Ripping Your Audio File (PC)
Our tutorials are geared towards encoding in iTunes, Apple's free music player (download it at http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ if you don't already have it installed). You can actually use any software you want, but iTunes is free and by far the most popular software for compressing and encoding audio, listening to music, and for podcasting (says me).
These instructions are for PC users running Microsoft Windows. If you use a Mac, check out these instructions instead.
1. Set up iTunes for importing sermon audio
In iTunes, go to the Edit menu and select Preferences…
In the Preferences dialog box, click the Advanced tab, then the Importing tab.
On the Importing tab, in the On CD Insert drop-down menu, choose how you would like iTunes to respond when you insert a disc. We recommend Import CD and Eject because it is easy. Other choices we suggest are Ask to import CD and Import CD. We will explain importing in a moment.
Select MP3 Encoder in the Import Using drop-down menu. Then select Custom... in the Setting drop-down menu. This will bring up the MP3 Encoder dialog box.
- In the MP3 Encoder dialog box, select 48 kbps in the Stereo bit Rate drop-down menu.
- Do not check the Use Variable Bit Rate Encoding (VBR) checkbox.
- Select Auto in the Sample Rate drop-down menu.
- Select Mono in the Channels drop-down menu.
- Check the Smart Encoding Adjustments checkbox.
- Check the Filter Frequencies Below 10 Hz checkbox.
- Click OK.
- Click OK again.
Now you are set to import sermon audio!
2. Import your audio file into iTunes
If your audio file is already on your computer, you can simply drag and drop the file on to the Music Library icon.
If you have a CD with your audio sermon on it, open iTunes and insert the CD into the CD drive on your computer. iTunes will respond to a new disc according to the settings you chose in Step 1. If you chose one of our recommended settings, it will either automatically import the disc or ask you if you would like to import the disc.
When iTunes is done "ripping" (importing) the disc, you should hear a little chime.
iTunes may try to compare the contents of the disk with a list of known albums on the Internet (the CDDB). Occasionally it thinks it found a match and will ask if it can name the tracks on the new disk. Since this is an original, one-of-a-kind recording, don't let it rename anything. It will confuse you later.
There is also a setting in the importing tab that controls whether or not the disc plays as it copies. I recommend you not play the track as it imports. It steals processing power and could cause errors in the imported music.
3. Edit the song information (Title, Album, Artist, etc)
Find the song you just imported, right-click (click the right mouse button) over it and select Get Info.
Now select the Info tab and fill in the appropriate fields. This song information is stored inside the file.
If you want to keep all the sermons for this church in one folder on your computer, then use the church name for the artist and the speaker's name for the album. iTunes will use these names in deciding where to keep the original file.
