iTunes - I don't get it

[AgustusM]

OK - I have owned about 6 different MP3 players and none of them have been an IPod. I have a big problem with how restrictive the whole ITunes/IPod thing is,so I have always chose something different and never missed anything.

however, this damn IPhone thing has me salivating - there is so much about that device that is better then anything else out there.

my question is why am I the only one that notices how bad ITunes sucks, especially as a music library???

is it because I haven't taken the time to learn it?

is it because it really sucks, and all of the ILemmings don't know better?

On WMP or Yahoo Jukebox or many of the other players it is very easy to filter your library by artist, genre, rating, playlist - also the look and inclusion of album art is a big plus.

every time I fire up a version of ITunes all I get is a big long list of songs without filters or art in a cold 1995 sort of look.

not to mention the I only work with IPod thing.

someone please enlighten me.

[wade moore]

Yeah, you need to learn iTunes ;)..

A) It includes album art. It used to be just be on what you purchased, but now if you import a CD it finds the album art automatically. If you're not seeing album artwork, go to View -> Show Artwork

B) You need to learn about "Smart Playlists". Instead of allowing filtering in the main library, it uses these very dynamic smart playlists. Then you can select the playlists or in "party shuffle" (a very underrated feature IMO) you can choose which playlist you are using. Whatever you set for the filter on the smart playlists, they automatically get added to as you add music.

I personally find the immediate access to the smart playlists (consider them stored filters) to be far superior than having to build my filter every time i want to use it or to have to add to playlists as i add music.

[cartman]

iTunes is only restrictive if you purchase from the iTunes store. You can import your own MP3s on all you want. I have an iPod that I got for free from HP a couple of years ago, and I've never purchased anything from the iTunes store. iTunes is simply the program that transfers the files to the iPod, organizes your playlist, and is also the interface to the iTunes store, if you choose to purchase any songs from them.

[AgustusM]

iTunes is only restrictive if you purchase from the iTunes store. You can import your own MP3s on all you want. I have an iPod that I got for free from HP a couple of years ago, and I've never purchased anything from the iTunes store. iTunes is simply the program that transfers the files to the iPod, organizes your playlist, and is also the interface to the iTunes store, if you choose to purchase any songs from them.

and I have done that (import my mp3's)- but it is still restrictive in the sense that it will only work with IPods - although I understand there is a law suit that may change that.

[wade moore]

and I have done that (import my mp3's)- but it is still restrictive in the sense that it will only work with IPods - although I understand there is a law suit that may change that.

Your use of pronouns here is confusing me. Do you mean that iTunes will not import directly into another mp3 player? If so - does WinAmp? Don't most other MP3 players work more as pure Hard Drives? You just transfer to them from a directory or something?

[Draft Dodger]

I resisted iTunes for a long time, sticking with trusty old Winamp. As time went on, I found I was using iTunes more and more, and now I don't think Winamp is even installed on my PC. I even do a lot of my CD burning in it instead of Nero.

definitely a learning curve, definitely has some drawbacks...but overall very useable

[AgustusM]

Your use of pronouns here is confusing me. Do you mean that iTunes will not import directly into another mp3 player? If so - does WinAmp? Don't most other MP3 players work more as pure Hard Drives? You just transfer to them from a directory or something?


ITunes will only sych with IPod's

other players for example WMP11 (which is far from perfect) will sync wiht almost any MP3 player as will Yahoo Jukebox and a few others.

[cartman]

and I have done that (import my mp3's)- but it is still restrictive in the sense that it will only work with IPods - although I understand there is a law suit that may change that.

I misread your post. I thought you might have been under the impression that an iPod can only play songs bought from the iTunes store. I have had quite a few people tell me that they thought that was a restriction of iTunes and that was why they wouldn't buy an iPod.

[wade moore]

ITunes will only sych with IPod's

other players for example WMP11 (which is far from perfect) will sync wiht almost any MP3 player as will Yahoo Jukebox and a few others.

Ok, so you're stretching beyond my knowledge a bit cause I abandoned WinAmp quite some time ago.. but..

Don't most of these other mp3 players sync to a folder either via the device itself or some proprietory software? Meaning you could just sync to whatever folder your iTunes MP3's are stored in?

[lordscarlet]

On WMP or Yahoo Jukebox or many of the other players it is very easy to filter your library by artist, genre, rating, playlist - also the look and inclusion of album art is a big plus.

every time I fire up a version of ITunes all I get is a big long list of songs without filters or art in a cold 1995 sort of look.


Edit->Show Browser

And in iTunes 7 there are just three little icons at the top to change view modes.

[lordscarlet]

I misread your post. I thought you might have been under the impression that an iPod can only play songs bought from the iTunes store. I have had quite a few people tell me that they thought that was a restriction of iTunes and that was why they wouldn't buy an iPod.

quoted for truth.

[cartman]

Ok, so you're stretching beyond my knowledge a bit cause I abandoned WinAmp quite some time ago.. but..

Don't most of these other mp3 players sync to a folder either via the device itself or some proprietory software? Meaning you could just sync to whatever folder your iTunes MP3's are stored in?

You could do that, but you'd lose any playlists or iTunes specific features you might take advantage of.

[wade moore]

You could do that, but you'd lose any playlists or iTunes specific features you might take advantage of. Valid point.

[AgustusM]

Ok, so you're stretching beyond my knowledge a bit cause I abandoned WinAmp quite some time ago.. but..

Don't most of these other mp3 players sync to a folder either via the device itself or some proprietory software? Meaning you could just sync to whatever folder your iTunes MP3's are stored in?

My understanding is that ITunes will not sych with any hardware other then IPod's - in fact they have been sued first by a few foreign countries and most recently my some gal in the US.

hxxp://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9006985

hxxp://playlistmag.com/news/2006/08/01/nordic/index.php


I do now know if they are "ways around" this as there are in so many other things involving MP3's.

[wade moore]

My understanding is that ITunes will not sych with any hardware other then IPod's - in fact they have been sued first by a few foreign countries and most recently my some gal in the US.

hxxp://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9006985

hxxp://playlistmag.com/news/2006/08/01/nordic/index.php


I do now know if they are "ways around" this as there are in so many other things involving MP3's.

I would have to understand how other devices sync...

What I'm saying is there is nothing inherit in MP3's in iTunes that keep you from synching them to a non-iPod, you just can't do it through iTunes..

FWIW, it seems absurd that you could sue to force iTunes to synch directly to devices besides the iPod.

[AgustusM]

FWIW, it seems absurd that you could sue to force iTunes to synch directly to devices besides the iPod.


I agree with you on that, but then again I think 90% of what people sue over is absurd, and it never seems to stop anyone.

[Coder]

I have a few gripes with iTunes, despite being in love with my 80 Gb iPod.. after having used Winamp for a long time, the leap to iTunes makes me feel a bit.. eh.. restricted.. I dislike having to import every mp3-file into the iTunes library only to listen to it once, or twice..

I think iTunes is a resource hog.. just browsing in Firefox while listening to songs in iTunes sometimes makes the song "jump".

I get frustrated when I have to create playlists just to listen to a few select songs.

Since I have a massive library of mp3-songs (I've mp3ed just about every CD I have), I don't want all of them to be transferred to my iPod.. now, I can't simply "copy over" the files I want on the iPod, but I have to create playlists to transfer first.

Basically, there are all these little things that are frustrating me.. these were just a few examples.. as I said, I love the iPod, but it's definately not "perfect".. I often feel like it's dumbed down a bit..

[BrianD]

While we are discussing iTunes issues, is it possible to easily re-import MP3s? I've realized that I have a number of songs with bad ID3 tags, but I find it easier to fix them with a different program. The only way I have found to get the new tag info into iTunes is to delete the songs and re-import. Is there a way to just re-scan folders that have already been imported?

[Easy Mac]

While we are discussing iTunes issues, is it possible to easily re-import MP3s? I've realized that I have a number of songs with bad ID3 tags, but I find it easier to fix them with a different program. The only way I have found to get the new tag info into iTunes is to delete the songs and re-import. Is there a way to just re-scan folders that have already been imported?


not that i've found

[Draft Dodger]

While we are discussing iTunes issues, is it possible to easily re-import MP3s? I've realized that I have a number of songs with bad ID3 tags, but I find it easier to fix them with a different program. The only way I have found to get the new tag info into iTunes is to delete the songs and re-import. Is there a way to just re-scan folders that have already been imported?

just import the whole folder - it will only add the "new" (fixed) songs.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Since I have a massive library of mp3-songs (I've mp3ed just about every CD I have), I don't want all of them to be transferred to my iPod.. now, I can't simply "copy over" the files I want on the iPod, but I have to create playlists to transfer first.


If you choose to "manually manage" songs, you can choose what songs from the library to transfer to your ipod. In fact, if you go over your GB limit on the ipod, you have to do this. You simply drag the music files from the library to the ipod icon on the left.

Just realize that if you ever decide to sync up again with the library in the future, it will do just that and if you have since deleted/moved songs from itunes music folder, those will come off the ipod.

[Coder]

If you choose to "manually manage" songs, you can choose what songs from the library to transfer to your ipod. In fact, if you go over your GB limit on the ipod, you have to do this. You simply drag the music files from the library to the ipod icon on the left.

I know, and this is what I do.. but as far as I can see, I first have to create a playlist for said songs before I can transfer them. This is the part that I find a bit unnecessary.

[SackAttack]

Not true, sir. My mother has filled something like 30% of her iPod Nano with songs without creating any playlists whatsoever. Just drag and drop directly to the iPod icon.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Yep. You don't need to create a playlist. Just drag and drop when on "manual manage."

[cthomer5000]

Geez, there are like a million itunes myths in this thread... where to begin?

my question is why am I the only one that notices how bad ITunes sucks, especially as a music library???

What? It's an outstanding library system, and I was using for about 18 months with a creative zen before i even owned and ipod. The ability to sort by basically any criteria, search within composer names, notes, create dynamically updating playlistes (everything from 1985, everything that is country, every i imported in the last 4 weeks, etc), hasn't been beaten by anything else i've seen.

On WMP or Yahoo Jukebox or many of the other players it is very easy to filter your library by artist, genre, rating, playlist - also the look and inclusion of album art is a big plus.

every time I fire up a version of ITunes all I get is a big long list of songs without filters or art in a cold 1995 sort of look.

You can sort by any criteria itunes has, and there are at least 20+ to my knowledge. The interface is customizable. If you want nothing but artist name, song name, album name, that's all you'll see. If you want song duration, track number, bit rate, your rating, times played, date last played, date added, etc... it's all available.

Itunes features album art in the newest version and will automatically acquire it for you as well. The biggest thing is that the view is quite customizable, some people might open it up go "this sucks" and close it. Sounds like you may have done that at some point.

ITunes will only sych with IPod's

This is definitely true on PC, but i know that on the MAC it can sync with some other 3rd party players as well, though im not sure if that is through 3rd party plug-ins or not. I just know that my old model of MP3 player could sync with a MAC, and it frustrated me to know i couldnt do it on pc.

Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by wade moore http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/images/styles/yellow/buttons//viewpost.gif (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?p=1353242#post1353242)
Ok, so you're stretching beyond my knowledge a bit cause I abandoned WinAmp quite some time ago.. but..

Don't most of these other mp3 players sync to a folder either via the device itself or some proprietory software? Meaning you could just sync to whatever folder your iTunes MP3's are stored in?

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

You could do that, but you'd lose any playlists or iTunes specific features you might take advantage of.

