What is WMA? How to Convert WMA to MP3?

What is WMA?

WMA stands for Windows Media Audio. A proprietary audio format owned by Microsoft, part of Microsoft’s Windows Media technology. Encapsulated in an ASF container, WMA has one ability that seems to attract more and more businesses and allows this format to stick around. That’s the easy inclusion of DRM or Digital Rights Management directly into the WMA file. This ASF container also gives the WMA two file options. (.wma for strictly audio and .asf for features simliar to ID3 tags in MP3s).

The following article shares with you how to convert WMA to MP3 using Clone2Go Free Audio Converter. In the latter part of this article, a way to convert DRM protected WMA to MP3 will also be introduced. Let’s take a look at how it performs:

How to Convert WMA to MP3?

Step 1. Download and Install Clone2Go Free Audio Converter

Download the latest version of Free Audio Converter. Install and run it.

Step 2. Add WMA File

Click the “Add Media Files” button to import WMA files. Alternatively, you can click “File -> Add Media Files…” to add WMA files. You can also directly drag and drop WMA files to left panel of the program.

Step 3. Choose MP3 as Output Format

From the “Profile” drop-down list, choose “MP3 – MPEG Layer-3 Audio (*.mp3)” as the output format.

Step 4. Start Converting WMA to MP3

Click the “Start Encode” button to start to convert WMA to MP3.

Note: This Free Audio Converter cannot help you convert protected WMA to MP3. If you want to convert DRM protected WMA to MP3, you will need to get a DRM removal to help you. Here, I would recommend using TuneClone Audio Converter, which adopts the smart virtual CD burning technology to remove the DRM from protected WMA music files. Below is the screenshot of this program:

Here is the guide link of how to convert DRM protected WMA to MP3 using TuneClone.

Source from http://www.clone2go.com/tutorials/how-to-convert-wma-to-mp3.php

How to convert Napster music wma to mp3

In the following guide, I’d like to share with you how to remove DRM from Napster music and convert Napster music WMA to MP3 using TuneClone Audio Converter.

Before getting started, please take note that TuneClone simulates the process of burning a CD disc and ripping it back. In order to get TuneClone to work, you need to purchase the music tracks from Napster to get the full burning right first. If you only subscribe music from Napster, you won’t be able to use TuneClone properly.

1. Download and install TuneClone

2. Create a new playlist in Napster

Under “My Playlists”, click the “New Playlist” button to create a new playlist. Drag and drop to the playlist the music you are going to burn from your Napster Library.

3. Make CD burning settings in Napster

Click “Tools”, and select “Preference…” from the drop-down list. In the left panel of “Options”, navigate to “CD Options”. Then choose TuneClon Virtual_CD-RW as the preferred CD burner.

Note: Please tick “Burn CD Text” to preserve the metadata of the music.

4. Start to burn

Click the “Burn Disk” button to start the burning and encoding process.

After the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the music file to MP3. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.

How to Convert Protected WMA to MP3 for iPod

“The majority of my albums are in my Windows Media Player and I would like to transfer those albums to my iPod. Now I don’t know how to. All I know is that WMA is incompatible with Apple iPod. So how do I rescue my songs? I tried to use limewire to download free music but it is a mess.”

If you meet the same problem, you got the right place! The following tutorial details how to convert both protected and unprotected WMA (Windows Media Audio) music files to MP3 format for Apple iPod.

If the WMA files you are going to play on your iPod is unprotected, you just select and drag them into iTunes Library and they should be automatically converted to whatever iPod format you selected in iTunes preferences for importing.

If they are WMA files protected by DRM, it is not that easy. You need to use some software to remove the DRM from your WMA files and then convert the WMA music to the much more widely-supported MP3 format.
Note: As with any transcoding, the quality will go down. But if you’ve got a lot of protected WMA files you’d like to convert to MP3 files to get on your iPod, this solution would do the trick.

In this tutorial, I’d like to show how to remove DRM from WMA files and convert the protected WMA files to MP3 format using TuneClone Audio Converter. Let’s take a look at how it performs:

1. Make settings at TuneClone

Download TuneClone (fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista) and install it. After launching TuneClone, click the “Settings” button. In the pop-up dialog of “Options”, you can specify the “Output Folder”, “Output Filenames”, “Output Format” (here we choose MP3), etc. for the output files.
Tip: You can get the output protection removed MP3 music folder by clicking the “Folder” button after the whole process.

