I’ve been working on a music podcast (which I am releasing shortly), using GarageBand, the music/podcast creation software that came with my mac. GarageBand is fantastic for podcasts, by the way. It has some really clever features, like the ability to make background tracks and foreground tracks. So when a foreground track, like the narrator’s voice, is playing, the background tracks are automatically turned down. Is that cool or what?!
So enter the lameness: In GarageBand, you can pull in any audio files you want, EXCEPT music purchased from the iTunes music store. This is obviously to prevent people from copying a song onto a track and then exporting the new song, making a perfect DRM-free copy of the original song. But it’s LAME. And the irony! Music legitimately purchased from Apple’s store can’t be added to an Apple podcast, while stolen music would work perfectly.
I did find a workaround and it’s the most obvious one. Just plug your ipod into your computer’s microphone port, pick your purchased song, and record the track in GarageBand. It doesn’t sound too bad, although there is a generation loss technically. It does record in stereo though, in case you were wondering.
Until Steve wins his crusade against DRM, I’ll be doing this on a regular basis.
3 responses so far ↓
Paul // July 14, 2007 at 5:35 pm
…great minimal idea, the real “work” around I use is:
-copy to disc
-organise discs in discstacker device, or
-import from disc back into Itunes
(ok so that creates doubles of all your purchases, but that’s why it’s a “work around”)
-the copy should show up in Garageband mediabrowser.
-better sound quality (depending on settings) …enjoy your work
sarah // August 25, 2008 at 11:08 pm
can i ask what you use to connect your ipod? I have the normal connector but that does not let you play a song.
Dave // March 28, 2009 at 11:09 pm
I need to use clips of DRM iTunes songs loads. I use Audio Hijack to record them from iTunes as they play… saves it as a AIFF file with no loss of quality. You could then pull them into Garage Band. I think Audio Hijack costs a bit of money – but it’s very useful. You can record sound from websites, DVDs – even the preview from the iTunes store.
Ended up on your site totally by random – trying to find out what’s up with my iSight camera, but I hope my comment is useful.