Q: I was wondering if I could make a duplicate of a song through iTunes and convert it to mono. I want to make sure that I have both a stereo and a mono copy of the song, though – this is for a temporary project, so I don’t want to permanently lose the full-quality track.
– Ben
A: Absolutely! iTunes’ built-in song conversion feature makes a copy of the original file by default, so you won’t have to worry about overwriting your good-quality copies.
This conversion feature uses the CD-importing audio settings as its configuration.
Therefore, to set up the feature to convert songs to mono, simply alter the importing settings in the “Advanced → Importing” tab in iTunes’ Preferences. For example, for a mono AAC setting, you’ll need to select the “Custom…” setting from the pull-down menu and configure the settings as below, where “Channels” is set to “Mono”:
With these settings prepared, how do you activate the conversion? Simply right click on the song(s) you’d like to convert, and choose “Convert Selection to AAC.”
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