[rmausser]

Hey, so as we know the Palm Pre is not the biggest in terms of space...so we only have 8GB-16GB to work with our music, while some other people can get up to 32GB on THEIR devices.

Well, here is a tip to manage to cram 4-8 times more music on your device with very little lost in terms of sound quality.

(and I have my Masters in Audio Engineering, so listen up! :P)

With the 16GB Pre Plus I wouldn't be surprised that you can get your entire music collection on your device with this method (as long as you dont have 30,000 songs...)

Basically, a little known fact is that the Palm Pre can playback a new audio format called AAC+.

AAC plus uses special algorithms to get music files as small as possible with very little loss in quality.

So, you can use iTunes, or a program called MediaCoder to convert your music to AAC+ before you send it off to your PRE.

Heres how with iTunes.

1)Go to the Preferences, and go to Import Settings in the General tab.

2) Then go to settings and go to "Custom".

3) Change the Custom settings to:

Stereo Bit Rate: 48 kbs (if 48 is too low of quality for you try 64-80)
Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz
Channels: Stereo

Then MAKE SURE you select

"Use Variable Bit Rate encoding VBR"

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT PART (Drumroll...)

"Use High Efficiency Encoding HE"

That last part puts the + on AAC, so make sure you do that.

Then just right click the songs you wish to have on your Pre (make a playlist if thats easier) and select "Convert to AAC" or go to "Advanced" in the menu and click "Make AAC Version"

Then you can transfer these files onto your Pre however you usually do it.

Enjoy more songs on your Pre!

Pics below:

[supercluver]

Good tip. I like this idea.

[toyotast165]

what version itunes do I need again?

[rmausser]

Anything past version 9.

So...if you are using itunes to sync music you might want 8 and 9 at the same time....

OR, use MediaCoder.

MediaCoder - more than a universal audio/video transcoder - MediaCoder official website

[rmausser]

I will also make a post for the best possible quality with the smallest file size for movies.

I've been able to get my movies down to 100MB and they still look great.

[gapost]

Great tip and information. Just what this forum is designed for.

[major payne]

So lets say that i have close to 4k songs. I don't use iTunes. What program will mass convert them?

[Dr.Grace]

Anything past version 9.

So...if you are using itunes to sync music you might want 8 and 9 at the same time....

OR, use MediaCoder.

MediaCoder - more than a universal audio/video transcoder - MediaCoder official website

iTunes 9.0.1 still syncs with the Pre.

[jhoff80]

Using lossy encoding on a file that's already lossy encoded just doesn't make sense, in my opinion.

Sure, AAC+ is very efficient, but you're losing data on top of the data that you lost when it was encoded to MP3 in the first place.

And 48-80kbps? Yes, I know that AAC+ is efficient, but damn I hope you're not doing the engineering for any music that I like.

[Menelas]

Awesome tip, thanks heaps! Is there any way you could also post a step-by-step for MediaCoder, as I refuse to let iTunes anywhere near my computers. :-)

[rmausser]

Ok I will post MediaCoder instructions soon.

***Nerdy Tech Speak alert***

@jHoff80: You are right, you should always encode from the source, so if you took your music off of CD's, then you should re-import them as ACC+ rather than re-encode the mp3's.

BUT, there is something called Downsampling. If you have a 320 kbs MP3 that takes up 10mb of data, downsampling it to 1mb AAC+ will still yield an OK result because there is enough data to work with.

Also, downsampling an AAC is ok because the codec is intelligent enough to not re-encode the entire stream but remove data and optimize it for the lower bitrate.

So encoding a CD to AAC+ and a bigger AAC to AAC+ is basically the same.

***

Yes, I know 48 kbs is pretty low in terms of bitrate. And I would never ever Master audio for professional use that way.

BUT, I have done years of research on Psychoacoustics modeling. I know the facts of what people can actually hear, and what is a placebo effect when people 'claim' to hear a difference in quality.

For anyone on this board who is listening to music just for the music, and not an audiophile interested in pure quality...it is good enough.