But without an ipod, i think wade is saying it's easy to use itunes and still sync your player to the main folder without missing any music. However, you are correct in saying playlists will be an issue.

I think iTunes is a resource hog.. just browsing in Firefox while listening to songs in iTunes sometimes makes the song "jump".

I do think the newer versions uses noticeably more memory, but this sounds more like your PC. I really do an insane amount of shit while using iTunes on my main comp without issue.


Since I have a massive library of mp3-songs (I've mp3ed just about every CD I have), I don't want all of them to be transferred to my iPod.. now, I can't simply "copy over" the files I want on the iPod, but I have to create playlists to transfer first.

This isn't true. If you want to manually manage your music, you can, but obviously it basically defeats the entire point of the system. And personally, i cant imagine not having a player big enough to fit all my stuff. The point of the portability of the player (to me) is having ALL of my music on hand at ALL times). But obviously, this isn't a view held by everyone.

While we are discussing iTunes issues, is it possible to easily re-import MP3s? I've realized that I have a number of songs with bad ID3 tags, but I find it easier to fix them with a different program. The only way I have found to get the new tag info into iTunes is to delete the songs and re-import. Is there a way to just re-scan folders that have already been imported?

How about simply right-clicking anything you're trying to change, select "get info" and change the fields there. You can also change a bunch at once by highlighitng them all and doing the same. Or you can change all the main fields directly by simply clicking on them right on the main view. I'm crazy anal about the details of my music, so i've used itunes to edit thousand of tags, easily.

[wade moore]

ct speaks the truth.

And for those that don't realize, I know ct has an ass-load of music on his PC.

[Coder]

I think iTunes is a resource hog.. just browsing in Firefox while listening to songs in iTunes sometimes makes the song "jump".

I do think the newer versions uses noticeably more memory, but this sounds more like your PC. I really do an insane amount of shit while using iTunes on my main comp without issue.

I've got a year old 3800 AMD with a gig of ram.. not state of the art by any means, but just running iTunes and Firefox shouldn't cause this to happen. Running iTunes in the background when playing, for example, WoW, just isn't an option.. Winamp requires FAR less resources and does a heck of a job both with the audio-replay and the music library.

Granted it doesn't have all the nifty connections to the iTunes store or the "smart" playlists, or the album covers, but for just replaying audio on a system designed to use other stuff with the music being a "background" thingy, Winamp wins hands down due to the low resource usage.

Since I have a massive library of mp3-songs (I've mp3ed just about every CD I have), I don't want all of them to be transferred to my iPod.. now, I can't simply "copy over" the files I want on the iPod, but I have to create playlists to transfer first.

This isn't true. If you want to manually manage your music, you can, but obviously it basically defeats the entire point of the system. And personally, i cant imagine not having a player big enough to fit all my stuff. The point of the portability of the player (to me) is having ALL of my music on hand at ALL times). But obviously, this isn't a view held by everyone.

Exactly, this isn't a view held by everyone. I dislike how iTunes seems to want to decide for me. Having had an iRiver for many years before I had the iPod, and being a "computer-person", I like having control over what's on my player. I want to set up "directory"-structures that aren't based on playlists.

For example, I ran into a problem when converting a CD Audiobook to mp3. When putting it on my iPod I had all sorts of problems. I had to manually edit each mp3 (660 mp3s for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell) to give them a new file-extension, I had to edit each mp3-file's tags rather than just letting iTunes work with the filenames (which were lazily named 1,2,3,4,5 etc).

All this to get it categorized as and audio-book in iTunes to start with. Why couldn't they just let decide for myself which files to "drop" in the Audio-book category?

On my iRiver I had a directory called Audiobooks, under that directory I created a new directory for each book and then just copied all the files and sorted by filename.

Like I've mentioned.. the main thing I dislike about iTunes, other than the resource-issue, is that it feels so "simplified".. iTunes doesn't allow me to take out the turns..

[wade moore]

I've got a year old 3800 AMD with a gig of ram.. not state of the art by any means, but just running iTunes and Firefox shouldn't cause this to happen. Running iTunes in the background when playing, for example, WoW, just isn't an option.. Winamp requires FAR less resources and does a heck of a job both with the audio-replay and the music library.

I think this has to be something with your system. I have a 2.79 Ghz Pentium with a gig of ram and I run Firefox, Internet Explorer, iTunes, Multiple instances of FOF2k7, Adobe Photoshop, and Excel all at the same time without any problems with my songs playing or any other programs having problems.

[cthomer5000]

I routinely (and i mean that in the actual sense) run the following at the same time (two monitor setup)

Itunes (actively playing music on shuffle from my entire library)
2 instances of Firefox open with 4-8 tabs each
Internet Explorer (there are about 5 sites i cannot get to work properly in firefox, so i have this kicking around))
Paint Shop Pro
Excel
Cool Edit
Powerpoint
AIM with 4-5 open and active chat windows
...all while playing FIFA 07 in full screen mode

And the only time i have any audio/slowdown issue is the when coming into or out of FIFA, it makes the audio kind of "hiccup." But zero slowdown issues.

[Daimyo]

No way iTunes should be causing the kid of slow downs you describe with that hardware. What sort of processor and memory utilization does it show in task manager?

[BrianD]

While we are discussing iTunes issues, is it possible to easily re-import MP3s? I've realized that I have a number of songs with bad ID3 tags, but I find it easier to fix them with a different program. The only way I have found to get the new tag info into iTunes is to delete the songs and re-import. Is there a way to just re-scan folders that have already been imported?

How about simply right-clicking anything you're trying to change, select "get info" and change the fields there. You can also change a bunch at once by highlighitng them all and doing the same. Or you can change all the main fields directly by simply clicking on them right on the main view. I'm crazy anal about the details of my music, so i've used itunes to edit thousand of tags, easily.

That works great for individual files, but not so well for large blocks of files. I had a bunch of CDs by the same artist incorrectly ripped with bad file names and no album tag. There was no way I wanted to edit each file and add all of the info to each individual file. I used ID3-TagIt to go through the directory structures and add all of the tag info, then had to delete all of the files (from that artist) from my iTunes library and re-import. I've tried importing CDs over the top of themselves, but I always end up with two copies of the CD on my iPod.

[Easy Mac]

That works great for individual files, but not so well for large blocks of files. I had a bunch of CDs by the same artist incorrectly ripped with bad file names and no album tag. There was no way I wanted to edit each file and add all of the info to each individual file. I used ID3-TagIt to go through the directory structures and add all of the tag info, then had to delete all of the files (from that artist) from my iTunes library and re-import. I've tried importing CDs over the top of themselves, but I always end up with two copies of the CD on my iPod.

All you have to do is retag in a different program (don't change file names, just the tags, I use MediaMonkey, it will download tag info from Amazon, including album art). Then, in Itunes, right click and select "Get info". It will update the tag to whatever you changed it to in the other program. Then just either click next, or hit the down arrow key while still in the "Get Info" main tab, then just use the arrows until "Next" is highlighted. From there just hold enter until Itunes stops at the last song in the list. All of the tags are changed automatically (though I swear it has occassionally missed a file or two).

Also, Itunes just got to 7.1. The only major addition is a full screen "cover flow", but man does it look gorgeous. I'm sitting on my bed using my media center remote to flip through covers.

[ISiddiqui]

I'll echo what Coder says about iTunes memory usage. It doesn't skip or anything, but looking at my Vista sidebar plugin for processor and RAM usage, iTunes uses FAR more of both than, say, Winamp. It isn't a problem for me because I have 3 GB of RAM and a AMD 3800 Dual Core processor, but definately a lot of system resource usage comparatively.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

I love itunes, but think that the ipod is lacking. There is no way to change the info shown, plus I absolutely hate the stupid "click-wheel." Whenever I want to scroll to something, I pass it several times up and down... Plus, if it's friggin' cold out and you have gloves on you have to take a glove off to use it.

[Easy Mac]

i think i'd wouldn't bother with an mp3 player without having a clickwheel. I tried my mom's Sansa, and it was just unbelievably tedious to move through songs, and that was one of those 1 gb ones. Couldn't imagine manuevering around a 40 gig iPod without it.

[Daimyo]

Still no official Vista support? That's pretty inexcusable for a company as big as Apple.

[JediKooter]

Still no official Vista support? That's pretty inexcusable for a company as big as Apple.

Hey, hey, easy there, I'd like to remain employed.

[Karlifornia]

I just got an iPod and iTunes recently, and they both get a big thumbs up from me. I ripped my entire CD collection to iTunes...It's just so much more convenient in so many, many ways. And I have yet to purchase one song from iTunes.

Party shuffle is indeed a fantastic feature.

[JediKooter]

I just got an iPod and iTunes recently, and they both get a big thumbs up from me. I ripped my entire CD collection to iTunes...It's just so much more convenient in so many, many ways. And I have yet to purchase one song from iTunes.

Party shuffle is indeed a fantastic feature.

I highly recommend looking for the free stuff on iTunes. There's gems in there every once in a while.

[cthomer5000]

I highly recommend looking for the free stuff on iTunes. There's gems in there every once in a while.

Yeah, but the same can be said about going through someone's garbage cans.

[Karlifornia]

I highly recommend looking for the free stuff on iTunes. There's gems in there every once in a while.

Ah, good thinking. I remember hearing about how there was a lot of good stuff on iTunes released for free (b-sides, covers, etc.). I will go check that out now. Bless you, JediKooter. Your FOFC nickname has references to two of my favorite things: Superheroes and vaginas.

[JediKooter]

Yeah, but the same can be said about going through someone's garbage cans.

One man's junk is another man's treasure.

[JediKooter]

Ah, good thinking. I remember hearing about how there was a lot of good stuff on iTunes released for free (b-sides, covers, etc.). I will go check that out now. Bless you, JediKooter. Your FOFC nickname has references to two of my favorite things: Superheroes and vaginas.

You're most welcome.

The good thing is, at least the vaginas are not the imaginary one of the two.



I believe I owe you a couple of beers, if I remember correctly...

[AgustusM]

not that you asked (or care for that matter) but as the starter of this ITunes sucks thread, I have now completely changed my tune.

I have been using WMP 11 to manage my music library and sync all 6 of my families creative mp3 players for the past few years.

However I did get an IPhone and as it was a requirement to use ITunes I went ahead and installed it again.

Of course what fun is an IPhone without some high quality content so I went ahead and imported my massive Library (10,064 tracks and counting)

after spending about a week with the IPhone and getting to know ITunes better (thanks to a lot of the info in this thread) I have changed my tune completely on ITunes. I got my wife and I both shuffles to replace our zen stones for working out and they are absolutely phenomenal.

I have been a PC guy for most of my life (although I did have an old school mac years ago) and have disdained most things Apple - but after the IPhone and now the shuffle - I have started to come around to the brilliance of Apples designs.

I also got an 80 gig IPod with some credit card reward points that had been accumulating, but I am going to hold off till the big 9/5 announcement before getting my wife one. I am hoping for a full screen Ipod similar to the IPhone interface.

It feels so nice to be part of the cult.

[Booj]

It feels so nice to be part of the cult.

Welcome aboard!

[Draft Dodger]

and I've been looking around for a replacement for iTunes, mostly because it's using way too much memory (I have a ton of songs).
been playing with Media Monkey. It's similar and definitely is less of a resource hog, but I'm not sure if I can get used to it or not.

[Passacaglia]

I've read this thread several times since it was created, and I still don't get what's so great about itunes. I *want* to like it, but I just don't see what's better about it.