2. Burning at Windows Media Player(WMP 11)

Create a new playlist and drag into it the WMA files you are going to play on your iPod. After that, click the “Burn” button and select “Audio CD” from the drop-down list. On the right panel of “CD Drive”, click “Next Drive” to locate the CD drive to TuneClone’s Virtual CD Burner.

Note: If you are unsure whether TuneClone’s Virtual CD burner is successfully installed or where it is installed, please refer to the bottom left corner of TuneClone:

Then, drag the playlist you created just now to the “Burn List” and click the “Start Burn” button to start burning the playlist. While the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the WMA playlist to MP3 files. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.
Note: If you get the output files formatted as 01-1.mp3, 01-2.mp3, etc., please click the output MP3 songs in the manager screen and drag the counterpart original WMA songs to the “Track Info” panel of TuneClone one by one. The information about the artist, album, title, etc. will be changed accordingly. It would be a time-consuming process if you are burning a big collection of WMA music. However, since Windows Media Player 11 doesn’t support CD-text burning, this seems to be the only way to get the information back.

After you get the output MP3 files converted from the WMA playlist in your Windows Media Player, you can now begin to transfer the MP3 files to your iPod with the sync of iTunes.

You may also have interest in:

How to convert iTunes 8 protected AAC (M4P) music to MP3

Switch iTunes and WMAs from Windows to Mac

Source from www.makeuseof.com  by Jackson Chung

Switching over from Windows to Mac is relatively painless because Mac has support for a lot of commonly used files like Microsoft Word documents, Powerpoint slideshows and Adobe PDF files. So, compatibility is hardly an issue. One thing which you do have to take note of however while switching over to Mac is your iTunes library.

iTunes for Windows is built with Windows Media Audio (WMA) support – it is able to play and convert WMAs. However, because WMA is a proprietary codec, it isn’t available in iTunes for Mac. If you’re not careful, you’ll be left with a lot of WMAs which will be unplayable on your Mac.

Before we start, I would like to mention that this tutorial was written under the assumption that you are running the latest version of iTunes ( iTunes 8 ) on both your Windows and Mac. Please update before proceeding to avoid any complications which may arise.

The easiest way to dodge this problem is to convert all the WMAs you have while you’re still on your Windows machine. In your iTunes General preferences, under ‘Import settings’, make sure to have AAC or MP3 selected. Configure the bit rate if you like but because you will be converting from one lossy codec to another, there’s bound to be a profound loss in quality.

While you’re still in Preferences, go over to ‘Advanced settings’ and check “Keep iTunes Music folder organized”.

Now you’re ready to convert all of your WMAs into the codec you’ve just selected. To do this, control-select your WMAs, right-click on one and choose “Convert Selection to xxx” (Where xxx is either AAC or MP3). After the conversion is complete, you may choose to delete the WMA copies if you like. Then, consolidate your library from the ‘File>Library’ menu. This will ensure that all the songs in your library are copied and organized into the iTunes Music folder. Normally, it’s located in “My Documents/Music”.

Now, you’re ready to bring that iTunes Music folder over to your Mac. Place it on your Mac desktop.

If you haven’t already, run iTunes on your Mac for the first time. You’ll be prompted with the initial welcome setup procedure. When it asks to search your drive for music files, make sure to decline. At the end, you’ll be presented with a fresh, empty iTunes library. Now, quit iTunes. By default, it would have already set up its own iTunes Music folder located in ~/Music. Go over to this location and delete the iTunes folder then copy and paste your iTunes Music folder from the desktop into it (the one which you have just brought over from your Windows computer). After all this is done, launch iTunes and you’ll be rewarded with your old, personalized iTunes library.

Another method of dealing with the whole WMA malarky is to get an audio converter. The first one which comes to mind is EasyWMA which isn’t free but very popular. A little hidden gem is Switch for Mac. It is capable of converting WMA to many other audio formats compatible with iTunes.

