Convert M4P to MP3

[ChristinaS]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

I can tell you a slightly better way....It's about as complex, but at least it doesn't use up a CD....

You will need a sound recording program like Sonic Foundry Sound Forge (that's what I used). Get it off Kazaa if you don't own it.

Start up iTunes and your sound recording program. Also, open the Windows Mixer by double-clicking the speaker icon in the system tray.

In the Mixer, click "Options" - "Properties"

Select the "Recording" radio button, then OK.

You should see a number of sliders with checkboxes at the bottom labeled "Select".

You want to select the slider that corresponds to your sound OUTPUT. On my PC, it is labeled "Stereo Mix". This basically tells your computer to get its recording stream from the stereo mix.

Close the Mixer.

Now, go to your sound recording program and start recording. Then, switch to iTunes and start playing whatever you want to record. When the song stops, stop your sound recorder. Now you can save it as whatever you want....without wasting a CD!!!!

Be sure to monitor your recording. You may need to adjust the recording level to get a good quality recording.....I usually do a sample run through by skipping the song around in iTunes and checking the recording level in Sound Forge before I actually record the whole song. Essentially, you want the meters as high as possible without "Clipping" (Sound Forge has a clip indicator light that makes this very simple).

If you find this helpful or run into problems, drop a line to tnwesel@mindspring.com and let me know!

Why can't you just use dMC Auxiliary Input for this? To my way of thinking it should work regardless of the source of the audio file and the particular player used to render it.

Set that up to save as wav or mp3 or whatever and hit Record and start playing from iTunes at the same time. Stop it when it's over.

[Unregistered]

How to strip iTunes DRM

Hi everyone. Here's a way to strip the digital rights management out of songs purchased from iTunes using Hymn (formerly Playfair).

http://www.engadget.com/entry/2127813034623335/

The windows version is currently a command line interface, so you have to use the command prompt (Start > Run...). But it's not at all hard. It's a one-line command. You basically just type "hymn songtitle.m4p" where songtitle is the filename of the song you want to convert, and hit enter and voila! You can list multiple songs and do a bunch at once. It takes about 1 second. The only trick I found is that your filename can't have spaces in it or it doesn't work. I think that's just a feature of working with stuff in a command line setting. I don't know. I know nothing about DOS and I was able to get it to work on my second try. I just copied my m4p file, renamed it, and then converted it. Then I just renamed the new converted version back to the original title. Hooray! DRM gone, just like that.

You end up with an m4a file, not m4p, which I guess is still AAC format, with no loss of sound quality. All the id3 tags and cover art and stuff are preserved and you can still play it in your iTunes. And you can now play it on any device that plays AAC. You can actually make the program assign your converted files different file extensions. I tried to make mine into an mp3, and it did create an mp3, but it wouldn't play. When I tried, it said something like "this file has an extension that does not match it's file type, and it may not play." So I just did it the normal (m4a) way after that. But I'm happy just to have a non-protected AAC file. That was really the only thing keeping me from buying from iTunes (well, that and the fact that you can only get 128k quality). That stupid DRM shit is too restrictive. You can end up owning a file you can't even play. Just think of it, an illegal program is what has caused me to stop downloading illegally! Oh, the sad irony.

As for converting your m4a to another format, it looks like that's what the rest of this thread is about. I haven't read it thoroughly.

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

Hey disregard what I said above about m4a being the same as AAC. As it happens, I don't know what I'm talking about. I've since read more on this site about the different formats and it sounds like they're different. My point was just that m4a is still something that plays in iTunes like any m4p.

[Unregistered]

Re: How to strip iTunes DRM

Thanks!!! I used this and it worked the first time. After converting the songs from m4p format to mp4 using hymn I then used dbpoweramp's free converter (downloadable at http://www.dbpoweramp.com) to convert to mp3. My songs now play in winamp!!!

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

This works brilliantly. Genius. Thank you for your efforts and clarity.

I can tell you a slightly better way....It's about as complex, but at least it doesn't use up a CD....

You will need a sound recording program like Sonic Foundry Sound Forge (that's what I used). Get it off Kazaa if you don't own it.

Start up iTunes and your sound recording program. Also, open the Windows Mixer by double-clicking the speaker icon in the system tray.

In the Mixer, click "Options" - "Properties"

Select the "Recording" radio button, then OK.

You should see a number of sliders with checkboxes at the bottom labeled "Select".

You want to select the slider that corresponds to your sound OUTPUT. On my PC, it is labeled "Stereo Mix". This basically tells your computer to get its recording stream from the stereo mix.

Close the Mixer.

Now, go to your sound recording program and start recording. Then, switch to iTunes and start playing whatever you want to record. When the song stops, stop your sound recorder. Now you can save it as whatever you want....without wasting a CD!!!!

Be sure to monitor your recording. You may need to adjust the recording level to get a good quality recording.....I usually do a sample run through by skipping the song around in iTunes and checking the recording level in Sound Forge before I actually record the whole song. Essentially, you want the meters as high as possible without "Clipping" (Sound Forge has a clip indicator light that makes this very simple).

