iTunes to Music: lost ALAC conversion?

[yippi]

Hi, I just took the plunge to Catalina and got a lot of problems. Anyway, in the new dedicated Music.app there is no more the option to convert AIF files to ALAC, only to AAC, which is lossy.

Which converters do you suggest for a reliable conversion to ALAC? AmadeusPro's conversions, for example, are not recognized by Roon. I use XLD for the time being. Any other converters?

Thanks.

 

[rhett7660]

Hi, I just took the plunge to Catalina and got a lot of problems. Anyway, in the new dedicated Music.app there is no more the option to convert AIF files to ALAC, only to AAC, which is lossy.

Which converters do you suggest for a reliable conversion to ALAC? AmadeusPro's conversions, for example, are not recognized by Roon. I use XLD for the time being. Any other converters?

Thanks.

All I have ever used is XLD... No issues with it what so ever.

 

[Plutonius]

Hi, I just took the plunge to Catalina and got a lot of problems. Anyway, in the new dedicated Music.app there is no more the option to convert AIF files to ALAC, only to AAC, which is lossy.

Which converters do you suggest for a reliable conversion to ALAC? AmadeusPro's conversions, for example, are not recognized by Roon. I use XLD for the time being. Any other converters?

Thanks.

Another reason not to install later than Mojave.

You could reinstall from your backup containing your pre-Catalina MacOS.

Another option if you have the disk space is to install Mojave along with your Catalina.

You can then boot into Mojave and do the conversion.

My choice would be to load a backup that was done before Catalina was installed.

 

[yippi]

Actually I noticed this problem already in Mojave. Latest itunes didn't allow conversion to ALAC.
Any ideas of why they scrapped ALAC? Does it mean that this format will not be supported in the future? That would be a bleak future.

 

[HDFan]

there is no more the option to convert AIF files to ALAC,

Why do want to convert lossless aif to alac?

 

[yippi]

"Why do want to convert lossless aif to alac?"

ALAC is half the size and bit-correct. I took an AIF file, converted to ALAC, back-converted with another converter and the hash was the same between 1st and 3rd generation of file.
In other words it is the most economical way to store music.

 

[jlgg]

Actually I noticed this problem already in Mojave. Latest itunes didn't allow conversion to ALAC.
Any ideas of why they scrapped ALAC? Does it mean that this format will not be supported in the future? That would be a bleak future.

I can't comment on this feature in Catalina since I've not upgraded. However in iTunes 12.9.5.5 running in Mojave, you can still find this under File: Convert: Create Apple Lossless Version

 

[KALLT]

ALAC is still available in Music as the aforementioned “Apple Lossless Encoder”. You have to change this in the import settings first.

 

[yippi]

ALAC is still available in Music as the aforementioned “Apple Lossless Encoder”. You have to change this in the import settings first.

Oh... That's interesting. Thanks a lot for pointing me to this hidden thing. As I don't import CDs anymore, but stream from Qobuz or buy downloads from bandcamp I would not have noticed myself. Great!