When I was going through this forums, I found that they are many topics posted by users having problem converting Lossless Audio files to Apple Lossless.
And whenever you convert them one or the other thing is always missing or unsatisfying, like when you convert to Apple Lossless using dBpoweramp, iPod skips and many other.

But by using this simple way you can easily create your Apple Lossless Library keeping all your tags intact in audio files.

So here we begin:

1. Import all your library or songs to MediaMonkey, it decodes every format possible, because of Winamp plugins.
2. Make sure all the tags are present in the audio files and if they are not I mean any file is not tagged then tag it with the web option.
3. Select each and every file and then left click and select Send To->Rip/Convert->Destination.
4. On the next dialog box, choose the format to WMA Lossless, and change the destination something like any of these two:
a. <destination>\<artist>\<album>\<track#> - <album> - <tittle>
b. <destination>\<album>\<track#> - <album> - <tittle>
By doing this mediamonkey will automatically organize your files according to Artist or Album as you choose.
5. Close mediamonkey, and open itunes, then choose the default CD Ripping format to Apple Lossless, from preferences.
6. Then Import the folder where you've converted the WMA's, and then itunes will ask you to convert those WMA's to Apple Lossless, then choose yes.
7. After/before conversion there will be an option dialog popping up, asking for deleting the WMA tracks from the library, choose yes, but I think think this option is useless as itunes doesn't support WMA tracks, it just converts them and adds them to the library.

That's it, you're done, what you just need to do now is add those files to your iPod and you'll notice each and every tag is there, even Albumarts of your audio files are present(That's the Cream Of every iPod).

Can't you convert *directly* from FLAC to ALAC with the plugins available for fb2k? Doesn't dbPoweramp also do direct conversion as well? Then it would just be a case of importing into iTunes rather than having it have to convert. Saves one conversion if you can do that

Only if your dBpoweramp Codec is about 2 years old, this was fixed long ago...Compatibility with the current encoder is 100% (AFAIK), and we are extending the encoder to support 24 bit ALAC encoding.

spoon, I used dBpowerAMP to archive my CDs to ALAC back in 2007 and I haven't had any issues with my files playing on all of my Apple devices. I am glad that 24-bit ALAC encoding will be added to dBpowerAMP. I have a 24-bit ALAC file encoded with iTunes that I would like to convert to Nero AAC using dBpowerAMP (I am just assuming that 24-bit encoding will mean 24-bit decoding).



I believe that the ALAC plug-in for foobar2000 is for decoding only. There is an open source ALAC encoder but it is still going through extensive bug fixes. So I don't think that foobar2000 can encode FLAC files to ALAC.

Fair enough, I wasn't 100% sure

Yeah, last time I checked, the ffmpeg ALAC encoder had length mismatches.

Simplified:

Transcode to WMAL. Import and convert with iTunes.

Why not just use Winamp's plugins with Winamp? Winamp doesn't get as much attention as a transcoding utility but it can convert to WMAL as well.

yea this is bugging me too. on my mac i can just set xld to move files to itunes after conversion. so i just drag the flacs into it and it's done. now i'm trying to set the same system up with dbpoweramp but there's not 'add to itunes' option anywhere that i can see. lame.

*edit*

I've also noticed that since i upgraded to snow leopard, xld has stopped adding tags to my encoded files. double lame.

Normally if you convert to the Music Folder on your PC, iTunes will pickup the new tracks (you might have to prompt it to look for new tracks).

Just convert them to WAV and ask iTunes to make the ALAC version. Then find the converted tracks in iTunes library folder, put them to foobar and copy the tag from the original FLAC files.

Quite a hassle, but you can save some registry by not installing additional program / codec.
And it's faster than doing multiple transcoding from FLAC > WMA > m4a.

Edit: I just realized, the album art wont get copied, so you have to do it separately.

Any reason for bumping a 7 month old thread? Both dBpowerAMP and foobar2000 support the encoding of ALAC files. Things change, that is the problem when bumping old threads as the information stated in them changes over time. No need to jump through different hoops by converting the FLAC files to WAV and thus loosing the track tags when there are programs that can directly convert FLAC to ALAC.

Just stating my way of doing things.

I was stuck around 3 hours ago, figuring out how to do this by finding simple CLI program for ALAC conversion and found nothing useful. I was just doing what I used to do with computer and I think I'll keep doing this until I found a better way to do FLAC > ALAC conversion.

And, I think its just a matter of free space that make this may of transcoding inefficient. As how my logic can tell me, any compressed audio format should be converted back to the raw wave format before it can be encoded into another format. Any program that does direct conversion format from X to Y convert chunk-by-chunk X audio fragments to wave and to Y format in real time by just using the memory.

Well, you will have to forgive me if logic dictates that it would be easier to convert the FLAC files directly using a program such as foobar2000 (with a command-line ALAC encoder) or with dBpowerAMP (with either the built-in ALAC encoder or a command-line one). I see no point in converting all of the tracks to PCM WAV. It doesn't matter if programs do this on a small "chunk-by-chunk" basis. The programs also make sure that the resulting files have the appropriate tag information. I just see no need in converting a series of FLAC files to PCM WAV, converting those to ALAC, and then opening up another program/command-line that will tag the ALAC files on the basis of the FLAC files. Why jump through all of those hoops when there are much easier options that require less input and time?

As I said before, its just my habit, plus I didn't really get a useful CLI for ALAC encoder.