― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― Porkpie (porkpie), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:25 (nineteen years ago) link
I've never thought that iTunes was TEH GRATEST or anything like that, but I do think that overall, it handles everything together better than most other programs. It's certainly not flawless, though, but to get everything I need at a perfect level (for me) in a music/ripping/encoding/purchasing/burning package, it takes at least six different programs. Luckily, I don't usually need anything that precision, though, so iTunes handles most everything else just fine.
― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― Porkpie (porkpie), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:28 (nineteen years ago) link
her iBook is two years old. The file renaming thing happens on my machine though, which is a relatevely ancient 1st gen silver Powerbook with a paltry 284M RAM, so maybe it's the RAM that's doing it.
I've actually just tried burning a CD on her iBook with Toast, and it fucks up the gap between songs, too, so iTunes is off the hook for that.
I'll check out Musicmatch.
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:29 (nineteen years ago) link
It's four programs, but two of them are free legally (as long as you stick to Winamp 2.9 or no later), the other two are cheap.
For winXPers, it's a way of life, but it works well.
― iChoose iChoonz, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:31 (nineteen years ago) link
T, which Candi have you been downloading?
― Porkpie (porkpie), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:31 (nineteen years ago) link
you shouldn't be futzing with your id tags during a party, you should be partying!
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:33 (nineteen years ago) link
s1ocki the party is often only in my head.
I think it was "Do Your Duty," Porkpie.
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― Porkpie (porkpie), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 14:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 16:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 16:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 17:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 22:50 (nineteen years ago) link
Just occasionally, a track (downloaded ones it seems - never ripped ones) will not let me change the tags on it. It looks like it's changed, but as soon as I play it again, it reverts to the old data. Looked elsewhere on net for an answer, but no one seems to have worked out why it sometimes does it. The only solution I've found: using (the free) MP3 Rage to retag these rogue tracks.
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 22:56 (nineteen years ago) link
The itunes version of this (aside from the slightly clunkier hands-on interface after you load it) is to take your entire mp3 folder and, based on what might be incorrect tags, just put them into the folders it deems best in an automatic process that you have no control over. Have a compilation folder with a bunch of different' artist's tracks? It'll create a folder for each individual song. That gets really tiring after you get more than a few gigs of mp3s downloaded or ripped.
― Slim Pickens (Slim Pickens), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:18 (nineteen years ago) link
What I still don't understand about all this is why it matters to you what folders the mp3s are in. I hardly ever even look at the file directories for mp3s. I just use the Library. If you retag the tracks correctly then it will put them in right artist folder. I'm not sure why you are having that problem with compilations - the V/A compilations I have all seem to go in a folder called 'Compilations' and then in subfolders named after the title of the compilation. It doesn't create a separate folder for each song at all. I don't know if this is caused by checking that 'part of a compilation' check box. As I say, I never really look at the folder structure when it comes to my mp3s.
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:23 (nineteen years ago) link
Anyway, if it's working properly then you should just be able to uncheck 'keep organised' and 'copy to itunes music folder' in Advanced Prefs, to stop it doing all the auto organising, should you wish. I don't know why this wasn't working for Jay. I wish one could do the same in iPhoto.
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― AaronHz (AaronHz), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:43 (nineteen years ago) link
Well, do you mean manually? Because that seems to make itunes' first-time-run "we'll organize your files for you" function irrelevant. I care about what folders my mp3s are in because I use different programs for burning them than playing them...either musicmatch or nero, and usually browse my music folder and click 'n drag the files into those programs. Also, I've mostly used winamp to play mp3s so I queue them up from folders as well. I'm just used to dealing with folders so it's much more of a psychological thing.
― Slim Pickens (Slim Pickens), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 23:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 00:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 00:38 (nineteen years ago) link
I'm not sure what you mean either! Manually, or by using the Gracenote CCDB tool, yeah. As soon as you retag it, the mp3 will be moved to the relevant artist - album folder. Anyway, I sort of understand this folder interest as a 'that's what I'm used to' thing.