When I'm at home, I use media player -- I like being able to minimize it, and have all the buttons in the taskbar (including one that lets me choose to play songs from any artist or album). Also, when it flips to a new song, a little window pops up telling me what song it is.

At work, I do use itunes -- I like how I can minimize it and there's nothing on my taskbar except a little icon in the system tray. I also like how other people in my office can listen to my library, and vice versa. And I like how google talk lets me show what song I'm listening to as my status. The smart playlists just don't seem to appeal to me. Album art could be interesting, but when do you ever see it?

[wade moore]

Smart Playlists don't interest you? That doesn't compute for me.

[lordscarlet]

Album art could be interesting, but when do you ever see it?

When I didn't have itunes and my mp3's banned from my machine at work (ok, I was never supposed to have them in the first place) I kept a widget open that has the album artwork and play/ffwd/rwd/stop buttons on it. It is visually appealing to me to see the artwork as it plays. Keep it unobtrusive and in the corner (not that hard with two monitors) and I'm a happy camper. Now I have to use my ipod which is just annoying. :( I want software control.

[Passacaglia]

B) You need to learn about "Smart Playlists". Instead of allowing filtering in the main library, it uses these very dynamic smart playlists. Then you can select the playlists or in "party shuffle" (a very underrated feature IMO) you can choose which playlist you are using. Whatever you set for the filter on the smart playlists, they automatically get added to as you add music.

Here's what you said about them earlier. I'm not sure what makes it any better than just putting the thing on shuffle and playing all, or shuffling all music by one artist, or one genre.

[Passacaglia]

When I didn't have itunes and my mp3's banned from my machine at work (ok, I was never supposed to have them in the first place) I kept a widget open that has the album artwork and play/ffwd/rwd/stop buttons on it. It is visually appealing to me to see the artwork as it plays. Keep it unobtrusive and in the corner (not that hard with two monitors) and I'm a happy camper. Now I have to use my ipod which is just annoying. :( I want software control.

I agree about the visual appeal of the album art -- I've noticed that as a result of listening to mp3s, I've lost some of the feel I get from an album's cover. What's a widget, anyway?

[Daimyo]

Here's what you said about them earlier. I'm not sure what makes it any better than just putting the thing on shuffle and playing all, or shuffling all music by one artist, or one genre.
A couple things you can do with smart playlists:

1. Create playlists based on song genre (or any other metadata) that will always be up to date even as you add new music
2. Create playlists based on dynamic information like number of times played, last time played, etc, etc that will update on your PC in real time and on your iPod every time you sync
3. If your iPod is smaller than your music playlist, you can use smart playlists to automatically rotate through the music that gets synced to your iPod based on any song metadata

For me I have about 55 GB of music and a 60GB iPod. I want to listen to my music on shuffle, but with different songs weighted differently. IE, I want to listen to my five star music more often than three star stuff; I want to listen to stuff I haven't heard for a while more often than things I just recently heard; I want to hear stuff recently added more often than stuff I've had for a while. Smart playlists give the ability to do exactly that (although its not necessarily easy to setup!).

[Passacaglia]

For me I have about 55 GB of music and a 60GB iPod. I want to listen to my music on shuffle, but with different songs weighted differently. IE, I want to listen to my five star music more often than three star stuff; I want to listen to stuff I haven't heard for a while more often than things I just recently heard; I want to hear stuff recently added more often than stuff I've had for a while. Smart playlists give the ability to do exactly that (although its not necessarily easy to setup!).

This part intrigues me, though that's something media player does, too -- i can rate songs from one to five stars, and it plays a song more often if it's rated higher. Does the ipod itself do that as well?

[VPI97]

Wait...people use iTunes as a music player? It's fine for organizing what I want on my iPod, but I wouldn't dream of using it as a standalone player when I'm at the PC. foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) for the win.

[MJ4H]

People use foobar? I thought people just said its name to sound leet

[Buccaneer]

I get it. I'm a big convert now that I have joined the 21st century. I'm getting am 80gb classic for Christmas and unbeknowest to me, a friend told me that I can go ahead and get started on iTunes (shows you what I knew). I had some custom music folders on my hard drive and it was very easy to get them in iTunes. I then put in one of my 1000+ CDs and I was amazed at how quickly and easily it imported. After years of cussing out the stupid WMP (worst software I have ever seen), experiencing the far superior iTunes was revelationary. I'm still anal and methodical in that I simply want to import and play albums but I guess I would like the flexibility the software has to offer.

[Buccaneer]

I want to listen to my music on shuffle, but with different songs weighted differently. IE, I want to listen to my five star music more often than three star stuff; I want to listen to stuff I haven't heard for a while more often than things I just recently heard; I want to hear stuff recently added more often than stuff I've had for a while. Smart playlists give the ability to do exactly that (although its not necessarily easy to setup!).

This is completely foreign to me. Rating music? WTF? An album is what it is. If I dislike a track, I suppose I simply delete it or skip over it.

[Scoobz0202]

I decided to give Itunes a try finally after years of Winamp. I installed the latest..got it set up. Hit File>Add Folder>Music. It loaded all my library, converted some. I noticed it said I have 13,000 songs tho. I only have like 6500 songs. Then I noticed it's because there are doubles of every song. Ex:

Led Zeppelin - Communication Breakdown
Communication Breakdown

Also a lot of my songs don't have album information. There are a shit ton of "unknown album." Is that because when the songs are downloaded the way they are labeled makes it hard for Itunes to recognize? This is kind of not a big deal, but it kind of ruins the album art thing for me. But more importantly I don't like having doubles of everything and with the way some are labeled they are out of order.

[Pyser]

why dont you just go to file > show duplicates, and delete the extras?

im assuming you had itunes automatically organize your file directory, which copies everything into its itunes folder. if you did that, just delete the original locations.

[wade moore]

If you pirated a bunch of music then often it's not going to be recognized properly by iTunes because iTunes recognizes albums by being in the EXACT format they are supposed to be and going into the database to find what it is. Pirated songs have slightly different length/size, etc, etc. and can't be recognized by those engines.

[Buccaneer]

this is soooo addictive.....

[Buccaneer]

Dumb question. How do I look at all of the albums in a genre on iTunes Store? Each genre gives me stuff like New or Featured or some sub-category. Also, Browse is worthless since you have to drill down to something very specific. I want to, for example, see all of the Soundtrack they have.

[ISiddiqui]

Under Soundtrack, you can select subforum "All".

[Buccaneer]

Under Soundtrack, you can select subforum "All".

Where? In the Browse? I click "All" and it gives me a list of Artists in the next frame to chose from. On the main screen for any genre, I don't see how to see All except to see all new releases or all top selling...

[ISiddiqui]

Where? In the Browse? I click "All" and it gives me a list of Artists in the next frame to chose from. On the main screen for any genre, I don't see how to see All except to see all new releases or all top selling...

Yep... and then you have to pick the Artist. You can't get to all songs in iTunes Store.

[Buccaneer]

Thanks Imran.

[Passacaglia]

B) You need to learn about "Smart Playlists". Instead of allowing filtering in the main library, it uses these very dynamic smart playlists. Then you can select the playlists or in "party shuffle" (a very underrated feature IMO) you can choose which playlist you are using. Whatever you set for the filter on the smart playlists, they automatically get added to as you add music.


So what kind of "Smart Playlists" have you made? I've had my ipod for over a month now, and I've made two -- I'm doing a thing where I run for a minute and a half, then walk for a minute, and I basically used that to search for songs that have roughly that long of a run-time. I could have found these songs by just sorting my whole list by length, but this way I got to use this new awesome feature. What else should I be using it for?

[wade moore]

So what kind of "Smart Playlists" have you made? I've had my ipod for over a month now, and I've made two -- I'm doing a thing where I run for a minute and a half, then walk for a minute, and I basically used that to search for songs that have roughly that long of a run-time. I could have found these songs by just sorting my whole list by length, but this way I got to use this new awesome feature. What else should I be using it for?
I use it for artists, genres (including multiple genres together like for instance: Folk and Celtic for me), and a custom ratings (> 2 *'s, the "My Top Rated" does 4 and 5 *'s).

The key is not just that you couldn't do it with some sorting, but that as you add songs they automatically go in these playlists. If you make a playlist for 1 1/2 minute songs manually and then add 10 1 1/2 minute songs to your library, you'll have to manually add all of those again - not if you have a smart playlist.

[Passacaglia]

I use it for artists, genres (including multiple genres together like for instance: Folk and Celtic for me), and a custom ratings (> 2 *'s, the "My Top Rated" does 4 and 5 *'s).

The key is not just that you couldn't do it with some sorting, but that as you add songs they automatically go in these playlists. If you make a playlist for 1 1/2 minute songs manually and then add 10 1 1/2 minute songs to your library, you'll have to manually add all of those again - not if you have a smart playlist.

Well, it's kind of moot because I want to alternative one 90 second song, then one 60 second song, so I need to make a new "dumb" playlist for it anyway. When I add music, if it fits those criteria, it'll show up in the "smart" playlist automatically, but if I want to add it to my workout playlist, I have to do it manually anyway.

For artists, I usually just click on the artist's name at the top. I'm working on getting my music categorized into genres, but it's difficult trying to figure out what genre to put everything in. I wish they'd make it more like tags, where you could have more than one for each song.

[Kodos]

I use the star-rating smart lists extensively. I also have "neglectarinos" lists that play my least-played songs within a given star-rating. Then I also have top 100, 250, 500, and 1,000 songs lists, which exclude songs with no stars (songs my wife likes that I don't). I also have lists broken out by decade.

This would be a bit of a pain in the butt, but I've been thinking about creating multiple copies of my favorite songs (make a CD of top-rated songs, then rip from it with a bogus group name/album name multiple times) in an effort to get my favorite songs into the rotation more often than lower-rated songs. I haven't tried yet, but could I do the same thing with DVDs to get more songs on a disc?

[Passacaglia]

I use the star-rating smart lists extensively. I also have "neglectarinos" lists that play my least-played songs within a given star-rating. Then I also have top 100, 250, 500, and 1,000 songs lists, which exclude songs with no stars (songs my wife likes that I don't). I also have lists broken out by decade.

This would be a bit of a pain in the butt, but I've been thinking about creating multiple copies of my favorite songs (make a CD of top-rated songs, then rip from it with a bogus group name/album name multiple times) in an effort to get my favorite songs into the rotation more often than lower-rated songs. I haven't tried yet, but could I do the same thing with DVDs to get more songs on a disc?

Why couldn't you just add the songs to a playlist more times?

[Kodos]

Hmmm. Good question. Because these are smart playlists based on ratings. :)

[Passacaglia]

Hmmm. Good question. Because these are smart playlists based on ratings. :)

Well, if you must use smart playlists, couldn't you just take the files you want to duplicate, and copy/paste them?

[Passacaglia]

And I don't think you would need to have bogus names -- I'd imagine you could have several things with the same artist, album, and song names, and itunes wouldn't care.

[Anthony]

maybe do a little overtime at your job and simply buy your own ipod, that way you don't need to filter out your wife's music?


i don't believe in putting music i don't like on my ipod, which is why i don't do the star rating. ipod should be for the cream of the crop. you should be able to select shuffle and enjoy every song that comes on, otherwise why is it on your ipod? that's friggin dumb.

[oliegirl]

I have the same song in itunes multiple times if I have them on different albums...I have a lot of compilation albums and soundtracks, which resulted in some duplication. If there is a song you want to appear more frequently, you should just able to copy/save it as a new title (maybe just add a number to the end of the song or something), and then make sure you play the added songs frequently, and it should pop into there.

