New in iTunes 10.6: Auto-Conversion of Music Files to Bit Rates Other than 128

iTunes 10.6 was released yesterday, and there’s one new feature which will, I think, please a number of the readers of this blog. As you may know, when you sync an iPod, you can have iTunes automatically convert your music files to a lower bit rate, so you can save space on a portable device. Previously, the only choice you had was 128 kbps. But iTunes 10.6 offers three choices: 128, 192 and 256 kbps:

This will certainly please those who have iTunes libraries with music in lossless format, who didn’t want to downsample their music to 128 kbps. The three options available are sufficient for all users; if you want more than 256 kbps, then you’ll just sync lossless files.

Note that this conversion can take a long time, so the first sync may take hours – especially if your iPod has a lot of storage – but subsequent syncs, if you’ve only updated a small amount of your library, will be much quicker.

What Is the Gapless Album Tag in iTunes For?

Following a comment from a Twitter friend, asking how to find which of a number of albums require gapless playback, I pointed him to an old article on this website. (I won’t link to it, as it was written in 2006, and addressed the problem of gapless playback on the iPod.) I realized that many people don’t understand what that Gapless Album tag is, so here’s a brief explanation.

If you select a number of tracks in iTunes, then choose Get Info, and click on the Options tab, you see this:

And if you choose a single track, you see this:

That tag at the bottom of the first screenshot, Gapless Album, or at the bottom of the second, Part of a Gapless Album (thanks for being consistent, Apple), has one, and only one usage. This tag only matters if you have Crossfade Song turned on in iTunes (Preferences > Playback), and it only affects playback from iTunes. All gapless albums are automatically detected and played as such on iPods and other iOS devices. You may even see iTunes “Determining Gapless Playback Information” when you add new files to your iTunes library; this is simply to find whether the music ends at the end of the file or not. (Not actually at the end, in fact; there’s a brief bit of silence no matter what, but it’s a set length, so if the silence is that length, iTunes knows to ignore it.)

So, unless you use Crossfade Songs, you never need to worry about this tag.

My New Gig: Editor of Mac OS X Hints

As of today, I am taking over as editor of Mac OS X Hints. This isn’t the first time I’ve been an editor on this site: over the years, I filled in for founder Rob Griffiths when he was on vacation, or when his children were born. The Mac OS X Hints website belongs to Macworld now, and has for several years, and as a senior contributor to Macworld, I’ll be working both on the Hints site itself, and providing hints to Macworld’s Mac OS X Hints blog.

So, I invite you to stop by the Mac OS X Hints website, and contribute your own tips and tricks to share with other Mac and iOS users.

Can You Really Tell the Difference Between Music at Different Bit Rates?

(Note: this article is written for Mac users. If you have Windows tools to recommend, please mention them in the comments.)

The bit rate debate regarding compressed music is one that will be around for a long time. Some people think that any compression of music files is anathema. Take Neil Young. He recently complained about the poor quality of digital music files, while greatly misunderstanding much of what is involved in compression. He claimed that only “5 percent of the data present in the original recording” is present in MP3 files, without specifying the bit rate used or the original sources, and without understanding that compression is more than just lopping off bits of the music. (Andy Doe, writing on the Naxos Blog, recently published an article, All About Bitrates, which explains how compression works. You should read this to understand some points that most people overlook.)

When you start ripping music, and decide what bit rate to use, you have several options. You could go for lossless, which compresses music around 40-60%. One advantage to this is that you can then re-convert the lossless files to a lower bit rate if you want, keeping the originals as archival copies. But lossless files take up much more space. While this isn’t an issue on computers – hard drives are huge these days – it is for portable devices like iPods or iPhones.

If you don’t use a lossless format, you have to decide which format to use (AAC or MP3), and what bit rate. For a long time, Apple sold music at 128 kbps at the iTunes Store. It is now 256k, which is roughly what Amazon uses (their music is in VBR, or variable bit rate, so it is not exactly 256k). This is an excellent compromise between space and quality. But you might want to go even lower. What’s important is to find the point at which you cannot hear the difference between an original file and a compressed file, and stay above that bit rate.

