Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

Fir a long time, I used the USB formatting option in Windows Media Player (12, I think) to burn onto DVD-Rs. They hold a lot if you do it that way. Recently, my laptop tray started having physical problems (like a nightmare whine that went on forever, til I turned everything off, then the door would get stuck). I may try it a little bit more at lower burning speeds (I always selected Fastest) and not not not using auto-eject.
But mainly, I've started using the storage of Microsoft Office Online (which also offers free Word, Excel, etc). Their OneDrive has 15 GB free storage, 100 GB for $1.99 per month, 200 for etc---all in all, they're mirroring Google Drive (which I'll prob use for music now too). So far so good with free OneDrive, though uploading seems much faster if you do it via Chrome (ironically, ho-ho), don't run other apps while uploading, and do it around 11 PM or so, when not so much uploading traffic maybe.

OneDrive and GDrive (or whatever it's called now) both warn against storing bootlegs. What's a good jump drive, if there is one? (Currently too cheap to get external hard drive, though I know I should.)

still rocking a 3 TB drive with offsite backup

newer version of VLC can handle the entire 50,000 song library that is the main collection, and I can make playlists & save them although it is cumbersome. right now I'm giving basic tags to the thousands of bootleg flac folders that are in another part of the hard drive.

looks like flac will remain the format of choice for a while anyway.

Sorry for being a n00b but I just noticed that the songs I've bought in iTunes and which come up as 256kbps in the library suddenly turn to 128kbps when listed on my iphone and it's driving me nuts. Is there any way to fix this?

On the main iTunes page for your iPod, where there are check boxes for manage library manually, enable disk use, etc, there is a check box for 'convert larger files to 128'. Uncheck that shit!

It's not checked!!!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/10/02/353314790/the-good-listener-how-do-i-avoid-the-itunes-pit-of-despair

omg

My friend posted this on FB today and I told him it was a stupid article. There's no reason to delete music from your iTunes ever, other than RAM/processing issues. Use smart playlists properly to create interesting slices of your library and you will discover things that were 'lost' in the morass. It's really dumb to delete music you think you don't want to listen to. There are often albums / songs I put in my library and don't like initially but hit me just right other times. Use metadata & smart playlists, get your finger off the delete key.

'Dumb' was probably a bit strong but I actually did delete music from my iTunes a few years ago because my HD was filling up and I regret it still. Even though I copied the music over to a different external drive before I deleted, that backup drive died before I could re-add the music to a larger music library HD. Ultimately, If I had just bought a larger music drive, I would have been happier than deleting the files from my library.

first song i downloaded on napster. it took a few days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfLVVHxk4IM

good choice

A couple years back I chucked my MP3 collection onto a shared drive and started over ripping my CDs. My new digital collection is all uncompressed files. I don't like Itunes or Win Media Player at all. Most of those types of apps seem to be either neutered in their setup or memory hogs. I've been using Foobar 2000 for a few years as my player and use the dB Poweramp ripper and CD writer. I've got my current collection just organized in files and in an Excel spreadsheet. I have it backed up on a second PC and an external hard drive.

Completely agree with you, brotherlovesdub, on keeping your music and not deleting. Especially with the cheapness of modern storage.

I pick up most of my music for a reason, save for the random dips in the 3 for £1 bins, so even if I don't get into it I immediately I take solace in the fact it's there for a rainy day for a listen or when another person talks about it and I can go back and see if maybe I've overlooked it.

That said even on my year-old fairly great laptop there's no way I can load everything up anymore for sheer processing matters (the collection is well over a terabyte now). Which is sad for browsing's sake but I can see little workaround. Now it's just navigate the individual folders by letter and keep my go-to-favourites in Itunes.

Anyone know of any alternative applications to Itunes that can handle massive libraries?