[Kodos]

maybe do a little overtime at your job and simply buy your own ipod, that way you don't need to filter out your wife's music?


i don't believe in putting music i don't like on my ipod, which is why i don't do the star rating. ipod should be for the cream of the crop. you should be able to select shuffle and enjoy every song that comes on, otherwise why is it on your ipod? that's friggin dumb.


We both have our own iPods, but the songs come from a common pool on iTunes. But thanks for your handy suggestion.

[Kodos]

I have the same song in itunes multiple times if I have them on different albums...I have a lot of compilation albums and soundtracks, which resulted in some duplication. If there is a song you want to appear more frequently, you should just able to copy/save it as a new title (maybe just add a number to the end of the song or something), and then make sure you play the added songs frequently, and it should pop into there.

The short version is that if I give them all the same bogus artist name, I can then exclude that artist name from clogging up other smart playlists, such as top 250 songs or whatever.

[lordscarlet]

My greatest smart playlist is "Songs I haven't listened to in at least a month." This way I know I'm not getting the same effect I do on the radio where you hear the same thing over and over.

[RomaGoth]

Anyone know how many songs can roughly be stored on a 4gb iPod Nano? I just bought my first one about a month ago, and am just now starting to get around to putting music on it. Any info is appreciated.

[Draft Dodger]

roughly 1,000 songs on a 4 gig

[Easy Mac]

mine held about 700, its only 1000 songs at 128 kb aac files

[Kodos]

My greatest smart playlist is "Songs I haven't listened to in at least a month." This way I know I'm not getting the same effect I do on the radio where you hear the same thing over and over.


I have a similar "Since U Been Gone" list that plays the 200 songs that I haven't listened to in the longest time.

[MJ4H]

mine held about 700, its only 1000 songs at 128 kb aac files

where songs = 3 minute pop tunes usually. i have "songs" on my ipod that are upwards of 45 mins. it wont hold 700 of those, either.

[RomaGoth]

where songs = 3 minute pop tunes usually. i have "songs" on my ipod that are upwards of 45 mins. it wont hold 700 of those, either.

WTF??? 45 minute songs? Each?? "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida...." :eek:

[cthomer5000]

I have a similar "Since U Been Gone" list that plays the 200 songs that I haven't listened to in the longest time.

This is a good idea... I have to say i've been pretty dull in my use of smart playlists... I often do smart playlists by a single year, but this sounds like a good idea for getting some lost gems back in the rotation.

[Farrah Whitworth-Rahn]

Random question for all you experts...I have multiple files of the same song, from the same album even, in my iTunes. I must have tried to back them up or something and created duplicates. Is there an easy way to delete the duplicates, leaving one file?

I've been trying to 'Show Duplicates' and delete all but one of the songs, but my file library is huge and it's taking forever.

Thanks in advance. :)

[MJ4H]

Well, pretty close. Not counting the podcasts at the top of course.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y257/Gorgonian14/lengthy.jpg

[RomaGoth]

Well, pretty close. Not counting the podcasts at the top of course.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y257/Gorgonian14/lengthy.jpg

Wow. That is a much deeper music selection than I would have expected. Kudos, sir. Kudos.

[st.cronin]

MJ4H, have you ever heard Frisell's take on Billy the Kid?

[MJ4H]

MJ4H, have you ever heard Frisell's take on Billy the Kid?

Heard of it, not familiar with it, though.

[Passacaglia]

Here's one. My laptop has buttons on it -- play/pause, forward, rewind, and stop. They work great with media player, but for itunes it will only work if the itunes window is on top. Anyone know a way I can get them to work even when itunes is minimized?

[Buccaneer]

I only put the albums/songs that I like to listen to on my iPod. So far, I have over 40 rocks albums (some pared down) and made a playlist of them. Fascinating to do a shuffle on that. If I had a smart playlist that only played the songs that I really liked, that would get old fast.

[cthomer5000]

Here's one. My laptop has buttons on it -- play/pause, forward, rewind, and stop. They work great with media player, but for itunes it will only work if the itunes window is on top. Anyone know a way I can get them to work even when itunes is minimized?


No clue, but if you find an answer let me know. I was wondering the same thing the other day.

[Passacaglia]

No clue, but if you find an answer let me know. I was wondering the same thing the other day.

google is my friend

http://andy.hillhome.org/blog/code/ituneskeys

[cartman]

I've got a weird one here. I have three songs on my iPhone that cut off in the middle of the song. They play all the way through with no problem on my PC inside of iTunes, or any other player for that matter. I've deleted them from the iPhone and re-sync'ed, but the songs still cut off in the middle. Anyone else had this happen to them?

[Draft Dodger]

probably a little glitch in the song somewhere. iTunes can overcome it, your iPhone can't. I've come across that before. you probably need to delete the song and download a new copy

[cthomer5000]

I want you guys to know I've been practically obsessed with smart playlists since someone in here brought up getting more out of them... I made a series of smart playlists feeding into 1 other smart playlist to basically create my own radio station.


If you've got a big, mature library like I do and you listen to an assload of music (adding a lot regularly), this might be worth checking out.

I have a 9 song clock basically... where the entire listening cycle continues of 9 categories (really 6 with 3 categories coming up twice).

Here's how it's laid out with a brief description of each category:

GOLD - A (played at least 10 times)
NEW MUSIC - A (added in last 30 days)
FORGOTTEN FAVES (played at least 5 times, but not played in last 6 monthts)
UNPLAYED - A (never been played)
POWER (played at least 20 times)
RANDOM (completely random selection)
GOLD - B (played at least 10 times)
NEW MUSIC - B (added in last 31-90 days)
UNPLAYED - B (never been played)

I think it balances stuff you know you like (because you've played it a lot) with new stuff, a random song for true spice, and a song you really like but havent heard in a while. And this particular play-count based setup works best for me because I think ive rated about 50 of the 18,000+ songs in my library.

actually making it happen:
I created a folder named "my radio" with the 9 smart playlists in it, one for each category.

All of these playlists are limited to 1 song, all have live updating on.

Here are the remainder of the details for all 9 smart playlists:

POWER
*play count is greater than 19
*time is greater than 0:59
*last played is not in the last 1 days

GOLD - A
*played count is greater than 9
*time is greater than 0:59
*last played is not in last 7 days
*playlist is not POWER

GOLD - B
*play count is greater than 9
*time is greater than 0:59
*last played is not in last 7 days
*playlist is not GOLD - A
*playlist is not POWER

FORGOTTEN FAVES
*play count is greater than 4
*time is greater than 0:59
*last played is not in last 6 months
*playlist is not GOLD - A
*playlist is not GOLD - B
*playlist is not POWER

NEW MUSIC - A
*date added is in the last 30 days
*last played is not in the last 2 days

NEW MUSIC - B
*date added is in the last 90 days
*date added is not in the last 30 days
*last played is not in the last 2 days

UNPLAYED - A
*play count is 0
*podcast is false
*date added is not in the last 90 days
*kind does not contain video
*genre is not christmas
*time is less than 20:00

UNPLAYED - B
*play count is 0
*podcast is false
*date added is not in the last 90 days
*kind does not contain video
*genre is not christmas
*time is less than 20:00
*playlist is not UNPLAYED - A

RANDOM
*play count is greater than 1
*playlist is not GOLD - A
*playlist is not GOLD - B
*playlist is not FORGOTTEN FAVES
*playlist is not NEW MUSIC - A
*playlist is not NEW MUSIC - B
*playlist is not POWER


So those are the building blocks. To actually play the thing, I create one more playlist (i called mine "Radio Radio").


RADIO RADIO
*(match ANY of the following rules)
*playlist is GOLD - A
*playlist is NEW MUSIC - A
*playlist is FORGOTTEN FAVES
*playlist is UNPLAYED - A
*playlist is POWER
*playlist is RANDOM
*playlist is GOLD - B
*playlist is NEW MUSIC - B
*playlist is UNPLAYED - B
*limit to 9 items selected by random

So now you've got 9 songs in your playlist. Annoyingly itunes will put them in a random order, but you only need to fix the order 1 single time. Take a look at the songs and which playlist they're coming from, then correctly order them in the main playlist. Now when you finish playing track 1, it disappears, and the new song slots itself in at number 9. You can play indefinitely, completely in the format you've created.


Yes, i realize this borders on insanity... but i work in radio programming and im a music maniac... keep that in mind. dont judge me too harshly. :)

[MJ4H]

fucking rulez

[JonInMiddleGA]

but i work in radio programming

I started to say this all looked disturbingly familiar ;)

[cthomer5000]

I started to say this all looked disturbingly familiar ;)

I felt borderline crazy doing it, but it may be how i do like 75% of my listening from here on out.

My only problem is that i'm not sure i can get the ipod itself to handle this in the same way, you can't edit playlist order, and it doesn't live update the smart playlists in the same way itunes does... it can do it once a playlist is done playing, but i cant do it song-by-song the way itunes does.

I'm going to keep thinking about this to see if i can come up with a full-time solution.

[MJ4H]

I was wondering about that on the ipod because of borked live updating. I've got the playlists set up in itunes like you listed and it works great, by the way.

[Passacaglia]

Sounds cool! I'll have to try it.

[Daimyo]

That's similar to what i've been doing, but much more complicated... Thanks for posting! Its given me some ideas for adding to my setup!

[MJ4H]

CT does yours have problems replacing the song that comes from the RANDOM playlist? Mine just leaves at the #1 spot in the playlist and starts playing song #2 while that song stays at #1. The rest of it works normally, but after it plays the song from the RANDOM playlist it won't replace it and just moves on, hanging that one there. I can't figure out why?

Playlist moves down to #2, but that #1 song stays there. The rest get cycled normally.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y257/Gorgonian14/wtf1.jpg

Here is the smart playist for "RANDOM"
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y257/Gorgonian14/wtf2.jpg

[MJ4H]

DOLA

or anyone else that has tried this? Help!

[Passacaglia]

MJ4H, did you cheap out and not set your RANDOM playlist to make sure it's not in one of your other playlists? I think that what needs to happen is that when you play the song, it leaves that playlist, which is what makes it update..

[Passacaglia]

wait, never mind, it looks like you did that. Well, I'm still trying to figure it out myself! :-P

[Passacaglia]

MJ4H, I think what has to happen is that the smart playlist won't refresh, unless the song that's in it is no longer qualified to be in that playlist. Try adding a criterion to the RANDOM playlist that the last date played should not be in the last 1 days (their speak, not mine).

[MJ4H]

Money. Thanks. It escaped my notice that all of the other playlists have that already there. Excellent, thanks!

[Passacaglia]

Money. Thanks. It escaped my notice that all of the other playlists have that already there. Excellent, thanks!

Nice! My only problem now is that when I skip songs, it doesn't go away. I have a criterion that "Last Skipped" is not in the last 1 days, but when I skip past the song, it doesn't seem to register as having been skipped -- it doesn't record the song as skipped at that time, and it doesn't seem to increase the skip count.

[MJ4H]

I just put Last Skipped is not in the last 1 days into each of the single song playlists, and as long as I let it play for at least 3 seconds or so, it moves it out of the playlist just fine.

[Passacaglia]

I just put Last Skipped is not in the last 1 days into each of the single song playlists, and as long as I let it play for at least 3 seconds or so, it moves it out of the playlist just fine.

Maybe that's the problem -- if I want to skip a song, I'll have to wait 3 seconds. I can live with that.

