There used to be a really helpful application called iTunes Lame that would let you import songs from a CD into iTunes. It is still out there but it has become a monster. Where it once worked smoothly and easily it now works like crap. The big problem is that it doesn’t seem to tag songs properly anymore, which makes it nearly worthless to me.
So I wrote iLAS. It works and that is all I need. It isn’t fancy, so no one will be impressed but that isn’t what I was trying to do. I just want to be able to import CD’ s into iTunes with Lame, because I don’t like Apple’s built in mp3 encoder.
download • more details • donate
9 Comments
Hey thanks for makin an easy way to import lame mp3s from iTunes.
Couple questions though. Do I have to install lame 3.97 in order to make this work? I have an older version installed and it started to work but then I ran into another problem: I changed the cd genre that I wanted to import to “rock/singer-songwriter” which you app didnt like. It told me “unrecognized genre” or something like that.
thanks!
-craig
Hey Craig, thanks for the kind words.
Lame 3.97 is included in iLAS so you don’t need to install anything.
The problem you are running into with genres is that Lame only supports certain ones. There is a list of the nearly 150 supported genres online at the lame site. If you want to use a non-supported genre you’d have to change it after import. Not ideal, but I don’t have any way of messing with Lame’s settings.
Thank you to build this app. I having problems though I don’t see the icon scrip at the top of iTunes help me please. I can’t import anything. I getting errors.
This doesn’t work. No script icon to begin with. Then I got the script to appear by moving the script into a script folder I made in the iTunes folder. But then I get an error when I try to import. Something to do with a “jlink” user can’t init outfile.
Hey. Looks like the application binary has a lot of links to your account…that’s why other people are getting an error message that mentions ‘jlink’. There are a lot of references to /Users/jlink/. If I can help troubleshoot…please send me an email.
I tried opening it in BBEdit, and doing a find/replace and put in my own username, but now iLAS won’t launch at all. Will still try to tinker around with it (maybe I replaced something I shouldn’t have), but it would be really nice if you could please take a look. I’m excited to try iLAS, as iTunes LAME isn’t properly writing tags.
BTW, I’m ‘flammable’ on the iTunes LAME forums…thanks for posting there to tell people about iLAS. :)
Thanks for the feedback folks, I’ll work on a new version tonight and see if I can nail down these problems people are running into.
So, I’ve put out a new version which *should* solve everyone’s problems… at least in terms of iLAS.
hi, some bug report:
1) tracks with a “/” in their id3 title tag will cause an error.
2) on my mac, the encoded files will appear correctly in the /home/library/caches/iLAS folder AND appear in the iTunes library (i can even play them while the other files encode). but as soon as the operation is finished, they simply vanish. My guess is that iLAS tries to copy the files to the default location of iTunes music folder, and cannot find it.
Some factors that could contribute to that error: a) my mac’s harddrive has several volumes. b) the startup volume isn’t named “Macintosh HD”. c) the main user directory (including the iTunes library folder) are located on another volume than the /Applications folder.
I hope those infos can help you improve your great script.
Just wondering…is this utility compatible with the Leopard operating system in Apple products?
Someone lend a guy a hand. I really liked iLas when I used this before. But after the upgrade, I am concerned about any issues.
Thanks,
Mark