I also worry loading up massive libraries puts a big strain on my hard-drives of (which I try to minimise use of due to failures in the past).

iTunes is so f*cking slow that it's honestly easier for me 90% of the time to just find it on Spotify/YouTube and play it that way

still use winamp tbh

xp If you're on Windows then foobar is is answer. It's takes a bit of fiddling to set it up right but its endlessly customizable and loads massive libraries without a problem.

I use VLC on an older Macbook and it can handle having almost 3 TB in the library. Mind you, it took me a while to load it in, it chokes if you try to dump it all at once.. But now I have an 85,000 song playlist saved.

Anyone use the iTunes Match Cloud storage thingy? I'm trying to prepare for life after my ipod classic finally self destructs. I currently have the 160 GB ipod, and it still works great (about 3 years old now), but I know I probably only have year or two left before the battery is completely dead.

I know when Match was released there were many problems with iTunes replacing peoples' songs with alternate versions of those songs. Not sure if that was ever fixed with an update. I have a little over 10k songs at the moment, so if it wasn't fixed it'll be a massive pain in the ass to manually fix any issues that stem from that glitch.

What is your goal? Backup? Buy a cheap USB drive and a Crashplan account. Do you want to stream your stuff from anywhere? You can put it on a cloud service or setup a server with Sonar or some other audio server software. I never really understood the point of Match, but maybe it's because I always resisted going all in on the whole Apple ecosystem.

I'm in the same position as you, I have a 160GB iPod with about 10,000 songs on it which I figure is going to give up eventually. What I did – which you should also have done – is snap up a new one before Apple discontinued them. I've backed up all my songs to an external drive and when my current iPod dies Imma copy everything over. You can still get new or nearly new iPod classics on ebay but they've quadrupled in price since they were discontinued.

Do you have a smart phone? Why not just get a 128/256GB microSD card (from about £20 on Amazon for example) rather than paying loads of money for a used iPod that's probably going to have a duff battery in a year or so?

There are a few companies out there who specialise in more intensive IPod repair work where you cold keep your pod going, they'll also put in bigger hard drives too.

How's the UI on the FiiO players? That's what I'll probably go with next, but I've heard for instance it doesn't support playlists, which makes me a little wary. I don't really want to use my cell phone as a media player because battery life on cell phones tends not to be so good.

rather than paying loads of money for a used iPod that's probably going to have a duff battery in a year or so?

like he says, cell phones die in hours just doing normal stuff, let alone playing music. and every one I've seen has an interface that's not set up for that volume of media... especially compared to the iPod classic which has THE GREATEST UI IN THE HISTORY OF ALL TECHNOLOGY except for the scooter.

I have an iPod classic (with a fucked battery and hard drive), and that makes no sense at all, in what way is the UI so good? I switched to Winamp on Android and never looked back tbh.

yeah I love my classic but I would say the UI is a pain in the ass, all that scrolling up and down is no fun and having to do it in a rotating motion w/your finger just makes matters worse

I tried iTunes Match for a year but I didn't renew, mainly because I was frustrated I had to painstakingly whittle my collection down to fit under their 20,000 track limit.

At first, I was nervous about iTunes Match replacing tracks with alternate versions (Do we really need remasters of albums released in the 1990s?), but it only replaces tracks if you specifically ask it to. The nice thing is if you have a lousy 128k rip of a track, you can replace it with a DRM-free 256k AAC that is yours to keep even if you let your iTunes Match subscription lapse. I upgraded a few lousy rips on my computer, and left the rest as-is. I'm assuming that if you download something from the cloud onto your phone that wasn't previously synced on it, it's going to give you whatever janky mastering is currently on iTunes, but as long as I have the original on my Mac's HD, I don't care.

256GB microSD card

This doesn't exist yet does it? I have a couple of 128s and they're brilliant...

Also nervous about my iPod classic giving up one me since that's why I use in the car where I need the physical pointers to skip songs while driving.

256GB microSD card

This doesn't exist yet does it? I have a couple of 128s and they're brilliant...