Switch is also available for Windows so you’ll have the convenience of converting your songs before making the switch over to Mac, if you prefer.

And here, I would also recommend using TuneClone Audio Converter, which can be used to either convert M4P(protected AAC), M4B and M4A music songs to MP3, WAV, unprotected WMA or convert both protected and unprotected WMAs to MP3. Not free, but well worth a shot if you have lots of WMAs ready to be switched to Mac.

TuneClone V1.20 download

TuneClone V1.20 was released on September 3, 2008!

TuneClone V1.20 is a powerful DRM cracker and music converter for unlocking iTunes DRMed M4P music and protected WMA music and converting M4P, M4A, M4B, WMA to MP3, WAV and unprotected WMA.

TuneClone V1.20 allows you to remove DRM protection from purchased music files by applying the virtual CD burning technology. It strips the DRM from protected iTunes M4P or protected WMA so as to help you enjoy DRM-laden music on media players or MP3 players like Microsoft Zune, Sony PSP, BlackBerry, Creative Zune, iriver, SanDisk Sansa, Sony Walkman, Cell Phone(Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia N-series, Samsung Anycall, LG, etc.) Pocket PC, PDA and so on.

TuneClone V1.20 also lets you virtually burn music files with media player software like iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WinAMP, etc.

Key features of TuneClone V1.20: http://www.tuneclone.com

1. TuneClone V1.20 is easy to install and easy to use via a simple user interface.

2. TuneClone V1.20 converts DRM protected music and movie files and various audio/video files to MP3, WAV and unprotected WMA at very high speed with very nice CD quality.
 
3. TuneClone V1.20 easily and quickly removes DRM from purchased music files by applying the virtual CD burning technology. Compared with using real CD-R or CD-RW disc, the virtual CD burning uses the maximum writing speed so that your music files can be converted at a very high speed.

4. TuneClone V1.20 supports converting protected music for playback on all kinds of MP3 players like Zune, PSP, BlackBerry, Creative Zen, iriver, Walkman, etc.

5. TuneClone V1.20 enables you to virtually burn music files with iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WinAMP and so on.

6. TuneClone V1.20 is specially designed for batch converting large song collections.

7. TuneClone V1.20 well preserves ID3 tags for artist, album, title names, artworks, etc.

8. With TuneClone V1.20, the converted songs will have no DRM restriction any more.

Availability

More information about TuneClone V1.20 is available at http://www.tuneclone.com/ . You can free download TuneClone V1.20 via http://www.tuneclone.com/tuneclone_setup.exe for a try. The full version of TuneClone V1.20 costs USD 34.95. If you have questions about or show interest in TuneClone V1.20, please feel free to contact its support team via support@tuneclone.com

How to Convert WMA to MP3 with Virtual CD Drive

TuneClone is a unique audio converter application. Compared with other audio converter programs, TuneClone converts music files via virtual CD drive. All you need to do is burn your playlist to TuneClone’s virtual CD drive by using your media player software, such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WinAMP, etc. The key step to use TuneClone is to select TuneClone’s virtual CD-RW drive as CD burner. Your music files will be automatically converted during the burning process.

Below are the detailed tutorial about how to burn DRM protected WMA music to TuneClone’s virtual CD drive with Windows Media Player:

Step 1. Download TuneClone from http://www.tuneclone.com and install it

TuneClone is fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. A virtual CD Burner will be installed. This virtual CD-RW will be used to convert music files.

Step2. Set “Burn” option at Windows Media Player

Launch Windows Media Player and click “Burn” button in the main window to enable the burning function of Windows Media Player. From the drop-down list, please tick “Audio CD” option if it is currently unchecked.

Step 3. Select TuneClone’s Virtual CD Burner

Click the “Next Drive” button to select TuneClone’s Virtual CD Burner.

Step 4. Start burning

Drag your music files to the “Burn List”, and click the “Start Burn” button to burn the playlist.

After the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the music file to MP3. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.

The most important step is to choose the CD burner. Then the software can convert the music files automatically. It is exceedingly easy when you want to batch convert lots of files.

Note: Under Windows Vista, Windows Media Player 11 may not be able to choose the TuneClone’s virtual CD burner.