To do this, you need to perform what is called blind ABX testing. You are presented with music and don’t know which bit rate you are hearing, and you must choose whether you think it is compressed or not. While this test takes a bit of time – you need to rip tracks at different bit rates, then test yourself, one pair of tracks at a time – the results can be interesting.

To start with, find several songs or tracks that you know very well. It’s best to use familiar music, because you will be able to hear more of the differences (if any) because of your familiarity with the melodies, arrangements, etc. I’d recommend not ripping full albums for this test, but rather individual songs or tracks from different albums.

Rip these tracks from CD in lossless format. In iTunes, go to Preferences > General, then click on Import Settings. Choose Lossless Encoder from the Import Using menu.

Next, add the tracks you have ripped in lossless format and to a playlist. Select them all and press Command-I, then enter an album name, such as Lossless Tracks. You’ll want this later to be able to find them.

Back in iTunes’ Import Settings preferences, change to the AAC Encoder, and set the bit rate at 64 kbps. Yes, I did say 64 kbps; you want something that is low enough so that you are guaranteed to hear the difference. As above, create a playlist, then tag all these tracks in an album 64 kbps Tracks.

Go to the Mac App Store and download the free ABXTester. This application lets you choose two tracks, then listen five times to a random selection of those tracks, and choose the one you think is better.

Click on Select A. Navigate to your Lossless Tracks album, and select a track. Click on Select B, navigate to your 64 kbps album and select a track. You know that the first track is lossless, and that the second severely compressed.

The next step is to try five tests, listening to tracks selected at random, and choose whether you think each track is A or B; in other words, which is the better sounding track. For example, when you listen to the first track at X1, if you think it’s the lossless track, click on A; if not, click on B. At the end, click on Check answer, and see how well you did.

I suggested starting with 64 kbps tracks so you can hear a difference. The next step is to find at which point you can no longer hear that difference; at which point your results are no better than random (2 or 3 correct, or a score of 40 or 60%). Rip the same tracks at several other bit rates: I suggest you use 128, 256 and 320. If you do too many, the test will take too long. Label each group of tracks. You can now either go to the next level, 128 kbps, for track B, and go through the tests, or you can start from the other end, at 320 kbps, and work your way down. No matter what, I think you will be surprised.

A couple of notes. First, make sure you do this test on the stereo equipment or headphones you use to listen to music. You might find that, if you try this out on a friend’s Really Good Stereo that you might hear a difference. If you don’t plan to buy the same Really Good Stereo, don’t bother testing on it. If not, you won’t hear a difference; I guarantee it.

Of course, this begs the question: if you don’t have good stereo equipment or headphones, is it worth using a higher bit rate? On the other hand, if you plan to upgrade your stereo or headphones, you might want to plan ahead and do this test on better equipment to see if it’s worth ripping your music now at a bit rate higher than where you can currently hear a difference.

Second, if you want to compare high-resolution files, make sure you open Audio MIDI Setup (in the /Applications/Utilities folder), and set the sample rate to the highest possible setting. Otherwise, you won’t hear the full resolution of these files.

I’d be interested to hear your results. Feel free to post them in the comments. If you can really hear a difference between a lossless file and a high-bit-rate compressed file, please also post what kind of stereo equipment or headphones you are using.

iTunes Match and Duplicates: Beware of Missing Tracks

If you use iTunes Match, when iTunes scans your library to match your music, it will find some that it can match, some that it must upload, but it also may find “duplicates.” Apple defines the Duplicate icon as:

This icon is displayed when a duplicate version of this song exists in your iTunes library on your computer. This icon will be displayed next to duplicates that were not uploaded to iCloud.

Apple’s description of this isn’t clear, and I hadn’t encountered any duplicates yet. I did this morning, however, matching some music by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. iTunes found one track that was a duplicate, on one of about 20 albums I matched. (It was indeed a duplicate: the exact same work, in the same recording, is on a two-disc set of Complete Works for String Orchestra as well as on a box set of 12 Concerts). What is interesting is what iTunes did with this track.

