Starting from scratch, again

[jdbj]

Recently my hard drive crashed and since I wasn't backing up my data I lost all of my music which I kept in iTunes. So when I loaded a new version of iTunes I went to sync it with my iPOD and it asked me if I was sure, I said yes, and whamo - all 400 songs disappeared from my iPOD. A trip to Apple and they said, sorry but the software is set up that way to prevent people taking their iPOD to different iTunes to get music. So I got burned by Apple and am looking for alternatives.

So I came across the dbpowerAMP software and forum and it is amazing how much I didn't know. So since I am having to start from scatch again I am looking for some recommendations.

What I want to do is copy my music from my CDs or music stores onto my PC. I want to be able to load music onto my iPOD and my phone (which has a mp3 player) and create CDs to play in my car, CD players, etc.

From what I have gathered from reading the forums it would be a safe bet to convert the music to AAC/mp4 at 128kps. That conversion should work and sound good for iPOD, phone, CD players, etc. I understand that I can use different encoders for lossless and then convert down from them providing I have enough hard drive space.

So I bought the converter to rip my music. With Sveta I can manage my music for my iPOD. I would also need to get the CD writer to burn CDs from my PC.

Is my assumption correct? Does anyone have any suggestions?

[LtData]

Re: Starting from scratch, again

Sounds about right. Do note that Sveta cannot transfer files to your phone, but it can convert them so that you can transfer them using a different program. dMC will convert to lossless and then you can freely convert those files to a lossy format.

Note that the iPod doesn't want true AAC files, but AAC files in a mp4 container. The bottom codec on the mp4 page (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-mp4.htm) does this function.

Also, remember that codecs for formats other than mp3 and WAV must be downloaded separately.

[Spoon]

Re: Starting from scratch, again

A better bet is to Rip all your music to a lossless format (such as Monkeys Audio) and setup sveta to convert to m4a (aac) when uploading the files 'on the fly'. This way if something goes wrong you have the file already ripped.

Plus 128kbps mught be a little too low, 160kbps would be much better.