Editing AAC/m4a files

Is there any free software out there that will allow you to edit these files?

 

Not that I know of, but you can always convert the mp4a files to wav or aiff in iTunes, then edit the file in your program of choice, then use iTunes to convert it back to mp4a.

 

That will actually result in a further loss of quality--once you decompress to WAV, I'd avoid recompressing. Then it has been compressed twice over. In other words, the re-converted AAC won't be the same as the original.

 

You can't convert files you buy from iTunes to other formats.

Most of the files I have on my iPod I edited first before converting to AAC, but I bought a few from iTunes that it was taking me forever to find for free... there are some live ones that I want to trim the crowd noise from. It's too bad iTunes doesn't have its own editor.

 

Well, you can, but in a roundabout way. Burn it to a CD in iTunes. Then take your burned CD and rip to whatever you want; but you'll have to rip to WAV to maintain the same quality as your original file.

 

I did not realize that you were trying to convert files that you bought.

 

iTunes doesn't have a sound editor, but you can trim songs with iTunes up to a point. If you look at the options in each file you can set the start and stop time with an accuracy of hundreds of a second (or maybe it's tenths of a second). For example on Steve's DCC of Elvis is Back, Steve added some studio chatter to Such a Night that I trim for listening on my iPod. If all you want is to trim off a bit at the end or at the beginning that should be all you need.

 

There is also software that bypasses the DRM but I can't go any further.

 

Just what I needed! Thanks, I didn't notice that feature.

 

Glad to help.

 

Sure you can, you just need Winamp and Dietmar's Output Stacker plugin (which was removed from Winamp's site but still can be found) and then you play the file and it outputs a .wav file.

 

Jhymn will help with that issue as well