ALAC to M4A: Convert Audio from ALAC(Apple Lossless) to M4A(MPEG-4 Audio) with River Past Audio Converter, ALAC2M4A converter, conversion

What is ALAC?

Apple Lossless (also known as Apple Lossless Encoder, ALE, or Apple Lossless Audio Codec, ALAC) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. Apple Lossless data is stored within an MP4 container with the filename extension .m4a. While Apple Lossless has the same file extension as AAC, it is not a variant of AAC, but uses linear prediction similar to other lossless codecs such as FLAC and Shorten.[1] iPods with a dock connector (not the Shuffle) and recent firmware can play Apple Lossless-encoded files. It does not utilize any digital rights management (DRM) scheme, but by the nature of the container, it is thought that DRM can be applied to ALAC much the same way it can with other files in QuickTime containers.

What is M4A?

Because of its exceptional performance and quality, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is at the core of the MPEG-4, 3GPP and 3GPP2 specifications and is the audio codec of choice for Internet, wireless and digital broadcast arenas. AAC provides audio encoding that compresses much more efficiently than older formats, such as MP3, yet delivers quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio.

To encode MPEG-4 audio, you need to have River Past MPEG-4 Booster Pack in addition to your audio software.

Additional Requirements

To convert from ALAC(Apple Lossless) to M4A(MPEG-4 Audio) audio with River Past Audio Converter, you must have River Past MPEG-4 Booster Pack installed.

Launch River Past Audio Converter

Once River Past Audio Converter is installed properly, launch Audio Converter.

Add File

Click on the "Add File" button on the tool bar. The standard file open dialog appears. Select "ALAC - Apple Lossless (*.alac)" in its "Files of type" combo box.

Select the file you want to convert and click "Open". The file will be added to the conversion file list.

If you cannot add the ALAC file, you may need to install QuickTime. We use QuickTime to decode compressed AIFC files.

River Past Audio Converter

Select output format

Use the setting panel on the bottom of the window to control the output format. Click on the toggle to the left of the "Format" label to expand the panel. Select "M4A - MPEG-4 Audio" as the "Audio Type".

Troubleshoot

If you have MPEG-4 Booster Pack installed, but don't see M4A as an output option, you have a problem with QuickTime installation.

Please make sure you have the latest QuickTime installed. Occasionally, QuickTime may be corrupted due to conflict with some other software. In any case, reinstalling QuickTime should fix this problem.

You can change the sample rate, channel (stereo or mono) and bits/sample, and bitrate.

Note: To convert to MPEG-4 audio, you must have River Past MPEG-4 Booster Pack installed.