[Passacaglia]

google is my friend

http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes-tip/sort-songs-by-skip-count-257707.php

The fourth comment, by SEATTLESETH, says that a song is skipped if it's played for two seconds, but less than 20. Good to know. I wonder if it's played more than 20, then I go to the next song -- is that counted as neither skipped nor played?

[Doug5984]

I just set up a playlist almost identical to the radio one in here, not sure who made it (guess I could just look back and see) but huge thanks, I really like it a lot. Once I listen to it a while I'll probably tweak it for myself.

edit: Just checked, cthomer5000- huge thanks for putting that up on here. Works great! Like I said, I will probably tweak it a little in the future

[MJ4H]

google is my friend

http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes-tip/sort-songs-by-skip-count-257707.php

The fourth comment, by SEATTLESETH, says that a song is skipped if it's played for two seconds, but less than 20. Good to know. I wonder if it's played more than 20, then I go to the next song -- is that counted as neither skipped nor played?

Yeah there is a cut-off point for counting as a played song, as well. It is possible to play 25 seconds of a song and move on and it is neither skipped or played.

I did some experimenting earlier and came to the 2 second minimum conclusion myself.

[korme]

CT

Why is there the need for a Gold-A, and Gold-B

Right now, after creating Gold B, there are no songs in Gold B

[Passacaglia]

CT

Why is there the need for a Gold-A, and Gold-B

Right now, after creating Gold B, there are no songs in Gold B

I think he did that because he wanted that one to play twice in his 9-song set. Different strokes -- I've created a 5-song set, with 2 songs being random, 2 songs being songs I've never played, and one song that I've rated at least one star (I've rated about 100 of my 6000 songs with a star, and will increase one song by one star every time I go through a 5-song set until the distribution of stars gets balanced, which I'm sure will never happen).

You probably didn't limit the Gold A playlist to 1 song -- you may have entered in "1" for how many songs to limit the playlist to, but you have to check the box (that caught me a few times).

[korme]

Wait, where does it say to limit Gold A to 1 song?

[cthomer5000]

Wait, where does it say to limit Gold A to 1 song?

It's in bold above all the categories, applicable to all of them. All limited to 1, all live updating.

The reason for the duplicated playlists (A and B) is so that I avoid doing 1 playlist with 2 songs and having the same song pulled up twice in one sweep. It's a one-time setup as well, so it's really no big deal either way.

Perhaps there is a way to do it involving less playlists, but i really don't think so given that sequencing smart playlists in itunes is all but impossible.

[korme]

Ok. Also, do I need to set this playlist to repeat? It just ran through 9 songs and stopped playing.

[Doug5984]

Ok. Also, do I need to set this playlist to repeat? It just ran through 9 songs and stopped playing.

im on my laptop right now, and i set it up on the desktop, but I'm pretty sure it stays on song 1, and all the other songs move.

Do you each playlist set to not play a song that has been played in the last day? (That will force it to put in a new song after each time you listen to one, and do the same thing with skipping a song).

[Passacaglia]

Doug is right -- you don't need to have it on repeat, just put in a criterion so that it hasn't played in the last day -- then when you play the song, it'll get kicked out of that playlist.

Anyway, one feature I just noticed is "Export Song List" -- this takes all the info on the itunes window and writes it as a text file. I can import that into Access, and do fun stuff with that. I've still only rated 100 songs, but I've found that I've rated the most songs by Belle and Sebastian and the Innocence Mission. The highest average ratings per artist were The Free Design, and John Lennon -- I only have one song by each of them, so that's not saying much, but once I rate more songs, that stat will get more interesting.

[MJ4H]

Yeah I find myself wanting to give ratings to songs that play from this playlist, and I've never had that ambition before at all.

[Daimyo]

Ok. Also, do I need to set this playlist to repeat? It just ran through 9 songs and stopped playing.

Is this in iTunes or on an iPod? My 60GB iPod (video) doesn't do live updating of smart playlists so listening to this on that would give the behavior you describe. That kind of sucks... my old iPod Mini used to do live-updating.

[Passacaglia]

Any way to make sure that I don't get videos in these playlists?

[terpkristin]

Any way to make sure that I don't get videos in these playlists?

Yep, it's easy. Add two filters:
Kind is not Protected MPEG-4 video file
Kind is not MPEG-4 video file

If you have any other types of video files, do the same for them (the protected ones I have are from iTMS, non-protected from stuff I did myself). Bascially, in all the sections of my iTunes library, I check what shows up in the "kind" field of iTunes, and if I don't want it on a smart playlist, include it. For example, my "Music only No Classical" is setup like so:
http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/fofc/itunespart1.JPG
http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/fofc/itunespart2.JPG

(sorry it's in 2 parts, it's a "long" list).
/tk

[terpkristin]

Dola..

Is this in iTunes or on an iPod? My 60GB iPod (video) doesn't do live updating of smart playlists so listening to this on that would give the behavior you describe. That kind of sucks... my old iPod Mini used to do live-updating.

On my 60 GB iPod, it "sort of" does live-updating. I have a smart playlist called "Unplayed" which is just my "Music Only No Classical" list from before with an additional filter, play counte = 0. When I get to work in the morning, I usually turn it on and go through the day, I have it on shuffle no repeat. While it's true that I can hit rewind and go to any song that's been played "in that session" again, if I move away from the smart playlist, say to listen to a podcast or listen to a book, and then move back to it, it's updated (at least by quantity of songs on the playlist it appears to have updated). Of course, for that one, if I skip a song it doesn't count as playing it, so those songs can come up again....

/tk

[Passacaglia]

Yep, it's easy. Add two filters:
Kind is not Protected MPEG-4 video file
Kind is not MPEG-4 video file

If you have any other types of video files, do the same for them (the protected ones I have are from iTMS, non-protected from stuff I did myself). Bascially, in all the sections of my iTunes library, I check what shows up in the "kind" field of iTunes, and if I don't want it on a smart playlist, include it. For example, my "Music only No Classical" is setup like so:
http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/fofc/itunespart1.JPG
http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/fofc/itunespart2.JPG

(sorry it's in 2 parts, it's a "long" list).
/tk

Thanks. I figured it had something to do with "Kind" but since I couldn't figure out immediately how to find out what kind of file something is (and it wasn't a pulldown menu in the "edit smart playlist" thing), I just gave up.

[terpkristin]

If you need to figure out what "Kind" something is, you can use iTunes:

http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/fofc/itunespart3.JPG

If "Kind" doesn't show up in your default list of displayed characteristics of a song/file, right click on the list headers (like Name, Artist, etc) and it should open up a list you can select which to use, if it has a check next to it, it's displayed. You can select "Kind."

/tk

[cthomer5000]

Dola..


On my 60 GB iPod, it "sort of" does live-updating. I have a smart playlist called "Unplayed" which is just my "Music Only No Classical" list from before with an additional filter, play counte = 0. When I get to work in the morning, I usually turn it on and go through the day, I have it on shuffle no repeat. While it's true that I can hit rewind and go to any song that's been played "in that session" again, if I move away from the smart playlist, say to listen to a podcast or listen to a book, and then move back to it, it's updated (at least by quantity of songs on the playlist it appears to have updated). Of course, for that one, if I skip a song it doesn't count as playing it, so those songs can come up again....

/tk


From my "testing" (usage), I've found that the ipod itself can handle live updating of a single playlist, but it definitely gets confused when working with tiered/nested playlist structures. For example, I can play my "Radio Radio" playlist all the way through. Then when i go to each of the individual sub-categories (Gold A, Unplayed B), they will all be updated... but the "Radio Radio" playlist itself will not update. It's as if it doesn't know it needs to re-check with the feeder playlists to see that things haven't changed.

[Passacaglia]

So I'm using the Party Shuffle feature for my ipod, since the nested playlist doesn't do live updating. I've been having it list 100 songs, playing higher rated songs more often (I'm in the process of rating songs -- I add a star to one out of every 3-5 songs, so over time, the ratings will get fleshed out). But whenever I click refresh on it, the first 6 songs stay the same -- anyone know why?

I had another question, too, but I forget what it was. I'll probably remember at some point today. Oh! I just remembered. Has anyone tried "Shuffle albums" on their ipod? I tried it once, and it didn't do what I thought it would. I guess I thought I could play one album, then when it was done, it would select another album for me at random. Anyone have tips there?

[Draft Dodger]

I was under the impression that that's what shuffle album did as well

[Daimyo]

That's how shuffle album works for me. It will randomly pick an album, play it from start to finish, then randomly pick another album. I don't think it works if you select "shuffle songs" from the main menu though...

[Passacaglia]

That's how shuffle album works for me. It will randomly pick an album, play it from start to finish, then randomly pick another album. I don't think it works if you select "shuffle songs" from the main menu though...

How do you get that process started?

[AlexB]

That's how shuffle album works for me. It will randomly pick an album, play it from start to finish, then randomly pick another album. I don't think it works if you select "shuffle songs" from the main menu though...

My 60Gb iPod does work like that - select shuffle: albums on settings, then hit shuffle songs, and away you go - songs played by album. Same on playlists - hit play instead of select on the playlist and it will do the same thing.

[Daimyo]

How do you get that process started?

Play from a playlist, artist, album selection, etc. I think shuffle songs will shuffle by song no matter what the shuffle setting is set to.

[Kodos]

Anyone know of an easy way to backup purchased music to a USB flash drive?

[lordscarlet]

Just copy the files from hour HDD...

[Kodos]

Yeah. I was hoping there was an easy way to get just the songs that I've downloaded backed up onto a flash drive.

[Daimyo]

In iTunes there should be a playlist for purchased music. Just shift-click to select them all and drag that to your flash drive.

[Kodos]

Alright. I'll give that a try.

[GreenMonster]

Question for the FOFC community.

On Itunes all of my content is serperated podcasts, audiobooks, music, etc. When I sync to my Ipod 80gig it doesn't seperate anything really, it just seems like everything is in one giant list, songs. Basically my Ipod is full of podcasts (ct and jivin episodes, great podcast) but in my Ipod podcast folder it shows none. Any thoughts.

[samifan24]

Question for the FOFC community.

On Itunes all of my content is serperated podcasts, audiobooks, music, etc. When I sync to my Ipod 80gig it doesn't seperate anything really, it just seems like everything is in one giant list, songs. Basically my Ipod is full of podcasts (ct and jivin episodes, great podcast) but in my Ipod podcast folder it shows none. Any thoughts.

If you go back into iTunes and right click on the podcasts and go to the "get info" tab, what category are they under? Podcast? Spoken word? I'd make sure they're all under the same category in iTunes first. Then I'd go back to the iPod settings and double check everything for podcasts on the iPod itself. Finally, make sure you have manual control on and are not using the iPod-iTunes auto-sync feature.

[Buccaneer]

If you go back into iTunes and right click on the podcasts and go to the "get info" tab, what category are they under? Podcast? Spoken word? I'd make sure they're all under the same category in iTunes first. Then I'd go back to the iPod settings and double check everything for podcasts on the iPod itself. Finally, make sure you have manual control on and are not using the iPod-iTunes auto-sync feature.

I was just going to ask this question but I see it was the last one asked. I don't want to subscribe but I did download my first podcast. It is a .mp3 file but how do I put it in my Podcast category?

[terpkristin]

I was just going to ask this question but I see it was the last one asked. I don't want to subscribe but I did download my first podcast. It is a .mp3 file but how do I put it in my Podcast category?

