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Combine Purchased iTunes to remove Gaps
If you’re purchased any classical, jazz, or “concept rock” recordings from the iTunes Music Store you may be annoyed that iTunes (and the iPod) insist on placing a gap between each track. Although you help to lessen the effect of these gaps by directing iTunes to fade one track into another (via the Crossfade Playback option in the Playback tab of iTunes’ preferences), those fades aren’t perfect nor do they transfer to the iPod.
When you record (or rip) tracks from an audio CD within iTunes, you can get rid of the gaps by recording all selected tracks as one long track. Do this by inserting an audio CD, selecting the tracks you want to combine, and choose Advanced > Combine CD Tracks.
But it does nothing for you if you want to create playlists or discs of music you’ve purchased from the iTunes Music Store (or tracks you’ve previously ripped as single tracks). You can get around this with iMovie. Here’s how:
1. Launch iMovie 6 and click the Media tab. Click the Audio tab, click the triangle next to the iTunes entry, and navigate to the songs you want to combine.
2. Drag the first track you want to combine into iMovie’s first audio track.
3. Drag the second track you want to combine into iMovie’s second audio track and place it so its beginning just overlaps where the other track ends.
4. Repeat for all the tracks you want to combine. (If you want to get fancy you can fade one out and the next one in.)
5. If these are protected tracks purchased from iTunes, import a single still clip by clicking the Photos tab in the Media area and dragging a photo into the video timeline. If you try to export an iMovie that contains protected tracks that doesn’t also include some kind of images—either movies or stills—export won’t work.
6. Choose Export > QuickTime, click the QuickTime tab, and from the Compress Movie For pop-up menu, choose Expert Settings and click Share.
7. In the Save Exported Files As window that appears, choose Sound to AIFF from the Export pop-up menu and click Save.
When you export this way, the iTunes copy protection is removed and you wind up with one long gapless AIFF track.
When bringing this track into iTunes you may want to select it, press Get Info, choose the Option tab, and enable the Remember Playback Position option. When you play this track, stop it in the middle, and start it again later, iTunes will pick it up where you last left off.
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