Month: January 2015

by

Adding Music From CD to iPad, for Beginners

As promised, in this post I will describe adding the music from a CD to the iPad music folder in the simplest, most direct way I can.

Many people now have an iPad as their sole computing device because it’s a supremely simple and portable way to access the things computers are most commonly used for. However, it doesn’t have a fraction of the functionality of a laptop unless you can hook it up to a computer to manage content! So, to add the music from a CD, we must obtain access to a computer running iTunes software (PC or Mac) and  a CD drive:

1. Connect iPad to the USB port of the computer.

2, Open ITunes software and login with the Apple ID used on the iPad.

3. Click on “My Music Tab” to open the music library for the account.

4. Insert an audio  CD

   -A message will appear asking you to confirm that you wish to add all the tracks on the CD to the library.

Either
5. Click on “Yes” to import the entire CD

         – iTunes imports all tracks from the the CD into an ‘Album’ of the same name.

Or
6. Click on “No” to select individual tracks. (Remember that audio files can take up a lot of storage space)

     In the list of tracks, untick all the tracks you do not wish to import. Then click on Import CD (top right of window)

      – iTunes imports just selected tracks from the the CD into an ‘Album’ of the same name.

 

7.  Start to drag the Album to the left – a list of places will appear to which it can be added. Drag it to the named iPad      and release.

     -iTunes adds the Album to the music folder on the iPad

 

So that’s it! Of course, we could have imported the audio with lots of changes of settings but the beginner should just accept the defaults.

 

To add a file to the from the computer to the iPad’s music folder:

1. Open the drop down file menu and select “Add File to Library”

2. Navigate to the file, select it and click “Open”

    -iTunes adds it to the list of “Songs” in the Library

3. From the Song list, start to drag the file to the left

   – a list of places to which you can add it appears

4, Drag the file to the named iPad in the list of locations and release

    -iTunes adds the file to the music folder on the iPad

(Change from ‘Album’ view to ‘Song’ view in the drop down menu, top right of ‘My Music’ window).

by

iPad Music Accompaniments for Novice Users

Are you a singer or instrumentalist who would like to play accompaniments/ backing tracks on your iPad but don’t know where to start? If so, fear not because here are some simple free, or low cost, apps to get you started:

Many music books now come with audio cds of performance and accompaniment tracks but more and more we are finding that we want to make music away from the home audio system and the iPad has the potential to be a great music player. As a teacher, I’ve noticed that most pupils never use the cds that came with their books. Apart from the inconvenience of needing access to the audio system, I think this is generally because the playback is too fast. With the apps I introduce here it is simple to change the speed, or key, of a piece. There are also more sophisticated ways to personalise playback but I will leave those to a future post.

The simplest way of controlling accompaniment recordings has to be Jam Player   from Positive Grid.

What you see here is exactly what you get – wheels to control pitch, speed and volume and create a simple loop to repeat a section.

Another great player for the novice is AudioStretch from Cognosonic Pte Ltd The free Lite version has some limitations – pitch can only be shifted -2 to +2 steps and tempo control is from 60% to 100%. In other respects, it functions in just the same way as the full version. Again, the controls are very clearly set out:

 

Either of these apps will load music from your i-Tunes library. You can also use the ‘Open In’ option for Safari downloads or Mail to import files into AudioStretch.

“But, how do I get the music from my CD into i-Tunes on the i-Pad?” you may well ask. This ridiculous process is a source of great frustration to me, too! I will cover it in my next post.