Since it’s a duplicate, it’s not uploaded. But since it’s a duplicate, it no longer shows in my library on the second album on which it is found. In other words, if I go to listen to the second album, I won’t hear that track. There’s no placeholder in my iTunes library to say, “hey, this track is over here.” If I play this album, it will skip from track 18 to track 20, as track 19 is matched from a different album.

This is a bit disturbing. I can understand wanting to save space by not having duplicate tracks, but this means that if you have, say, some albums by a popular performer, along with a “best of” album, then you won’t find many or all of the tracks on the latter in your iTunes library after matching.

Since I hadn’t tried matching my entire library – it’s too big – and am only using a small test library, I didn’t come across this issue before; for example, my complete Bob Dylan collection, being purchased from the iTunes Store for the most part (except for the recent remasters of the original mono recordings), all show as purchased, and not as matched. (That’s not exactly true; some of the purchases show as uploaded, but that’s another problem…) Duplicates among purchased tracks are ignored.

So I tried adding another album twice, with two different album names (with just one letter different in the name). Interestingly, iTunes found duplicates, but, of the six tracks, found three duplicates on the first instance of the album and three on the second.

It seems there is no way to get around this. iTunes Match doesn’t look at tags, so if you change the album name – as I did – it will still see through your ruse. This seems to be a serious weakness in iTunes Match, and one that needs addressing. Perhaps there needs to be a tag for files that are duplicates but that you still want to upload. What would make more sense would be iTunes creating a sort of “alias” for the duplicate file, so you don’t have to upload it, but can still play it.

What about you? What is your experience with duplicates? Have you come across a lot of them? Did you even notice that some are ignored?

(By the way, if you’re interested in 20th-century music, check out some of Rautavaara’s music. Good places to start are the two box sets, one of concertos, mentioned above, and another of his 8 Symphonies.

Book Review: The Annotated Emerson

When reading any text from the 19th century, it is hard to put oneself in the appropriate context, making it difficult to fully appreciate or even understand what the author is saying. When reading fiction, this lack of context means that, for example, imagining two people sitting in a parlor talking, the reader may not realize that, at the time, this could mean that they were cold (if it were winter), or very hot (if it were summer). That women were very uncomfortable in their corsets, and men in their stiff collars. Or that there were social issues that regulated how members of the opposite sex could meet and converse, and that these subtle contextual elements had a subconscious presence in the minds of contemporary readers.

With non-fiction – a term not used at the time – such as Emerson’s essays, the context covers a very broad political, social and religious spectrum. Words have meanings beyond their simple dictionary definitions (their connotations), and we readers, more than 150 years after the fact, are unaware of these.

On an extreme level, you can look back at Shakespeare’s works. Very few readers of Hamlet, King Lear or Much Ado about Nothing (do you know what “nothing” meant in Elizabethan slang?) would approach these texts without notes, and even those notes and annotations – along with definitions of words whose meanings were different at the time – cannot fully put the reader in the context of these works.

Scholar Jeffrey Cramer has published several volumes of Henry David Thoreau’s works annotated (such as this Walden), and I had long wondered why no one had done the same for Emerson.

Well, now we have such a volume, The Annotated Emerson, by David Mikics. This large book – 9.7 x 9.3 inches, on heavy paper – takes a selection of Emerson’s works and adds notes. Some of these notes merely define words, or explain their usage in Emerson’s time; some explain who certain people mentioned in Emerson’s essays are; and others make links with different works by Emerson, either essays, lectures, or even journal entries.

This is not an exhaustive work; it does not annotate all of Emerson’s essays, nor even a specific collection of them. Rather it chooses some of his most famous works, the ones people will be most likely to read. These include Nature, The American Scholar, The Divinity School Address, Self-Reliance, Circles, The Poet, Experience and New England Reformers. Two of his essays from Representative Men – those on Montaigne and Shakespeare, perhaps the two writers that Emerson most appreciated – are included. But there are also political writings: Emerson’s letter to president Martin van Buren about the plight of the Cherokees and his essay on John Brown from 1860, after Brown’s failed raid on Harper’s Ferry. Emerson’s laudatory essay on his friend Henry David Thoreau is included, as are a number of poems. In more than 500 pages, this collection is a fine overview of Emerson’s varied writings, though it contains nothing from his journals.

