Converting IPOD AAC from Itunes to MP3 Format
How to Convert AAC to MP3 for free
Step 1:
Download and install http://download.cnet.com/Free-Mp3-Wma-Converter/3000-2140_4-10442362.htm... Open the program.
Note: the Download.com product page also provides a video that you might find handy while using the app.
Step 2:
Click the File drop down menu and select Add files (or hit Ctrl+F on your keyboard). Navigate to the folder on your hard drive that contains the files you want to convert, such as My Documents > My Music > iTunes > Kate Bush > The Sensual World.
Step 3:
Select the files that you want to convert. You can select more than one file at a time by clicking and dragging your mouse cursor, or by holding down Ctrl as you select each file. (You can repeat steps 2 and 3 if you wish to add files from various folders.)
Step 4:
By default, the software will save your newly converted files into the same folder as the original files. If you would like to select a new output directory, uncheck the box next to "Save in the file's directory," then click the ellipses button next to the Output path section and navigate to the location where you would like the new files saved.
Step 5:
Make sure the output format is set to MP3--that's the default, but it's always good to double check. This free app can also be used to convert to and from other formats as well, such as WMA or FLAC.
Step 6 (optional):
If you would like to adjust the output settings of your file even further, click the ellipses next to the Format parameter section. Here, you can set the bitrate for the file as well as make other adjustments. Click OK once you have the settings to your liking.
Step 7:
Click the Convert button in the lower right corner of the window. You can monitor the progress of the conversion in the top and bottom sections of the screen.
Step 8:
Free MP3 WMA converter does not preserve most of the metadata from your files, so you will have to manually input the ID3 tag parameters if you want that info attached to the MP3. Click Options > Tag editor (or Ctrl+T); then, navigate to the newly converted MP3s on your hard drive and update the file information by filling in the fields in the right column of the window .
Added to tutorials secton (http://dingoo-digital.com/articles/tutorials/converting-ipod-aac-itunes-...). Please note that you create articles yourself by clicking on "create content" in the left menu.
i really wish apple wasnt so proprietary, people steal music, making it harder wont stop us
Important reminder: AAC is lossy and MP3 is lossy. This means that if you convert AAC to MP3, you loose quality TWICE. Given that Apple has traditionally insisted on using 128Kbps AAC (which, yes, is better than MP3 at 128Kbps, but is NOT "CD quality") and many people also do this as well, it may well be that any such conversion is the absolute worst thing you could do quality-wise. You don't just loose quality twice, but each compression chooses different ways of discarding certain things such that you get more than twice the quality loss in the process -- it's actually almost more exponential even.
The Dingoo supports FLAC and APE however. If you transcode AAC to FLAC or APE, since they are lossless, you only have the one quality loss -- the original encode to the AAC format. I would highly recommend that if you wish to convert away from AAC, this is the sensible direction to go whenever possible. Minimize your quality losses as much as you can. Of course, the downside to this is that, even though APE and FLAC compress pretty well for lossless audio (especially APE of those two) they still come out considerably larger than any MP3. I guess this is where that Mini-SDHC support comes in handy. (Personally, I've ordered an 8GB Transcend Micro-SDHC card with adapters from Newegg to cover my needs with music and videos, but I must admit that most of my music is MP3 to begin with. Perhaps some might even need to go as far as 16GB in the worst cases.)
It doesn't have to be this complicated either. Just use Foobar2000 if you want the simplest tool for the job. It lets you just right click on a file and choose convert. There are, of course, external programs as well. All you need to do is decode the AAC to a WAV file and then encode it to whatever you prefer. You can actually do better than what that software mentioned in the OP likely uses by using LAME for encoding your MP3s for example. (And, one of my favorite features of Foobar2000 is the way it makes use of external encoders, so will use LAME for MP3 encoding as well.)
You can find Foobar2000 at http://www.foobar2000.org/
LAME and FLAC encoders I suggest picking up from http://www.rarewares.org/ so you can get the latest compiles (btw, it's usually best to use the ICL compiles if you have a semi-modern system) and besides these you can even find an AAC decoder if you would rather just directly decode and reencode the files yourself.
Oh, and finally, you can use MusicBrainz software (Picard for Windows) to retag your audio files via an Internet database (I find its recognition methods to be the most accurate of any I've tried so far even with things like jpop) which you can find on http://www.musicbrainz.org/
PS. It's weird, but AAC actually isn't proprietary. Oh, Apple's DRM is proprietary, but, AAC itself is actually just an implementation of another ISO MPEG standard. It's actually probably better than MP3 overall, but for the complete lack of support outside of the iPod whereas MP3 is about as universal as you get. (And don't get me wrong, I hate Apple with a passion, but this is one of those very rare few things they've done which is actually NOT proprietary. Thus it's a little disappointing that more alternate players out there don't implement this particular ISO standard...)
didn't read it how to do it, because I already know that
but nice that you posted a tuto for the rest :)