Hatred of Itunes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Doug's iTunes AppleScripts page is hella useful for managing tracks

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.

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).

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 Requirements
400 MHz G3 processor or faster
At least 128 MB of RAM
Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later
Windows Minimum Requirements
A Pentium processor-based PC or compatible computer
At least 128MB of RAM
Windows 2000/XP

alba: thx, will try it out later.

Do you have a DELL?

http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobile/bullfrog-dual/

500MHz Pentium III or comparable
64MB RAM
15MB Hard Disk Space
16bit Sound Card
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003
1x speed or greater CD Burner (Required for Burning)
2x speed or greater CDROM (Required for Ripping)
Recommended system requirements
1.5 GHz Pentium IV or comparable
128MB RAM
30MB Hard Disk Space
32bit Sound Card
Windows 2000, Windows XP
8x speed or greater CD Burner (Required for Burning)
16x speed or greater CDROM (Required for Ripping)

http://www.foobar2000.org/

TURN THAT OPTION OFF THEN.

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

DIEMOTHERFUCKINGMusic Library.musiclibraryDIE..... it's bullshit how much is offloaded to this stupid file.

I don’t use “album artist” and just stick with “artist” field.

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

The Tahoe rework of iTunes/Music might have finally broken me. What's the best Mac alternative at the moment? Is there anything that would allow importing of playlists/playcount data?

+1

Playlists are relatively easy to export to .m3u and importable in most alternatives.

For playcount you'd probably have to script something unfortunately.

iTunes/Music-like replacements, although none offer native sync-to-iPhone/iPad:
- Swinsian is most similar to Apple Music, recent new version is a nice improvement
- foobar2000 mac version is decent, bit clunky interface
- Rekordbox is great for managing big libraries & making playlists, but it's 100% DJ/tracks-focused, not so much for listening to whole albums
- same for EngineDJ, Serato, djay Pro

Server/client setups:
- Navidrome is just a server app (so you need to manage/edit your tags elsewhere), but for serving big libraries it's really good, plenty of clients on desktop and mobile, also with sync
- Plex/Plexamp also very good, the nicest features are for the paid tier but the "lifetime pass" has been well worth the money
- tried Jellyfin a while ago, not as polished as the two above
- Roon, looks very fancy but super expensive

i still have this issue with Plexamp not working outside my home network that frankly i’ve just been too lazy to try and diagnose. it’s annoying because my Plex movies ARE available outside it

Why are the player controls at the bottom now. Why wtf GrRRRrrRr

ugh yes, so stupid

Why do software companies do stuff like this? Like actually why? I'm having a similar thing at work with new Outlook and I've felt like quitting my job in frustration

it does feel like iTunes and the iPhone music player as a whole is slowly falling apart. its messing up my playlists, its pasting in random album art, also I feel like the shuffle function ain't really working as it should...I've got a massive playlist of basically every song I really like and it's just now started to play a bunch of tracks it wasn't before, admittedly it's been fun to be reminded of a bunch of stuff this way. but for like several years I suspect it was just shuffling a group of like, half the list

Yes, Apple Music is really only useful as a streaming music client these days, for library management it’s deteriorated to the point of uselessness.

Still annoying - while I can do all things that Music/iTunes did with a combination of other apps/tools (tagging, listening, creating playlists, sync-to-phone, stream to tv/speakers), there was a lot of value having it all in one place.

I only moved to Apple Music a few months ago and I'm surprised by how poor its UX is generally. I've always preferred player controls at the bottom tho. Might go back to MediaMonkey..

xp: does iTunes not stream to tv/speakers from specific devices (ie phone vs desktop), or at all? I’ve never tried, but my ipod’s in the other room

Another annoying thing is that even though I'm toggling "Show status bar" in the View menu, no status bar shows up at the bottom like it used to. Often it's really helpful to know the exact length of the songs in a playlist, but now the UX only shows you an approximation (e.g., "35 minutes") rather than an exact time (e.g., "35:26"). Despite googling and messing around with parameters, it seems this feature is totally gone and you can only ever see a rounded number now.

In the music app on my phone it doesn't tell me what album the song that is playing is from. I have to go down two or three clicks if I like a song and want to know where I can find it again. Mind boggling how bad all of it is, wtf

My Apple Music (desktop) has just developed a quirk where hitting the "play" button starts playback at a track in the middle of the album, rather than the start. At first I thought I had shuffle on, but no. This joins the annoyance that developed awhile back where I can no longer bulk delete tracks from the Continue Playing queue; I have to delete each one individually. Annoying when I want to listen to an album but not the bonus disc.

I think I just finally hit my literal limit the other month as to how big my music library could get before the program just couldn't load it anymore and sending to 'damaged' over and over. Thankfully I had said library all properly backed up so I said 'heck with it' and switched over to Swinsian. A couple of things that aren't as smooth in terms of working with track info and the like but zero crashes and everything works great so I'm sticking with that.