I'm not sure that there's a way to do that. If you open it in iTunes, right-click on it, and "Get Info" you can label it as a Podcast genre but I'm not sure that automatically puts it into the Podcast section. I kinda think that it does it based on something internal to the tag within iTunes, so that only things downloaded through iTunes get the tag. Now, that said, you can download single episodes of podcasts through iTunes without subscribing to the podcast (if it's in iTunes). Just go to the page in the store for the podcast and click on "Get Episode" next to the episode in question.

/tk

[terpkristin]

Does anybody know of a small speaker set that you can use with the iPod but NOT have it charge it? I know I can use an aux-in cable on it, but it would be really handy if some of these things had a feature so I could plop it in (and use a remote to control stuff) but not have it charge. I've been wanting to have something in my kitchen so I can listen to stuff while I cook without having to make the iPod speaker in my living room (that charges my iPods, unfortunately) really loud. I'm guessing I'm going to be SOL, just thought I'd ask..

/tk

[cthomer5000]

Does anybody know of a small speaker set that you can use with the iPod but NOT have it charge it? I know I can use an aux-in cable on it, but it would be really handy if some of these things had a feature so I could plop it in (and use a remote to control stuff) but not have it charge. I've been wanting to have something in my kitchen so I can listen to stuff while I cook without having to make the iPod speaker in my living room (that charges my iPods, unfortunately) really loud. I'm guessing I'm going to be SOL, just thought I'd ask..

/tk

I doubt anything powered by the ipod itself could produce much volume at all and would probably drain the shit out of the ipod.

[terpkristin]

I doubt anything powered by the ipod itself could produce much volume at all and would probably drain the shit out of the ipod.

Alas, that's my hunch as well. I just hate charging my battery when it's really not needing it...such bad battery management. Of course, doing that WOULD mean I'll probably kill it faster and be able to justify an iPod Touch. ;)

/tk

[cthomer5000]

Oh, i think I misunderstood your question.

Yeah, practically any set of rechargable speakers will NOT be charging your ipod while unplugged and in use.

To clarify, your concern is about charging the ipod when the battery is nowhere near drained? I assume you're worrying about long-term batt life?

I've personally been happy with these Newegg.com - Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere Compact Speakers for iPod Model 984-000006 - Apple iPod Accessories (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855990005)

but they were 50 bucks cheaper when i ordered about 6 months ago. Im sure there are plenty of other options out there.

[Pyser]

is charging your ipod when you dont need to that bad? ive been doing that for about 5 years or so now in my car....everything seems ok on my end?

[General Mike]

is charging your ipod when you dont need to that bad? ive been doing that for about 5 years or so now in my car....everything seems ok on my end?

Mine is almost always connected to the computer and I haven't had any battery issues, but who really knows.

[cthomer5000]

I think the general theory on battery life is that you should let it nearly run down before recharging. Supposedly it shortens life to continously recharge.

My ipod gets about 3 hours of use daily, then gets 30-45 minutes of chargine as I sync it at home. So i'm sure i'm never ever dipping below 75% power. I've had no issues in the years i've owned it.

[MJ4H]

A good site about the ipod battery. Worst case guys, a new ipod battery is pretty cheap, and at least in my 4th gen, pretty easy to replace.

The iPod Battery Unplugged (http://www.theipodbatteryunplugged.com/#fiction)

Fiction: You should always run the battery all the way down before recharging.
Fact: Just the opposite is true; you should never run it all the way down. The iPod and iPhone won't let you do this; they shut down before the battery reaches zero volts. But if at that point you leave the devices uncharged for days and days, it could shorten battery life or make the voltage in the battery so low that it will not revive. Top-up charges at any time are fine (the only partial exception being when you need to recalibrate the battery meter (http://www.theipodbatteryunplugged.com/#meter), as explained above, or to reset your iPhone usage stats by doing a full charge).

Fiction: If you hold off on charging until the battery is pretty low, that will save cycles and prolong battery life.
Fact: It's not how many times you charge; it's how many charge/discharge cycles you complete that determines batttery life. It makes no difference whether you fully charge a half-used battery twice, or a fully rundown battery once; both count as one cycle in the estimated useful life of 500 cycles. Waiting to charge merely postpones battery use; it does not prolong it. So charge when convenient.

...

In general terms, it means don't leave an iPod or iPhone sitting around either constantly charging or unused for weeks on end. You won't immediately ruin them that way, but you risk shortening the total service life of the battery. Just use and enjoy normally. Or if you want to be particularly anal about it, keep track of cycles and make sure that if 30 days have gone by and you have not used the battery enought to add up to one cycle, you grab your iPod or iPhone and use it some more. I was blissfully ignorant of this during the approx. 33 months my original 1st gen iPod battery lasted, so maybe if I had been careful it could have lasted 36 or 38 months or more. Either way it was cheaper than buying throwaway alkalines over a three-year period and a lot more fun than sitting around with a stopwatch.
If you are exercising your battery, you don't need to worry about what I'm convinced is the other big no-no: letting it run all the way down (to shutdown) and then leaving the iPod or iPhone for a long time without charging. Battery voltage could get dangerously low and it will not revive. I also do not recommend leaving the iPod or iPhone on charge constantly - like 24 hours a day for three weeks. Some very well-informed folks in the forums disagree with me on this, saying it won't hurt the battery and that iPods and iPhones are smart enough to defend themselves against overcharging. I agree that overcharging is not an issue for either device, but fear that the lack of exercise will eventually reduce battery life.

[terpkristin]

I think the question on battery life and best battery management depends on who you ask. If you ask the people who are in charge of the LiIon batteries on our spacecraft, they'll tell you that you definitely don't want to be keeping it always 100% fully charged and nor do you want it to go all the way down all the time. On typical spacecraft, we typically don't let them get below 75% discharged (depends on the customer's requirements), but we don't keep them at 100% state of charge, either. Personally, I've found that my laptop battery still holds charge quite well after 2 years of not letting it get below 15% state of charge...I compare this to a friend who's got a similar laptop (similar age and similar model) who can't hold charge for more than an hour.

All that said, I try to only charge when I need to (but not running it all the way down), and I've still got out-of-the-box battery life on my 5th gen iPod. But I think Apple's smart enough to have put in fairly "smart" batteries in their devices...plus, it's not like they expect them to be good for 15 years and then replaced...they'd much rather you replace significantly more frequently than that. ;)

Thanks for the link, cthomer. :)

/tk

[MJ4H]

No problem?

[terpkristin]

NON-Dola,
I'm really not trying to sound like a dick, I really don't know the best way to handle battery stuff. I know what works for my laptop, and I apply it to my other electrical devices with rechargeable LiIon batteries. It just seems to work for me.

Edit: Doh! MJ4H broke my dola. :) And he had an interesting article. :)

/tk

[MJ4H]

Ah I went back and saw ct gave you a link. I didn't realize and thought you were referring to the link in my post. Sorry.

BUT NOT FOR BREAKING YOUR DOLA ATTEMPT

[cthomer5000]

I just had to rebuild my own playlist as described here (post near the end of page 2)... and i have to say, it really is awesome. If you have a library that's gotten a lot of usage, it's pretty f'ing great.

You begin to realize that even if you don't rate songs with stars, your playcounts have rated them for you.

Smart playlists can really make you love your music collection.

[lordscarlet]

Do you primarily use your smart playlists on itunes, or do they transfer decently onto the ipod? I know it can't do the liveupdating on your ipod.

[Daimyo]

I use mine on both itunes and the ipod. ipod doesn't live update though so you can't really do the radio idea. For the ipod I use smart playlists to make a selection of music (say ~1000 songs) that is weighted based on things like stars, last play, playcount, etc and listen to that on random. It lets me hear the music I like more often and also ensures I cycle through songs I haven't heard in a while too.

[flounder]

You can use the live updating playlists on your ipod, but you have to force it to do an update by exiting the playlist and then reselecting it. I have a radio type playlist that's 10 songs long and when it wraps around I just have to go back into the menu and pick that playlist again. It's moderately annoying but not a deal breaker.

[Fidatelo]

I use mine on both itunes and the ipod. ipod doesn't live update though so you can't really do the radio idea. For the ipod I use smart playlists to make a selection of music (say ~1000 songs) that is weighted based on things like stars, last play, playcount, etc and listen to that on random. It lets me hear the music I like more often and also ensures I cycle through songs I haven't heard in a while too.

Is there any way you could output the settings for that playlist and paste them here? It sounds like a really good setup.

[lordscarlet]

You can use the live updating playlists on your ipod, but you have to force it to do an update by exiting the playlist and then reselecting it. I have a radio type playlist that's 10 songs long and when it wraps around I just have to go back into the menu and pick that playlist again. It's moderately annoying but not a deal breaker.

Oh, really? I thought it only updated when you synched with itunes.

[flounder]

Oh, really? I thought it only updated when you synched with itunes.

It works on my ipod nano. I don't know if all ipods work that way.

[cthomer5000]

Last time i checked there are some smart playlist rules that don't work on the ipod itself... (podcast=true/false was one of them)... it's entirely possible that's been fixed.

Live updating will work on the ipod otherwise, limited to what's actually in your ipod. Also, if a playlist refers to another playlist, that will need to be there.

As flounder says you have to back in and out, and unfortunately your new playlist will be in a random order.

The real beauty in the thing I have going is that it's sequenced like a radio station... you'll never be listening for long before something familiar enough keeps you listening. At most i'm hearing 2 hyper-new things before something i've played a fair amount comes up.

[cthomer5000]

I use mine on both itunes and the ipod. ipod doesn't live update though so you can't really do the radio idea. For the ipod I use smart playlists to make a selection of music (say ~1000 songs) that is weighted based on things like stars, last play, playcount, etc and listen to that on random. It lets me hear the music I like more often and also ensures I cycle through songs I haven't heard in a while too.

Would definitely be interested in seeing your setup. I've got a moderately sized update to my existing at-home playlist (the one posted in this thread) that I plan on posting later today.

[Daimyo]

weird. I swore my old ipod mini used to live update, but I've never been able to get my newer ipod to do so. (its not really new... its the first model that did video and was available in black)

[Passacaglia]

Would definitely be interested in seeing your setup. I've got a moderately sized update to my existing at-home playlist (the one posted in this thread) that I plan on posting later today.

+1, that would be cool to see

I just use 'party shuffle' to give me a list of 100 songs, with the option 'play higher rated songs more often' then I select them all, and 'create new playlist from selection' -- I have to do it all once per day, but it's pretty cool, and I'm rating things as I go.

[Daimyo]

I don't have it in front of me, but I think right now I have the following eight playlists:

3+ Stars - All music rated 3 stars or higher (81 songs)
4+ Stars - All music rated 4 stars or higher (1462)
5 Stars - All music rated 5 stars (1884)
3+ Stars, over 6 months - All music rated 3 stars or higher that hasn't been listened to in the last 6 months (739)
Over a year - All music that hasn't been listened to in over a year (10079)
Randon - All music (13922)
Rarely Played - All music listened to less than 3 times (5215)
Manual - Music I've specifically added to a separate manual playlist (in case I want to try out some new music without rating it, I just stick it in that playlist) (207)

Each of them is set to select 100 songs at random. They are also set to not include songs listened to in the last x days and that varies from 1 day (for the 5 stars) to a couple weeks (for the random). You need to have that rule to ensure the playlists dynamically update after each song plays.

I then have a playlist that includes any song that is in any of those playlists. Right now I have 738 songs in that playlist and I just listen to it on shuffle.