If you find this helpful or run into problems, drop a line to tnwesel@mindspring.com and let me know!

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=137828

You can play in staight in winamp with this apparently though i haven't used it


If you'd rather convert to an mp3:

http://hymn-project.org/download.php?dl=dlwin

download this program to allow you to convert the m4p to an m4a (unprotected)

to make this as spelled out ass possible, unzip it to the C:\hymn directory

then copy the mp4 files you want to convert to C:\hymn


open a MS dos command prompt window start>>accessories>>command prompt

type:

C:/>
C:/> cd hymn
C:/> hymn thenameofthefileiwantoconvert.mp4

the m4awill appear in the hymn directory

YOu should be able to paly it in winamp if you have an m4a plugin

http://www.rarewares.org/files/aac/in_mp4.zip (an mp4 play in winamp plugin)

Then install this program if you need an mp3 encoder for wimamp

http://mukoli.free.fr/out_lame/out_lame.binf_v161.exe

[polymorph]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

to get the batch processing using hymn.exe - simple: select all the song you need to convert and drap and drop on hymn.exe - just works sweet!!!

- enjoy

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

Ha ha ha, yay! Sweet, cheers!!! Spent ages trying to use total record, but the drivers caused weird echo effect, hymn works so much easier. I can finally put my Itune songs on my mp3 player!

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

I found this thread extremely usefull. To make things really simple. Icopy the hymn.exe file to the directory wher the music is then just drag and drop the files onto hymn.exe. The conversion the m4a is done in the background.After that is complete use dbPowerAmp to convert to m4a to mp3.


Very easy and quick. Easier than burning a CD and quicker. 15 Tracks took 9 minutes.

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

Brilliant. Worked on the first try. I have been recording iTunes output through CoolEdit. This is SO much easier. I just put hymn in the directory with *copies* (overly cautious) of the purchased tunes and drag them onto it to lose the restrictions. Now I wonder if there is an AAC player for Linux. ...off to check... Cheers!

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

To convert M4P to mp3 follow the link to this website. It works great.

http://www.gates-of-hell.com/Tutorials/m4p%20to%20mp3.asp

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

All of this is way too complicated. Just write the m4p to a CD and then import all the tracks to your music library with Realplayer - which will automatically save them as mp3 although it'll get the names of the tracks completely wrong!

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

I tried to do it this way. Itunes recoginized the CD, but I could not import as MP3 file. I did delelet the orginal library and move the original M4p files. What did I do wrong?

I did it the long way. I agree, I paid for it, I should be able to edit it, play it on my PalmPilot, etc. Damn them and their eternal paranoia.

This is what I did.
- use iTunes to create a playlist of the m4p files
- burn a CD of those files
- move or delete the original m4p files
- import the CD

You should be able to use mp3 or WAV or whatever you want. Good luck.

[Unregistered]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

I just tried it with Real Player. Still a no go. What am I doing wrong

I tried to do it this way. Itunes recoginized the CD, but I could not import as MP3 file. I did delelet the orginal library and move the original M4p files. What did I do wrong?

[proFeign]

Re: Convert M4P to MP3

Here:
http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthre...newpost&t=4004

Hey, I don't want to write the vbs script, and I guess my familiarity with DOS isn't as hot as it once was. Can you tell me the correct syntax for HYMN?

Here's what I did and it doesn't work. I put the test m4p (with no spaces in the filename) in the c:\hymn folder... here's what my command prompt looks like:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\hymn>hymn -h
USAGE:
hymn [-v] [-l n] [-x ext] <file1> [ [file2] ... [fileN] ] [destdir]
-l n set logging level to 'n' (0-5, default=1)
0 supress log messages
1 log warnings
2 log informational messages
3 log debug information
4 log program flow
5 log everything
-x ext use 'ext' as the file extension for output files
-v display hymn version information
hymn [-h]
-h this help message

C:\hymn>dir
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is CC8D-2B6A

Directory of C:\hymn

07/30/2004 04:43 PM <DIR> .
07/30/2004 04:43 PM <DIR> ..
07/29/2004 05:19 PM 2,847,875 a2g.m4p
07/28/2004 03:28 PM 627 AUTHORS
07/28/2004 03:28 PM 18,052 COPYING
07/29/2004 05:46 PM <DIR> doc
07/28/2004 03:28 PM 925,751 hymn.exe
07/28/2004 03:28 PM 1,164 INSTALL
07/28/2004 03:28 PM 858 NEWS
07/28/2004 03:28 PM 1,614 README
07/28/2004 03:28 PM 299 THANKS
8 File(s) 3,796,240 bytes
3 Dir(s) 269,327,675,392 bytes free

C:\hymn>hymn -x .unk c:\hymn\a2g.m4p c:\hymn\
Couldn't open file: (null)

C:\hymn>