Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

If you're using iTunes, select the track(s) you want to get artwork for, and either right-click (PC) or ctrl-click (Mac), then go down to "Get Album Artwork." Or, you can add it manually, which seems to be the way you've been going.

yeah... I do the steps I described (its a Mac), yet still one or two tracks within the album are sometimes missing art. Its driving me nuts because I don't notice them until the song comes up on my ipod. The albums all look good in coverflow.

Yeah, this is annoying; not sure what causes it beyond adding songs and retagging them at different times and not catching all the artwork. If the artwork is right on the first track, or the majority of tracks, it'll appear fine on coverflow.

Best way to solve it is to note each album that's missing it from even 1 track, highlight the whole tracklisting, and re-add the artwork to its details. Annoying, and time-consuming, but the only satisfactory way I've found around it.

You can also add art to a single song by just dragging the art into the lower left box while that song is playing.

iTunes is funny about art--even if a particular song lacks the art in its metadata, it might still display it if other songs from that same album do have the art. So if the songs came in at different times, a song or two might be lacking the art, but the art will still display if they're part of a larger album. But if that song ends up isolated on your iPod, the art won't be there.

I have that issue plus sometimes if I select all the tracks on an album and change the genre, 1 or 2 tracks won't be changed. God I hate computers.

^I've noticed this too, and need to reboot iTunes before it will resolve itself.

Has anyone tried any of these art-finding software tools for mac? I tried to use the built in iTunes tool once, but it badly mismatched a lot of songs so I've been doing it manually since. But doing this song by song ain't going to happen.

Generally, I use the built-in functionality, then manually add everything else. Or leave the stuff it can't find without art if I just don't feel like it.

I manually add all artwork on my Mac iTunes stuff.

ugh, this drives me nuts too. my ipod will JUST. NOT. DISPLAY. certain artwork. shows up in itunes but not on the ipod. I'm guessing it has something to do with resolution or filesize or something?

the whole getting all the right artwork for my mp3s racket really barely matters to me though -- i mostly just want to listen to the music and not worry about all the metadata so much

It can help if you make sure to click the "Display album artwork on your iPod" button when you sync to your computer. Even if it is already clicked. This is found at the bottom the "Music" page (where all the playlist check boxes are) of the iPod management section.

Would seem you shouldn't have to click it each time, but it's no huge chore.

my ipod will JUST. NOT. DISPLAY. certain artwork. shows up in itunes but not on the ipod.

You should also try "restoring" the software on your iPod, assuming you haven't already.

I found EAC truly a pain in the ass. For the sheer massive number of CDs I ripped (7,000+), it was well worth paying the $30 or so for a subscription to the multiple databases via dBpoweramp to ensure accurate tagging and album art. It also checks to make sure the rip is accurate. Avoid regrets and rip to lossless! It takes less space than you'd think -- I have yet to go surpass 2TB. You can get a 1 TB drive for $60 now.

I don't add artwork because the majority of my mp3 files are from torrent sites; fucks up the seeding.

For the sheer massive number of CDs I ripped (7,000+)

O_O

How long did that take you??

I think there is a difference between adding artwork to a selected track (by right-clicking and saying "Get Info" and adding to the box there) and dragging it to the window while it is playing. One way it embeds it in the mp3 itself, the other way it just keeps it in a database and associates the art with it. I could be wrong about this. But iTunes in general is pretty crappy about artwork for some reason. Too much manual work. Once again: a computer should be doing the computer stuff, not me.

I'm too far behind to play catch-up, though I'd love a week to do it, but I've found hitting get info and adding the artwork there is the only way to do it, especially to multiple tracks. If I just drag it to the window it never works right.

you have to make sure your bottom left artwork window is on Selected and not Now playing when adding artwork that way. click the artwork window title bar to swap between the two and be sure Selected is showing.

You should also try "restoring" the software on your iPod, assuming you haven't already.

yeah, I've tried that before to no avail. I've noticed this issue intermittently across two different ipods. sometimes if delete the files from my library, rename the folder they're in, and add them back to the ituens library, that does the trick. *siiiigh*

anyway, this bug really shouldn't matter much from a logical standpoint (as others have pointed out)... but I can be ridiculously detail-oriented sometimes and these types of things bother me way more than they should. oh, well.

Took me a full calendar to year to rip...how many CDs would it have been. Let me think here...something like 4000 to 5000, I guess. Then there were the CDRs and etc. etc.

It was about six months for me. I never did get any real writing done while doing it, takes too much focus to remember to keep the CDs flowing regularly. I did read and post plenty in ilx though...

I just started ripping the "D" section of the CDRs, gonna have to wait until I have another hard drive to rip the 1500 CDs and god knows how many burns from vinyl.

the curse of having too much music. one remedy, a music blog project. listening to the stuff in a different order, from a different angle. it works wonders.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2010/03/listening-to-my-life-lost-in-the-shuffle.html?variant=print

Maura wrote that, btw. off to read it now

Nice article.

Extremely nice.

Well-written as usual!