I actually like the radio idea better for listening at my computer, but this works on my ipod. I actually only started doing it originally when I had a 4GB ipod mini and wanted a way to dynamically fill it with music that rotated, but was more likely to contain the music I liked the most.

[path12]

I've been using the CT playlist on my shuffle at work. I've adjusted the "Radio Radio" components to pull 15 of each category (I added a 10th category for electronica), giving me around 150 songs to load onto the shuffle. Doesn't play in order but still works pretty damn well.

The one thing I have to figure out is how to tweak the new music playlist. For those months where you haven't downloaded a bunch of new things you can get way too much of something -- in my instance the Carla Bruni disc that Ms.path downloaded. I did adjust the one new music category to only pull 8 rather than the 15 of the other cats, but there's gotta be a better way.......

[Galaxy]

Can you convert a iTunes download to play on Media Player and synch through it (to a Sony mp3 player)? If so, how?

[AlexB]

The only thing I dislike about iTunes is that it constantly reminds me about music that I don't have enough time to listen to :(

[General Mike]

Can you convert a iTunes download to play on Media Player and synch through it (to a Sony mp3 player)? If so, how?

I think so. The new DRM free stuff is 256kbs, but I convert them to 128k MP3 before I move them to my iPod. They do play in WMP, so you should be able to use them.

[ISiddiqui]

Why would you convert to a lower quality? I get that it takes up less room, but I'd just take songs off my iPod in that case.

[General Mike]

Why would you convert to a lower quality? I get that it takes up less room, but I'd just take songs off my iPod in that case.

Because I can't tell the difference between 256K and 128K. Plus switching it to 128 gives me more versatility.

[AlexB]

At what point did iTunes think it was a good idea to get rid of the shortcut to the shopping cart (or wish list as it's now known)? :mad:

[ISiddiqui]

New Zune 4.0 software makes iTunes look dull...

[terpkristin]

Seems like as good a place as any to ask this, maybe someone here will know...

I have a bunch of episodes of a podcast in my iTunes library. It's a music podcast, and I put all the episodes into a playlist. I'd really like to highlight the playlist and, with shuffle on, just hit play and have it play a random episode, like I can do with my music on my workout playlist, for example. I've already ensured that none of the episodes is marked "skip when shuffling" and told iTunes to forget my location when I move away from it. But still, no joy.

Any ideas?

/tk

[Kodos]

Is it possible to edit playcounts? I have some remastered versions of songs that I would like to be able to use while not losing the playcounts (since some of my playlists are based on playcounts) for those songs.

[cthomer5000]

Is it possible to edit playcounts? I have some remastered versions of songs that I would like to be able to use while not losing the playcounts (since some of my playlists are based on playcounts) for those songs.

Yes it is, but not easily.

iTunes: Manually Adjust Play Count | Astro-Geek:3000 (http://www.astro-geek.com/2009/01/itunes-manually-adjust-play-count/)


I've used it repeatedly for the same reasons you want to - replacing your version of something and not wanting to lose playcount. At one point i re-ripped a few of my absolute favorite albums at 320kbps, etc.

[cthomer5000]

Seems like as good a place as any to ask this, maybe someone here will know...

I have a bunch of episodes of a podcast in my iTunes library. It's a music podcast, and I put all the episodes into a playlist. I'd really like to highlight the playlist and, with shuffle on, just hit play and have it play a random episode, like I can do with my music on my workout playlist, for example. I've already ensured that none of the episodes is marked "skip when shuffling" and told iTunes to forget my location when I move away from it. But still, no joy.

Any ideas?

/tk

I'm not sure it's possible. I have podcasts slot into a self-updating playlist based on criteria... and I can play them back-to-back, etc. But anytime I accindetally start that playlist on shuffle, it always just lists whatever it's playing as track 1 of 1.

For some reason it can handle podcasts in a playlist, but can't handle shuffling podcasts in a playlist.

[cthomer5000]

EDIT: This was all based on itunes 8. I just upgraded to 9 and things seem different


Ok, actually I looked into this because I'm a nerd and I use itunes/ipod constantly.

I changed all the 'skip when shuffling' to 'no', resynced the ipod, and i am now able to shuffle my podcast playlist.

Kristin, are you positive you've got your settings as described?

edit: and I left the 'remember position' to 'yes'...


One more suggestion would be to make sure the media kind is set to music. Select all the relevant podcasts, right click, then check out the options tab.

[terpkristin]

One more suggestion would be to make sure the media kind is set to music. Select all the relevant podcasts, right click, then check out the options tab.

AHA!
This was the trick. I tried this and it worked like a champ, didn't realize I could tell it what kind of media it was.
Thanks, CT!!!

/tk

[Kodos]

Yes it is, but not easily.

iTunes: Manually Adjust Play Count | Astro-Geek:3000 (http://www.astro-geek.com/2009/01/itunes-manually-adjust-play-count/)


I've used it repeatedly for the same reasons you want to - replacing your version of something and not wanting to lose playcount. At one point i re-ripped a few of my absolute favorite albums at 320kbps, etc.

Thanks CT. I'll give this a try.

[cthomer5000]

AHA!
This was the trick. I tried this and it worked like a champ, didn't realize I could tell it what kind of media it was.
Thanks, CT!!!

/tk

FWIW, they are working just fine shuffling in a playlist when set to 'podcast' as media type in itunes 9 (which seems to be the first genuine upgrade in a while).

So you may not need to make that change after all.

[cthomer5000]

Seriously, i"m loving itunes 9 for two basic reasons:

-Syncing my ipod is WAY faster now
-Genius no longer seems to be a colossal resource hog, so i'm actually using it again

[terpkristin]

FWIW, they are working just fine shuffling in a playlist when set to 'podcast' as media type in itunes 9 (which seems to be the first genuine upgrade in a while).

So you may not need to make that change after all.

Weird, they're not working if I call the media type podcast but work fine with music (I'm also using iTunes 9, 9.0.2 or whatever the latest build is). I'm not going to complain, it works! :) And thanks again.

/tk

[cthomer5000]

I would like to rhapsodize about how goddamn good genius has gotten now. First of all it is a zillion times faster than the last version of itunes (just like syncing), but it seriously rocks the house when assembling mixes. It blends in stuff i forget so well. I honestly don't know that i'll ever really craft another mix (aside from 'best of year') again.

And the 'genius mixes' (which i personally think is a confusing term, since they kind of work more like radio stations) are also awesome.

Seriously, great work itunes.

[Kodos]

Hmmm. Never tried Genius. May have to play around with it.

[ISiddiqui]

Oh, I wanted to rant on this (I did on Twitter), but a few weeks ago, I wanted to strangle iTunes (for Windows). I was filling up my gf's iPod Shuffle and the program was giving me ALL sorts of problems. From not recognizing disks in the CD drives (the cure was to exit iTunes and then restart it), from randomly crashing, to taking up all sorts of system resources and freezing the rest of my system... ack!!

I'll only use iTunes now to shift things on my iPod Nano or use the iTunes Store (for 30 second samples of songs). If I'm just listening to my digital music collection, I'll use the Zune Desktop Software for that.

[JPhillips]

Is there a way to print my purchase history?

[Kodos]

Yes it is, but not easily.

iTunes: Manually Adjust Play Count | Astro-Geek:3000 (http://www.astro-geek.com/2009/01/itunes-manually-adjust-play-count/)


I've used it repeatedly for the same reasons you want to - replacing your version of something and not wanting to lose playcount. At one point i re-ripped a few of my absolute favorite albums at 320kbps, etc.

This worked great. (Actually, there's a newer version for the latest version of iTunes.) Thanks CT! Very easy now. Just copy there file into Notepad, play the song you want to adjust, and click the file. Works like a charm.

[terpkristin]

Bumping this old thread, I'm having some issues with iTunes lately, wondering if anybody has had similar experiences or has any ideas for fixing (short of reformatting my computer, which probably wouldn't hurt but would require me to find my XP discs). Of course, all this could just be a feature of iTunes, it's gotten significantly more bloated and overwrought in the last year or so (to my dismay).

Every now and then (once every other week?), for the past 2 months or so, iTunes starts up and thinks it's never started up, so it resets all my preferences to the defaults and then prompts me to find music to add to my library. I've found that if I hit cancel, it still knows where all my music is, but I have to re-do all my preferences and click through some of the obligatory prompts about how to use the store, etc.

I have and have had a lot of iPods. Currently I have an 8 gig 2nd gen iPod Touch, a 2 gig 2nd gen iPod shuffle and a 160 gig iPod classic (bought a few weeks ago when my old 5th gen 60 gig classic finally died). Over the last...maybe month and a half, if I use the eject button to disconnect my iPod in iTunes for my classic or shuffle, I get a weird error that there is no disk in drive E and I can continue, cancel, or try again. But doing any of those just pops the message a few more times and then it goes away and says disc is in use and cannot be ejected. However, I can (and do) disconnect it using the Windows "Safely Remove Hardware" util, and then it works just fine. This doesn't happen with my iPod Touch. On all my iPods, past and present, I manually manage the music. Nothing auto-synchronizes on the classic or the shuffle. Only calendars, contacts, photos, and apps auto-sync on the Touch.

Anybody? Bueller? ;) Thanks.

/tk

[cthomer5000]

This worked great. (Actually, there's a newer version for the latest version of iTunes.) Thanks CT! Very easy now. Just copy there file into Notepad, play the song you want to adjust, and click the file. Works like a charm.

The real bummer of Itunes 9, and that new script, is that you can no longer quick-update a bunch of highlighted songs. Now you actually have to be playing them and o it one by one.

I really wish itunes would just add the ability to manually update a playcount.

[JediKooter]

Does this sound like the issue you are having?

Apple - Support - Discussions - Irregular iTunes forgetfulness/resets ... (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11287375&#11287375)

[terpkristin]

Does this sound like the issue you are having?

Apple - Support - Discussions - Irregular iTunes forgetfulness/resets ... (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11287375&#11287375)

Similar but not quite. To boot I'm on 32-bit XP with McAffee and it always remembers where my music is. When I "cancel" the opportunity to find my music, it brings up my library like normal, fully populated, and testing out music works just fine. It just forgets that I've used it before and have configured a wide variety of preferences. It seems to remember my account, for the few purchased items I have.

/tk

[terpkristin]

Random iTunes problem for me, which at least one of my friends doesn't have. Just upgraded to the new version (10.1.2.17) and all of a sudden, the "Get" and "Get All" buttons on my podcast subscriptions don't show up. Took a screen grab and posted it on my webspace, http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/junk/itunes_boo.jpg


Bueller? :)

/tk

[Ksyrup]

So...

A few weeks ago when I was on the west coast, my old Zen Micro finally bricked on me. Going against every rational thought I've ever had, I decided to buy a Touch, mainly because I thought it would double nicely as a sometimes-MP3 player and gaming device to keep my youngest occupied during softball season. The Touch is actually a pretty cool device, although the MP3 sound quality is worse than I thought it was going to be, which is unfortunate.

Anyway, getting a Touch now requires me to use iTunes, and man does iTunes suck. I have a ton of MP3s I've collected over the years that apparently aren't perfectly formatted for iTunes (with correct artist, album, etc., info), such as rare tracks, demos, bootlegs, etc., and so half of the library I imported into iTunes is a scrambled mess. I wanted to go in a start fixing the ID info, and apparently you can't do that directly in iTunes. So now I've got a ton of songs in iTunes that are useless to me. I guess I have to clear iTunes (somehow - I haven't figured that one out yet), fix everything manually outside of iTunes, and then re-import it all? GREAAAT. Didn't have ANY problems with the Creative software that came with my Zen Micro - I could easily change track info and it seemed to group everything by the correct artist/album with few problems. And that software was like 8 years old.