Hmm maybe not, the ones listed as such on Amazon look fake/dodgy tbh

not all players will be compatible with cards over 32GB though - different technology for higher capacities - SDXC rather than SDHC.

With my sansa clips, for the higher capacity cards I have to put them in my mac slot and reformat them to fat32. Then they work great. I have not been able to do this fat32 reformat successfully on a pc, only in Mac disk utility. Dunno why.

if your iPod Classic conks out you can always get an iPod Touch. It's over-engineered to be an mp3 player but it will do the job.

and hopefully they will increase the largest HD size from 64 to 128 in their next model refresh.

There are tons of fake microSD cards. I've seen some pretty good pages on how to suss out if you have a mislabelled one (basically, copy data on there to fill it up, then copy the data back off and test to see that it's still valid). This kind of thing has gone on for decades... I still remember getting a hole puncher to get 720 KB floppy disks to hold 1.44 mb, and then using a special formatting tool to up the available space to 1.68 mb... surprisingly those disks had a fairly high failure rate...

The cloud doesn't work for me, because I listen to too much stuff that's unreleased and possibly unreleasable. Camille's cover of "Wanna Be Starting Something", Daniel Humair's soundtrack to the sixties version of Haxan... I mean, this stuff is all readily available on Youtube, but it doesn't get interpreted as "music" for commercial consumption.

iPod touches won't work because Apple doesn't put SD card slots in their devices! (Right?)

that too but I figured I was wrong

I have an iPod classic (with a fucked battery and hard drive), and that makes no sense at all, in what way is the UI so good? I switched to Winamp on Android and never looked back tbh.

yeah I love my classic but I would say the UI is a pain in the ass, all that scrolling up and down is no fun and having to do it in a rotating motion w/your finger just makes matters worse

finger? hold it between your fingers and palm and do literally 100% of the interacting with your thumb, which is already positioned in front of the wheel. it's insane how simple that thing is.

also, once it's in your pocket, all you have to do to pause and talk to someone, or skip to the next track, is tap your leg. try that on an ipod touch and stay fashionable.

How's the UI on the FiiO players? That's what I'll probably go with next, but I've heard for instance it doesn't support playlists, which makes me a little wary. I don't really want to use my cell phone as a media player because battery life on cell phones tends not to be so good.

I just bought the FiiO X1 and it does support playlists. I haven't tried it yet, but the manual says you can create playlists on the computer an import them on the X1. (And obviously you can create playlists on the player itself, plus there's also a "favourite tracks" option, which I find really useful.) Apparently this feature wasn't in the original firmware, but the later version (1.1) included it, that's why some older reviews say it doesn't support playlists.

However, with the current firmware, the player can only index a maximum of 5400 tracks... For any tracks beyond that, you have to play the albums via the folder view, they won't show in the alvums view, I have a 64GB MicroSD card and almost all of my tracks are FLACs or WAVs, the total track number on the card is around 2000, so it's not a problem for me, but I would imagine it'd be problem if you had mostly MP3s and/or a 128GB card. Fiio has promised to fix this in a later firmware update, though.

I'm in the same position as you, I have a 160GB iPod with about 10,000 songs on it which I figure is going to give up eventually. What I did – which you should also have done – is snap up a new one before Apple discontinued them. I've backed up all my songs to an external drive and when my current iPod dies Imma copy everything over. You can still get new or nearly new iPod classics on ebay but they've quadrupled in price since they were discontinued.

― you've got no fans you've got no ground (anagram), Tuesday, January 27, 2015 3:12 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Smart move. I had no idea until a few weeks ago that Apple discontinued the classic or I would have bought an extra one.

I tried iTunes Match for a year but I didn't renew, mainly because I was frustrated I had to painstakingly whittle my collection down to fit under their 20,000 track limit.