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 07:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― 57 7th (calstars), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 17:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 17:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 17:59 (nineteen years ago) link
The Doug's iTunes AppleScripts page is hella useful for managing tracks
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 18:06 (nineteen years ago) link
I use: 1) Exact Audio Copy w/ LAME set to www.bestmp3guide.com specs for ripping & encoding
2) Musicbrainz for tagging if I haven't been able to find the disc on the freedb
3) Nero for burning
4) WinAmp for playing, and the IPod plugin for WinAmp to manage my IPod. It is the shit.
5) SharePod to backup my IPod / transmit mp3 files from my IPod to my hard drive.
I used ITunes for about half a day before I junked it. It became completely superfluous when I got the new free WinAmp IPod plugin, which seems to have faster transfer rates and a more intuitive interface for PC users. Plus, configurable.
― J (Jay), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 18:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 8 September 2004 18:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― My faxed joke won a pager in the cable TV quiz show. (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 14:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― R.I.P. Concrete Octopus ]-`: is a guy with a belly button piercing (ex machina), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 14:28 (eighteen years ago) link
couldn't they just install whatever quicktime uses to decode the music without making you download the video player part of it? i don't want itunes to be a video player (or a music store, or a podcast player).
― My faxed joke won a pager in the cable TV quiz show. (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link
NO IT WAS! QUICKTIME +ITUNES TOTAL IS LESS THAN 100 MEGABYTES (I'm using that as an upper bound ;) ... probably like ~25 iirc)
MAYBE YOU SHOULD GIVE UP ON COMPUTERS IF YOUR COMPUTER DOESN'T HAVE THE GONADS TO HANDLE ITUNES, MAN!
Macintosh Minimum Requirements400 MHz G3 processor or fasterAt least 128 MB of RAMMac OS X v10.3.9 or laterWindows Minimum RequirementsA Pentium processor-based PC or compatible computerAt least 128MB of RAMWindows 2000/XP
Windows Minimum RequirementsA Pentium processor-based PC or compatible computerAt least 128MB of RAMWindows 2000/XP
― R.I.P. Concrete Octopus ]-`: is a guy with a belly button piercing (ex machina), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 14:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― R.I.P. Concrete Octopus ]-`: is a guy with a belly button piercing (ex machina), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 15:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 15:06 (eighteen years ago) link
alba: thx, will try it out later.
― My faxed joke won a pager in the cable TV quiz show. (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 15:07 (eighteen years ago) link
the idea of not having my music in folders gives me anxiety
I guess it depends on what you're used to, but my library is about 40,000 tracks and probably around 15 years old and I've never really had a problem with it. There are the occasional annoying quirks (the one that's enraging me now is having to toggle "Show filter field" every time I open the app -- why would I ever want that field hidden??) but for the most part it works fine for me. I like that it copies files to its own folder system and keeps them organized -- talk about anxiety, I can't imagine having to maintain that structure myself (if it's not something I've ripped from CD directly, I delete the original files as soon as the import is done so no duplicates, and I tag everything/correct cover art issues/etc immediately on import). And I definitely prefer seeing things organized like a library. Looking at my music as a list of files in the Finder (or Windows Explorer) feels too abstract; I don't want to look at songs the same way I look at other data. I've never owned a PC though so the whole idea of thinking of music files in that way is just totally foreign to me. I don't think it's so much an issue of the Mac people you've been talking to not using music the same way you do, it's that they (we?) are just more familiar with a completely different way of storing/organizing/viewing/playing the files.
I suppose it's different when you're switching to a whole new system with a huge existing library though. I didn't have a digital library when I started ripping CDs and importing downloads way back when, so it was easy enough to keep everything organized and tagged from day 1 and it's the only system I've ever known. Digging through folders to find the music I want to play seems like a really weird system to me.
― early rejecter, Friday, 29 January 2021 19:39 (three years ago) link
I use iTunes for one task only, and that is to auto-organize my new music files on my PC
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Friday, 29 January 2021 19:45 (three years ago) link
Yeah, like with photos, as soon as your collection grows beyond a certain size, basic folder organising doesn’t cut it anymore. I’m fairly happy with Music (the iTunes successor on macOS) because it’s still pretty fast even with 200,000+ songs and it’s quite powerful in terms of scripting, all the ways to slice and dice the library views and the smart playlisting.
My biggest gripe is that Apple’s music ecosystem still can’t handle multiple artists per song or multiple genres per song - there’s a couple of players/library managers that do support this, but they all have various other downsides.