In addition to the textual notes – it’s worth pointing out the excellent layout, with the notes in the outside margins of the pages – there are dozens of illustrations, many in color, giving more contextual background, and also showing some of the people mentioned in the writings, as well as Emerson himself.

In addition to being a fine text, this is also an attractive book, and its size is more that of a coffee-table book than a collection of essays. (This does make it a trifle harder to read, of course, as it is fairly heavy.)

I can think of no better book for those interested in Emerson to understand more about his writings and his times. Learning more about what Emerson was referring to gives a much richer picture of the extent of his writing, and a better feeling of where he came from.

The First Ask the iTunes Guy Column on Macworld

About a month ago, Macworld announced that I would be “the iTunes Guy” for a new column where readers send in questions about using iTunes, iPods and other iOS devices. The response was overwhelming, and we’ve gotten a couple hundred e-mails already, just from that single announcement. Because of this, current plans are to run this column more frequently than what was initially planned, assuming, of course, that we keep getting so many questions.

Today, the first Ask the iTunes Guy column has gone live on the Macworld web site. I chose to focus on iTunes Match, as there are many issues and questions about this new service. Have no fear, though, future columns (I’ve already written several) will cover other aspects of working with iTunes: managing a library, ripping CDs, tagging files, working with playlists, and much more.

So, if you have iTunes questions, head over to the Macworld website and send yours in.

iPhone Case Review: Otterbox Commuter Series

For my second review of an Otterbox iPhone case, I’m going to look at their Commuter series. Unlike the first Otterbox case I looked at, the Reflex series, the Commuter is made up of two parts, one that covers the other. First, you put a soft silicone protective layer, designed to absorb shocks, on the phone. Next, you place a harder, polycarbonate plastic shell over this, providing solidity and firmness, and holding the silicone layer in place. It takes a bit of work to get this to fit perfectly, but when it’s in position, you can barely tell that it is in two parts.

You can feel the difference in some locations, though, when holding the phone. There are several places where the hard plastic shell does not cover the silicone: over the volume buttons, on the top-left of the phone, and the same space on the right; and a small space on the bottom of each side.

I find that having the silicone present, especially at the top right, where I place my thumb when using the phone, helps keep it from slipping, and this is clearly designed for that purpose.

The back of the case has two openings: one for the camera and LED flash, and another to allow the Apple logo to be visible. I guess I’m not the average consumer, but I’d rather that the case cover the logo; I really don’t care if people see I’m using an iPhone, and a full back would make more sense to me (as on the Otterbox Reflex).

I have two bits of criticism for this case. First, the silicone bit that covers the dock connector at the bottom of the phone; it is a bit difficult to open while trying to connect a cable. But it does protect a sensitive part of the phone from any possible water, in case you’re using it outdoors. Second, the hard plastic shell doesn’t sit perfectly behind the volume buttons. In other words, there’s a bit of a rough edge where the shell doesn’t sit with the silicone correctly, as it does on the other side. At first, I thought I just didn’t get the shell on correctly, but when I looked closely, I could see that it just doesn’t fit perfectly. This doesn’t really affect usage, but it’s a tad uncomfortable when I hold the phone.

This case comes with a screen protector, which I’m not interested in using. Apple’s glass seems to be pretty scratch-proof (as I’ve seen over the years with other iOS devices), and since you only touch the screen with your finger, I think it’s superfluous. It’s nothing like the old Palm Pilot, with a plastic screen and stylus, that quickly got scratched.

All in all, this is an excellent case, offering full protection from shocks with a limited profile. (It weighs only 28 g.) With this on my iPhone, I feel that it is very secure. It takes a standard silicone protector and adds a hard shell, keeping the silicone in place, and providing an extra layer of protection.

Check out this and other Otterbox cases on the company’s website. I’ve got one other Otterbox case to review, their Defender model. I’ll be posting that review in a couple of days.