to me. See, I’ve been a die-hard iTunes Store user ever since it’s debut in April of 2003. The first Apple product I ever bought was a second generation 10GB iPod that was purchased back in 2002. At that time, the only option for getting digital music was to either rip the CD you bought or to download MP3’s illegally off the internet from places like Limewire and Napster. Well those days changed when Apple opened it’s iTunes Music Store.

Back in the early 80’s I was a wanna be rock star. I used to play guitar and play in a cool local band. In those days you either bought the complete album, cassette tape or CD (mid-late 80’s) and you used to listen to the whole album, not just one or two songs. Fast forward to the present and now a lot of the music being produced is not worth buying the complete album. I know, I know, it goes against all I was back in the 80’s but it’s true.

So this is where iTunes shines, at least for me. I can launch iTunes, go to the iTunes Store and either search for the artist/group or view by genres and find some interesting music to download. No more buying the full CD for only a few (at most ) songs that are really worth the purchase. And for only $.99 per song, how can you go wrong?

Last month I made a purchase from Amazon that qualified me for a five dollar credit to the Amazon MP3 Store. That was cool I thought but I’ve never shopped for music on Amazon. I knew they had a download manager that plugs right into iTunes, or at least sticks the downloaded file into your iTunes library for you. But again, I’ve never used it. So now I had no excuse, I’ve got a five dollar Amazon MP3 credit. It’s off to the store.

Obviously, the interface is a lot different than what I’m used to in iTunes. There are similarities like the list of genres and the ability to do a search for a particular song or artist. Spending a few minutes on the site will have you finding music in no time.

For me, one of the most used features of iTunes is the top 100 songs per genre. Amazon has a similar feature but you don’t get the easy to use interface of iTunes where you can preview each song in the list without having to leave the list. That is a big negative for me.

Another feature I use all the time in iTunes is the ability to place music into the shopping cart before the purchase. By doing this I can go back through my cart to make sure I want everything in there. Also, the cart will add up all the tunes and allow me to purchase all with one click unlike Amazon where it seems you can only purchase only one song at a time. At least that’s what I’ve experienced so far.

So although there are some major differences in the two interfaces, the Amazon MP3 Store and downloader are easy to use. The Amazon MP3 downloader integrates well with the Safari browser and automatically places the purchased music into your iTunes Library.

Another feature of the Amazon store is that the actual files are in either variable bit rate or non-variable bit rate mp3’s encoded at 256Kbps and are DRM free; which is nice compared to the protected AAC files from iTunes.

Not only are the Amazon files higher quality and DRM free, they cost less than iTunes. The Amazon MP3 downloads cost from $.79 – $.99 where as iTunes are set at a $.99 flat rate.

Personally, I like that there is an option when it comes to legal downloading of music from the internet. However, for me, I will most likely stick with iTunes since I typically purchase more than ten songs at a time and the one click purchase make that easy. But for the occasional one or two downloads, I may consider using Amazon since the price is right and the files are DRM free.

So if you haven’t given Amazon MP3 a try, you should do so. With it’s downloader, lower price and DRM free music it’s hard to beat. If Amazon is not your thing and iTunes is, your not missing much.

In this How To I’ll show you a method of removing the DRM protection from purchased music from the iTunes music store. I have not tried this on any other DRM protected media but I don’t see why it would not work.

In order to remove the DRM protection from purchased music in iTunes you will need iMovie HD 6, which is a free download on the Apple web site. Once you have iMovie HD 6 installed on your system, follow these steps to remove the DRM:

1. Open iMovie HD and create a new project. The project name can be what ever you’d like since the project can be deleted once the process is complete.

2. Select the Media tab in iMovie and then click on your iTunes Library in the Audio browser window at the top of the interface. You can search for the song to make it easier to find.

3. Once you’ve found the song you want to convert, drag it to the audio time-line at the bottom.

4. iMovie will now import the file.

5. After the import is complete you need to add an image to the time-line or else the project will not export. To do this click the Photos tab above the media browser and select an image from either iPhoto or Aperture. The photo does not matter as it’s only used to allow the project to export. Disregard the Ken Burns Effect pallet as it will go away once the photo is rendered in the time-line.

6. Now the project is ready to be exported. To do this, click the Share menu and choose Quicktime. In the Compress movie for: drop down, select Expert Settings and then click the Share button. This will open the Save exported file as… window. From here you can choose where you’d like the exported file to be saved, I use the default Movies folder in my Home Folder. You’ll want to select the Export: drop down and choose Sound to AIFF as the export format. All other settings can be left at default. Then click Save and the project will save and compress the project.

7. At this point you can browse the Finder to the location you’ve saved the file and drag the .AIFF file into your iTunes Library.

8. Once the file is in your iTunes Library, you can change all the file info to match the Artist, song title, album and so forth. You can even drag the album art from the original file in iTunes out to your desktop and then drag the same file into the newly created DRM-Free file. You’ll also want to convert the new file to AAC by selecting the file and control-click or right click the file and choose Convert Selection to AAC in the context menu.

9. At this point the original song file has been stripped of it’s DRM and converted back to an audio AAC file that can used by GarageBand to create a ringtone for the iPhone.

Stay tuned for a How To on creating ringtones in GarageBand.

Disclaimer: The sole purpose of removing the DRM from purchased iTunes music in this How To is to allow the file to be used to create ringtones for the iPhone. These files are not being redistributed in any way.