― Siegbran, Monday, 1 February 2021 23:43 (three years ago) link
Oh, and it also appears that my library size is now too big for the Genius playlists feature - it times out every time it tries to upload the Genius analysis results to the Apple servers. I’ve understood that this starts happening somewhere beyond 50-100k songs.
― Siegbran, Monday, 1 February 2021 23:47 (three years ago) link
when I speak to Mac users, they don't seem to understand what the issue is, and just keep telling me to use iTunes/Music.
The universal talking-to-Apple-fans experience! Just wait until you find a bug and they tell you all the ways that it's All Your Fault, Actually. Avoid discussions.apple.com at all costs and go straight to apple.stackexchange.com when you have a problem.
― Dan I., Thursday, 4 February 2021 01:48 (three years ago) link
This is good advice, speaking as a Mac user and broad fan. The 'advice' at discussions.apple.com is comically bad and usually consists of completely ignoring what the original poster asks.
― Alba, Thursday, 4 February 2021 02:24 (three years ago) link
Look, it’s simple: there is no problem that cannot be solved by resetting the NVRAM and SMC. And if that doesn’t work, go buy a new Mac. Obviously.
― Dan I., Thursday, 4 February 2021 03:17 (three years ago) link
Desktop Windows iTunes:
In Artists view (and Composers and Compilations) I am shown the complete tracklisting of every album. Is there any way to change it to a grid of album covers, as in Albums or Recently Added? I can't find a way and it's annoying.
― Hans Holbein (Chinchilla Volapük), Thursday, 4 February 2021 08:18 (three years ago) link
I think the best you can do is view Albums and order by artists. Which sucks of course.
― assert (MatthewK), Thursday, 4 February 2021 08:48 (three years ago) link
Ah this is the doglatin thread, I’d forgotten. dl, you might consider Plex as a media server. it keeps everything organised the way you have it, and you can use Plexamp on your phone to stream from your computer if you’re out and about. it doesn’t have as powerful smart playlist features as Apple Music and i’m still not sure what the solution is for wanting to have columns in the Finder for bit rate and what have you. but you might want to check it out.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 4 February 2021 09:13 (three years ago) link
So this week I went to backup my iTunes files to an external HD, as I do periodically with never a problem, the only difference this time being a new HD. This time however something went terribly terribly wrong. Result: no files show up on the HD, and in iTunes about 15% of all of my songs will not play bc the files cannot be located. "The original file could not be found" is exactly what it says. I'm mystified as to where these files could have gone.
A tech guy looked at this for about an hour and could not figure it out. I told him I happen to have every file in my iPod Classic as well, which led to downloading an app that can transfer iPod files back to iTunes. This *seemed* to be working but after it was done I opened up iTunes and found the problem the same as before. Again no idea of where these files went when they were supposedly transferring.
So now I'm desperately clinging to my iPod Classic hoping it lives as long as possible, bc when it dies there goes 15% of my collection.
― Josefa, Thursday, 4 February 2021 23:42 (three years ago) link
that's terrible. there does exist software I think to get the music off of your phone and onto your computer though—or at least there used to
― John Wesley Glasscock (Hadrian VIII), Friday, 5 February 2021 00:03 (three years ago) link
I have most of these files on my phone too, but my phone is confusing me at the moment too, because there songs show up (and play) from my playlists but the same songs don't appear in the main list of songs, or in the list of artists. Admittedly I very rarely play music thru my phone so maybe I'm overlooking something obvious.
― Josefa, Friday, 5 February 2021 00:16 (three years ago) link
Have you tried using that app to transfer the iPod files to a fresh iTunes library rather than the old ones that sounds like it’s corrupt?
― Alba, Friday, 5 February 2021 01:10 (three years ago) link
Good question, I think that was an idea that came up but it seemed so simple just to transfer back to the original iTunes. The app reads what's already in your iTunes so that it only transfers back the files that aren't already there, and the total number of files the app said were missing was roughly the number I expected, so I thought OK the app is smart. But as you suggest, something seems wrong with the iTunes library itself, so making a new library could be an option.