At first, I was nervous about iTunes Match replacing tracks with alternate versions (Do we really need remasters of albums released in the 1990s?), but it only replaces tracks if you specifically ask it to. The nice thing is if you have a lousy 128k rip of a track, you can replace it with a DRM-free 256k AAC that is yours to keep even if you let your iTunes Match subscription lapse. I upgraded a few lousy rips on my computer, and left the rest as-is. I'm assuming that if you download something from the cloud onto your phone that wasn't previously synced on it, it's going to give you whatever janky mastering is currently on iTunes, but as long as I have the original on my Mac's HD, I don't care.

― Your Favorite Album in the Cutout Bin, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 11:10 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks for the info. Sounds better than what I was expecting. I'm at around 10k songs, and I believe at add around 300-400 or so a year, so hitting the 20k ceiling is not an immediate concern of mine.

Thanks all for your comments. I may just get the 64gb ipod touch down the road if my classic dies. I just can't believe, with storage space being as cheap as it is, that Apple can't just up the Touch to 160 gb. Maybe they will now.

I worry they will not do that. Instead they could just stick with current HD sizes and make the devices slimmer. Hope you're right though.

Just for perspective, even the largest iPad is only 128 GB... and the first page of google results about it is filled with bad press like "Why you might not need Apple's 128GB iPad - CNN.com" and "Don't be confused by the 128GB iPad. It's not for you. | ZDNet" and "Why You Shouldn't Buy the 128GB iPad Air 2 - GottaBeMobile".

Based on the discussion I've read about the Fiio X1 (see my post on its current indexing limit of 5400 tracks), the problem might not be the storage space itself, but the amount of processing power needed to deal with the metadata of the 10 000+ tracks you might have, if the player has more than 100GB of memory. It's solvable, but it seems that at least at the moment you'll have to get one of the higher-end players to do that.

Sorry, I remembered it wrong, the limit is 5800 songs, not 5400. But obviously it's still a problem if you use MP3s and not FLACs/WAVs, or if you listen to genres with shorter tunes. (I mainly listen to jazz and electronic music and classical, which tend to have longer tracks and fewer tracks per album, so I wouldn't reach the limit even with a 128GB card.)

There are tons of fake microSD cards. I've seen some pretty good pages on how to suss out if you have a mislabelled one (basically, copy data on there to fill it up, then copy the data back off and test to see that it's still valid).

― rushomancy, Tuesday, January 27, 2015 5:35 PM

Windows users. Flash Drive Tester from vconsole is what i've been using for years; i test all new media before writing anything to them; being thumb drives SD or micrSD cards. Also Windows formatting tool is crap -- i use HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool to format in fat32 or NTFS.

Does anyone know if there's a limit to the number of external hard drives you can back up with CrashPlan? Or does it not matter as long as you're backing all of them up through the same computer? They offer 'limitless' backup space but I want to know if it's truly limitless (or if the limit is at least enough to suit my needs) before I pull the trigger.

someone let me know when there's anything comprable to the Classic out there; I don't like much that is Apple but those iPods were phenominal

So glad I bought a backup when I heard they were done. My current one is starting to sputter a bit more than I'd like.

You'd think that someone would surely be rushing in to fill the void, particularly given the prices the Classic is fetching now.

Toshiba apparently ended production of these special tiny harddrives altogether so everyone's shitouttaluck.

These days (and going forward I imagine), dedicated music players are a very niche item. My Classic has been gathering dust since I set up a streaming server for my library and microSD cards went to 64gb for local storage. One device, many uses. If you want to argue that a phone can't possibly sound as good as a dedicated player with a good DAC/AMP built-in, you're right. But convenience rules the day.

umm .. forgive the non-apple noob here,
but there are a ton of external hard drives on the market for apple users.
can you not just connect your old classic ipod up to a mac machine with an external drive connected and copy over from the ipod to the external ?
sorry if this sounds simplistic, but hey, thats what i am used to.

You can do that with third party software, yes. Not by apples terms though.