Basically ask yourself this = are you OK with listening to music on a clear FM radio station? Do I want quantity over quality? Do I listen to my Pre on crappy $20 earbuds? If so, then 48-80kbs AAC+ is good enough quality.

jHoff80, have you HEARD an 80Kbs AAC+ file? Its pretty amazing.... considering its so small..

[jhoff80]

Do I listen to my Pre on crappy $20 earbuds? If so, then 48-80kbs AAC+ is good enough quality.

Well there's your problem.

jHoff80, have you HEARD an 80Kbs AAC+ file? Our professor in class played it to us claiming it was a full quality mp3, and then broke the news to us... that it was 80kbs....we were all blown away.

Not 80kbps AAC+, no, but 128kbps, yes. And yes, on music I know well I could hear a difference, both over my home system, and over my Etymotic headset.

Though of course, there's way more in play to the audio quality than just the bitrate, as I'm sure you realize as well. With how horribly most CDs are mixed nowadays, bitrate often has the smallest effect on the quality, of course. (Compared to the 'loudness wars' / lack of dynamic range for example... Death Magnetic = absolutely unlistenable as far as I'm concerned.)

[rmausser]

Yeah i'm not a fan of the loudness wars either.

AAC+ does not work at 128kbs. Only AAC does.

IMO AAC+ at 64kbs sounds roughly the same as 128kbs AAC.

The codec uses much more intelligent algorithms than AAC.

And I didn't mean that I use crappy earbuds, but I know most people do use them with their smartphones and care very little about sound quality. They would rather have more songs.

Only a very small percentage of the people in the world are audiophiles like you and me.

[kel101]

where i see this as a good measure...it does really worsen quality a lot, At present i have 1000 songs on my pre and of course i dont listen to them all..if i ever come pressed for space i can always go and delete songs i know i wont listen too for a while

[jhoff80]

AAC+ does not work at 128kbs. Only AAC does.

Turns out you were right, I hadn't heard AAC+ at 128kbps.

I thought I had tested it at 128kbps a little ways back, but I just attempted to repeat that now.

As it turns out even though dbPowerAmp let me choose 128kbps as a bitrate, the resulting file was using a 64kbps bitrate. (See attached image). So I had thought it encoded at 128kbps, but it ended up only doing half that.

Even still, I'll stick to my full bitrate files.

And yeah, I'm sure it'll be helpful for some definitely.

[dianehelen]

Thats pretty cool!

I just did it from a file that was originally 4.5mb and used the 64 setting, got the file to 2.3mb. For ME, it sounds just fine.

And ya If Im gonna sit and listen to the NY Philharmonic and want to relish and take in every tiny sound nuance, Im not listening on a cell phone anyway, I'll pull out a vinyl an really enjoy it.

But if Im out for a bike ride, and have my pre with me, to listen to the Beatles, or Matchbox 20, or Green Day, or any other music to just enjoy for what Im doing, Id rather have 2x or 3x as much variety than worry about trying to emulate the sound quality of live performance,

Thanks for a really cool and useful tip!

[chrish]

another option that doesn't require transcoding: ampachpre

(with different tradeoffs)

[dianehelen]

another option that doesn't require transcoding: ampachpre

(with different tradeoffs)

Ya but thats not really music ON the Pre, thats accessing it from a server, which means you have to have good signal, or wifi,

Storing music on the Pre, and the ability to store MORE, just seems a whole different paradigm, to me anyway

[spikea4]

Real Player SP when you select to convert and download to Palm Pre, does this automatically.

[rmausser]

Real Player SP when you select to convert and download to Palm Pre, does this automatically.

Ok, so I tried MediaCoder before, and this time when I was trying to make a tutorial....I couldn't get it to play on the Pre after....

But as Spikea has pointed out...Realplayer does the job automajically.

If Spika or someone wants to post a step by step procedure on how to do this that would be nice...personally I have a Mac, and the version for Mac def. does not have this feature set.

Basically the point of this post was more of a shout out to the community that AAC+ is a feature that works on the Pre, I use iTunes to transcode, but there are many other apps that will work.