― Josefa, Friday, 5 February 2021 01:25 (three years ago) link
just moved to Music from iTunes
"Recently Played" is worse now. click an album and:
- where iTunes had a double-column list of songs, we're now at single-column, track name and track length are basically on separate continents.
- for SOME REASON, the keyboard focus is on the song rating when you get into this view. (see the little outline box around the star rating.) so hitting space to play/pause does nothing until you ... click something outside the song rating? NOPE. you gotta hit tab twice.
― lukas, Tuesday, 6 April 2021 18:09 (three years ago) link
holy shit do i hate Music dot app mostly for not letting me change how things appear on the screen
― joygoat, Tuesday, 6 April 2021 18:14 (three years ago) link
" "The original file could not be found" is exactly what it says. " I don't know if your problem ever got solved, but I've def had weird situations with songs that I uploaded to iCloud that weren't matched with something in their catalog; and then, months later, for whatever reason, i can no longer play them. "no longer available'. Where the fuck did it go? Not sure if it's an icloud storage space issue where it purges files after a certain amount of time (I have a terrible feeling it did this with photos too, but I'm frankly too scared to actually investigate).
― akm, Tuesday, 6 April 2021 18:42 (three years ago) link
I have one artist that shows up twice in the Artists list. There is an extremely annoying-looking fix that involves adding an X to the end of every field that should be the same, then removing it ... it just seems there should be a script that does this automatically.
― lukas, Tuesday, 4 January 2022 17:55 (two years ago) link
removing and adding files back usually fixes bugs like that for me.
― calstars, Tuesday, 4 January 2022 18:15 (two years ago) link
Select everything by that artist (from both lists), right click, "Get Info", delete and retype the artist name in the proper field.
Or look at metadata for both lists... maybe one of the artist fields has a space at the end of it. I've had that issue.
― Hans Holbein (Chinchilla Volapük), Tuesday, 4 January 2022 18:56 (two years ago) link
Thanks both. The X thing was actually quite easy, just had to select all the tracks, changed the artist name to AutechreX, and then back to Autechre. Merged.
― lukas, Thursday, 6 January 2022 01:03 (two years ago) link
When you open the Get Info window, it grays out all the icons in the main window, so if you're wondering why you're not hearing audio and glance over to the AirPlay icon, iTunes might just be lying to you.
― death generator (lukas), Tuesday, 21 June 2022 19:31 (one year ago) link
piece of shit
― budo jeru, Wednesday, 17 May 2023 15:05 (one year ago) link
i'm givin it all i got, captain
― the manwich horror (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 17 May 2023 15:19 (one year ago) link
f’in thing sucks
― calstars, Wednesday, 17 May 2023 15:46 (one year ago) link
i'd still love a good alternative. Siegbran has talked about navidrome and Plexamp but neither one really did what I want which is basically just be a sturdy list of songs that allows me to search, create playlists and stream to my phone as long as my computer's on and running it
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 17 May 2023 15:54 (one year ago) link
i’m cool with whatever iteration of music i have rn, except for the one time it deleted my entire library lol
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 17 May 2023 15:56 (one year ago) link
(it wasn’t a permanent deletion, but i am still correcting album art and tagging errors from when i reconstructed my library … 1.5ish years ago)
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 17 May 2023 15:57 (one year ago) link
oh, one forever beef: album artist tagging dividing an album into two albums sometimes has been a recurring issue in this fucking program since i was in college
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 17 May 2023 15:58 (one year ago) link
i know how to fix it but it’s still incredibly stupid
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, 17 May 2023 15:59 (one year ago) link
iTunes is nearing its end, it’s already long gone on the Mac and the new Apple Music app is now downloadable as a beta on the Microsoft Store.
― Siegbran, Thursday, 18 May 2023 06:42 (one year ago) link
DIEMOTHERFUCKINGMusic Library.musiclibraryDIE..... it's bullshit how much is offloaded to this stupid file.
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 18 May 2023 09:29 (one year ago) link
I don’t use “album artist” and just stick with “artist” field.
― But his face would not turn into hot Kirby (Evan), Thursday, 18 May 2023 10:19 (one year ago) link
I've used itunes forever only as a way to organize mp3s on my computer, I haven't updated to a new version in years, hopefully I'm not going to run into issues if it goes away
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, 18 May 2023 14:57 (one year ago) link