Playing a .WAV file in iTunes

[mcman]

I can't get iTunes to play a .WAV file. I can't drag if from a CD into the library so consequently I can't get the file onto my iPOD. I just got my 40Gb iPOD and am a complete newbie. What am I doing wrong?

[CrzyCanuck72]

iTunes and iPods can play WAV files, so you're probably just missing a simple step. You can't drag-and-drop from the CD in iTunes without first compressing the files. If you want to keep it as a WAV, drag the files off the CD to somewhere on your hard drive, and drag them onto your iTunes library. I'd compress them, though. WAV files are really large, so you won't get many songs on your iPod using it. WAV is nearly lossless, so converting to AAC or MP3 won't harm it too much.

[GadgetGuru72]

Is there a reason why you want to play WAV files on your iPod? The size of WAV files is so large that you'll fill up your iPod really quickly that way.

Also, what is it that you're trying to "drag" into the library? The files that you see when you "open" a CD in windows. You can't copy WAV files that way even if you wanted to copy WAV files to your iPod.

This is what you should do:

(1) Launch iTunes.

(2) Go into "options" and then select "importing."

(3) Click where you have an option to select file formats. I personally use AAC files with a bitrate of 192. It seems to be a popular choice and is the perfect blend of small file size and sound quality.

(4) Then, pop in a CD while iTunes is still open. The CD information will be read from the CDDB and all the artist/song info will be pulled from the CD.

(5) Select the songs you want in your library by clicking the appropriate check boxes.

(6) Click the "import" button on the upper, right hand corner of the iTunes screen.

Once it's done ripping the songs, you'll have perfect AAC files on your computer of all the songs you've selected. You can then drag and drop those songs onto your iPod.

[mcman]

Well, thanks for the advice. I guess I forgot to mention that I using my iPOD with it set to manually manage all my songs since I don't want iTUNES erasing them every did I put the iPOD back in the dock. So the CD info won't read from CDDB. It appears to me that I would have to use another program to convert the .wav files. Why did Apple make this software where it won't automatically play .wav files as Media Player does? This is the first thing I have run across in iTUNES that I don't like. Can't have it all I suppose. Thanks for your reply.

[mcman]

Hate to keep beating this one to death but something else seems strange to me. Everyone keeps talking about how large a .wav file is. Well, the ones I'm working with range in size from 305KB to 1,055KB with 99% being from 350-700KB. Could it be possible that they are some other kind of file. They all have .wav extenders. I'm not a guru by any means but I think I am computer literate. Wonder what's up with this?