I don't add artwork because the majority of my mp3 files are from torrent sites; fucks up the seeding

Happened to me as well at first. Just add the artwork to the copy on your iPod, not the copy on your hard drive.

I liked that Paste Magazine article, but as with everything, a new paradigm can be a positive or a negative. Personally I'm finding lots of stuff in my own collection that I hadn't pulled out in years, and I've got playlists that help that process along. Sure, old favorites can be easy to gravitate towards but all it takes it another click or turn of the wheel and, hey, I haven't heard that in a while!

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/31/apples_streaming_music_service_could_arrive_in_july.html

It's inevitable, the question is what's the downside of cloud-based streaming of your music collection:

1) Sound quality will be further reduced
2) Not everything you own would be available via the cloud
3) You can't organize your music (e.g. singles) the way you might want to
4) You won't always be in a situation where you can access the wireless web

I don't know if any of these will be true but they're the first that come to mind.

1) right now the sound quality of streaming audio generally seems to be sub-CD, but that will inevitably change, and soon
2) this is a point i've ignored in the past, but it's definitely true. streaming from iTunes will not replace listening to music in other ways, especially for music nerds
3) i doubt this is true. can't you create Spotify playlists? i'm sure there'll be a way to organize the songs/albums you want to stream in a bunch of ways
4) Spotify mobile app already lets you listen to songs offline -- no doubt, iTunes will follow

no idea how a pricing scheme for an iTunes streaming service would work, but if it were a flat, monthly fee to listen to as much music as i wanted to, as long as the price wasn't too high, i'd be in. still can't imagine this'll be a good thing for a lot of artists, especially if they'll get paid per song streamed.

i think most artists realize by now that they only way to get paid is by touring/playing shows

you're totally right, but i also think there's a solid chance that mass adoption of a streaming service could mean that musicians will make even less from people listening to their records than the pittance a lot of them make now

warner bros. already rebuffed spotify's invitation to add the label's catalog to a US streaming service. fwiw, emusic is apparently considering adding a streaming service, too. no idea how they'll try to do it, but i have serious doubts about whether such a service can succeed.

this is another one of those things where whatever's left of the music industry is going to do all it can to maintain whatever small amount of control they still have over their product, even though it's pretty much inevitable that most of their shit will be streaming someday, in some form, from some service

Spotify also has zero traction in the US, since it's not available here. iTunes is huge

if it's cheaper than rhapsody and i don't have to use itunes it might be cool. or is it only gonna stream what you put there in the first place?

knowing Apple, any iTunes streaming functionality will be strictly controlled by them. you'll probably be able to stream via iTunes, your browser, and your iPad/iPod/iPhone, at least at the beginning. the possibility of their being, say, an Android app that would let you stream iTunes content probably won't happen anytime soon, if ever

it seems like the model for an iTunes streaming service will be that you'll buy tracks and albums as you have in the past, except instead of the program downloading local copies of that content to your computer, one-time only, you'll be able to stream it from iTunes at any computer you type your credentials into. this solves the problem of the user having to manage all those files, but it also locks you into iTunes, assuming that there is no way for you to keep a permanent, local copy of your files

ideally, i'd like to pay one flat fee to listen to as much music as i wanted to, but i don't see this happening anytime soon, and, as i said upthread, i can only imagine that, monetarily, that'd make the current situation even worse for some artists

> i'd like to pay one flat fee to listen to as much music as i wanted to, but i don't see this happening anytime soon

it's already here, has been for a while. i work for uk based company who supply music for vodafone uk, sweden, norway, vodacom SA, telenor, sky songs..., all of which, i believe, are subscription-based, unlimited streaming services, albeit with platform / region limitations. (i could be wrong, am tech side, not marketing. sky songs, looking at the website, appears to be £5 a month). i get to use it at work and, in answer to the points above 1) quality is ok. it's not cd quality but then people are happy enough to BUY things that aren't cd quality and 2) it doesn't have everything i own available (far from it) but it also has a shedload of good things that i don't own and 4) tracks are cached so you still have things to listen to if network goes down, but there is drm and you do lose things when your subscription lapses (i think some services give you a monthly quota of non-drmed tracks that you can keep)

(nothing in the US though)

I think you're right about sound quality, though there will always be a segment of us (myself included) that doesn't want to settle for less than we already get from ripping our own CDs and an iPod headphone out (which many feel is compromised to begin with).

Additionally, I suppose the appeal of such a service depends on how you listen to music in the first place. If you're not tied to your own collection, and/or can find most of what you want to listen to from a streaming service, then you're all set. But I suspect for the people like ILMers, it won't suffice. The obvious solution is a hybrid device, one that has on-board storage for your own music and can stream from a dedicated service.

The obvious solution is a hybrid device, one that has on-board storage for your own music and can stream from a dedicated service.

OTM

ie a mobile phone.

re: reduced sound quality, i kind of assume everything will go lossless eventually, right? i can't see record companies getting bent out of shape about it when most consumers of digital music files don't care about the difference between 192 & lossless anyway.