It also freezes quite often, and every time I first open it. So now I open it, close it, and open it again to prevent the automatic freezing.

Oh, and I wanted to burn a CD and couldn't figure out how to do it. The help file said to create a playlist, which I did, but I couldn't figure out how to add songs to it. It said make sure the songs you want to add are checked - EVERY freaking track in my iTunes is checked! The playlist sat empty, and I couldn't figure how to move tracks to it.

It's been a joy using iTunes so far.

[Grammaticus]

You can add songs to the play list by click n dragging it from music (list on right side of screen) to the play list on the left bar. You can even CTRL+Click on many items and drag them all over at once. Then you can sort the list by click n dragging items up and down your play list until you get the order you want. Then hit the burn button with a blank CD in the player.

[Ksyrup]

I'll mess with it this weekend, once the family is gone on spring break and I have some time to reorganize my entire collection (which is going to be a tremendous pain in the ass). Probably a rhetorical question, but why the hell do I need to create a playlist just to burn a damn CD? Seems like an unnecessary middle step. I have to create something I'm going to immediately delete right after I finish burning the CD. Why this can't work like every other burn program I've ever used, where you either highlight or drag/drop the songs you want to burn and hit a button to start the process, I just don't get. Playlists seem like the most useless thing to me, and I had no reason to need one, but now I do just to burn a disc? Bizarre.

I really don't understand why artists/albums/songs that are perfectly organized in Explorer and on other MP3 players/software are so scrambled in iTunes. And I'm not just talking about stuff I've grabbed off the net or torrents or whatever. Even stuff that I've purchased online directly from the artist's site or other download sites are all scrambled - some don't show an artist, some don't have an album, some have half the tracks in the correct album, then half of them as strays I have to try to track down. But when I find them, I can't fix the problem in iTunes (as far as I can tell) - I have to delete them, fix them outside of iTunes, and then re-import them. I HAVE to be missing something, right? Please tell me I'm missing something obvious.

If I don't know any better, I'd think Apple is punishing me for not buying ONLY from them...

[Passacaglia]

Maybe I'm on an older version of itunes, but I've never had to make a playlist to copy a CD, and I'm able to select a song (or songs), right-click, and go to edit info to change labels.

[MJ4H]

Group the songs you want to edit by highlighting them in itunes. Right click and go to get info (or song info, whatever its called--its near the top).

[Ksyrup]

I tried the right click, and there is no drop-down choice that would allow me to edit anything - unless it is totally misnamed. The closest thing is something that appears to allow you to apply the same artist/album/genre info to all selected items (that's what it looks like it does, I haven't tried it because that's not what I want to do).

As far as burning a CD, I got that directly from the help file after I couldn't figure it out messing with the application itself. First step is to create a playlist.

[Ksyrup]

Group the songs you want to edit by highlighting them in itunes. Right click and go to get info (or song info, whatever its called--its near the top).

Get Info will allow me to edit? I figured Get Info was how you retrieve identifying info from iTunes for music they have in their database that they will automatically apply to your files. I've already done that (I think it was done automatically when I imported the music), and these are albums that either don't have information so they are blank, nameless songs, or iTunes is mis-reading and labeling wrong or splitting up albums and putting songs in different places.

If Get Info is for editing, then to me, that's completely misnamed. I don't want to "get info," I want to edit the current tracks' info manually. That's usually labeled under some form of "edit."

I'll try that, thanks.

[MJ4H]

Yes. Go to the song tab in the dialog that pops up and you can edit whatever you want.

[Ksyrup]

Wow. OK, thanks for the help.

[Draft Dodger]

speaking of burning, am I the only one missing the old "burn playlist to disc" button? why would they get rid of that?

[Ksyrup]

So I spent the better part of last weekend and the last few nights burning probably 2/3s of my CD collection (not including bootlegs) into iTunes and moving a portion of those albums onto my iPod. I also spent a good bit of time messing with the sound mix in my car to get it to a point where the cassette tape hiss and feedback from trying to get it as loud as possible isn't too distracting.

I don't get why Apple can't include customizable EQ settings - I guess that's only something music geeks are interested in. Would have made messing with the feedback issue in my car much easier to fix. Having to pick from a bunch of imperfect preset EQ settings sucks.

I STILL am having freezing problems with iTunes the first time I open the program. Is this just me? I have to Cntrl-Alt-Del to end the program and re-start it EVERY FREAKING TIME.

I was really surprised by how few CDs Gracenote or whatever it's called recognized and downloaded artwork for. Is there another site to query for artwork or an easy way to download artwork for CDs that didn't automatically download with the track info?

[JediKooter]

I STILL am having freezing problems with iTunes the first time I open the program. Is this just me? I have to Cntrl-Alt-Del to end the program and re-start it EVERY FREAKING TIME.


I don't think it's just you. I think it's you and others that are running iTunes on a PC. Now don't take that the wrong way, it's just that the time Apple spends on getting Apple software to work on a Windows platform is not that much, so I'm not surprised there's issues.

That being said, do you have any anti virus software running at the same time? Also, I think iTunes tries to establish if it can connect to the internet as well, when it launches. So those may be factors as to why it is freezing up. Can't say for 100% sure that is the exact problem.

[terpkristin]

Dunno. I've been using iTunes and iPods since they became compatible with Windows machines (2003 or so) and though the software has become more bloated, it's always run on my fairly average laptops.

/tk

[JonInMiddleGA]

I STILL am having freezing problems with iTunes the first time I open the program. Is this just me? I have to Cntrl-Alt-Del to end the program and re-start it EVERY FREAKING TIME.

A couple of possibilities come to mind based on similar experiences.

First, are you closing (via task manager or some other means) the several little pieces that iTunes loads in the background on start-up? If so, it'll pretty much crash every time you start the program itself if it doesn't find those. Three finger salute & restart somehow triggers them to reload & then it usually goes ahead, albeit slower than waiting for Christmas.

The other possibility is that you might be hitting some version problem and/or auto-updating related problem. iTunes is a major bitch about forcing you to install every update in order to keep things working (actually, if it were this I suspect it wouldn't load period).

[Ksyrup]

I'm not sure I know what "several little pieces" you are talking about. But it's possible that the problem is/was that I am trying to use iTunes too soon after it opens. I opened it a little while ago and had it freeze on me when I clicked on it. So instead of just restarting it, I restarted the computer and left iTunes alone for 5 minutes and it worked fine. I'll try that again tomorrow when I fire up the computer.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I'm not sure I know what "several little pieces" you are talking about.

There are 12 of them according to this but some of these I don't recognize off hand. The ones I was talking about include iPodService.exe, distnoted.exe, and those that begin with AppleMobile. I normally kill those after a reboot along with some other stuff that I don't keep running, but iTunes isn't happy when I try to start it afterwards.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3960

[Buccaneer]

Just want to state that I blame Steve Jobs for turning me away from being album-centric to song-centric.

[JediKooter]

You also may be able to prevent those items from starting up if they are listed in Winconfig.

[wade moore]

Yeah, I've used iTunes for years (on multiple PCs) and never had these problems.

[Ksyrup]

Just want to state that I blame Steve Jobs for turning me away from being album-centric to song-centric.

That hasn't quite happened with me...yet. I mostly listen to albums, even on MP3. About the only time I'll use shuffle is to listen to songs from several albums of one artist. I don't see myself ever creating a playlist. Then again, I didn't see myself buying an iPod, either.

[terpkristin]

Not really iTunes related, but rather than start a new thread, I'm looking for some iPod speakers that are iPhone compatible (that more or less just means that they have some extra filtering so that the phone doesn't interfere if you get a call while it's on the dock).

I have the Logitech Pure-Fi Express in my upstairs (and am actually happy to get that again) (link: Pure-Fi Express Plus™ (http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/ipod-mp3-speakers/devices/4781) ), but was wondering if anybody has any others that they could/would recommend. I'm actually looking for one for my kitchen for while I'm cooking and another for my living room (when I have friends over and we're playing Wii or grilling or something, we quite often listen to music instead of having the TV on or listening to Wii sounds).

Any recommendations?

/tk

[terpkristin]

Or maybe I'll get something like this that can be plugged in for my living room but has a rechargeable battery so I can take it to the kitchen when I'm cooking... Rechargeable Speaker S715i (http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/ipod-mp3-speakers/devices/7209)

Any thoughts?

/tk

[AlexB]

I set up a playlist to 'clear' over time my zero playlisted tracks. I bought my iPod in 2007 - to my horror a Scott 4 track from 'Works Project LP' came up. This is one of my top albums ever, and I clearly haven't listened to it in 4 years :-(

[AlexB]

Dola - this is about to be rectified: Track 1 - 'Catastophre', chair dancing and pretending to be Jean Michel Jarre while typing on FOFC in full effect :D

[terpkristin]

I set up a playlist to 'clear' over time my zero playlisted tracks. I bought my iPod in 2007 - to my horror a Scott 4 track from 'Works Project LP' came up. This is one of my top albums ever, and I clearly haven't listened to it in 4 years :-(

I do that all the time. I have a smart playlist called "Unplayed" which is exactly what it sounds like -- songs that have been in my collection but have play count = 0.

I also have one called "new to review" which gets modified all the time. I figure out what the last time I really sat and listened to my new stuff is and make a "date added after xxxx" filter, then I do a "last played before yyyy" filter so that once I get to playing it on that, it clears out.

Actually listening to my "New to Review" smart playlist now, going in more detail through some music I bought before going to London, while in London, and then some music I got from my sister. Sorting to see which is good quality, which (if any) isn't, which is stuff I can't stand, etc...

I also do a smart playlist called "7 Days" which is my "Music Only" smart playlist (filters out podcasts, books, and certain genres of music such as the classical stuff) and not played in the last 7 days. Given how rarely I've had time to listen to music lately, maybe I should make it "31 Days." It keeps my rotation fresh...

/tk

[Draft Dodger]

oh great. iTunes apparently has a new "feature" where they automatically adds any playlists it finds in folders you are adding, cluttering the FUCK out of my playlist list. Swell.

[Mota]

Hasn't it always done that? I always delete playlists in any folders that I'm adding for the same reason.

[Draft Dodger]

new for me. I usually delete them as well, but I've missed a few along the way. last night, iTunes added all the ones I've missed over the years.

[Mota]

Okay maybe we had different things. If I keep the playlist in the folder that I'm importing, it would add the tracks in to my library twice. That's why I'd always delete the playlists before importing.

[Ksyrup]

Man does itunes suck. I mean really, really suck. We bought a couple more ipod touch's yesterday - I upgraded to the 64 GB - and itunes constantly froze as I was trying to fill it with music. Really, really aggravating and frustrating. Not to mention whatever the 4.3.5 software update was - it took 90 minutes on 1 ipod, 70 minutes on another...and 3 minutes on my 64GB. And all 3 were updating from 4.3.3.

[Doug5984]

I may have missed it in this thread- but is there another program that does what iTunes does that runs a lot better? Basically I'm looking for something that can keep my music organized, make play lists, keep track of play count (I really like this feature) import CDs, and then burn them.

I like the things it does, it's pretty user friendly and a clean interface- but it's so slow. I dread when I accidentally click the icon to start that instead of another program.

[JediKooter]

Never had an issue with iTunes. Then again, I'm not running it on a PC either...just saying.

[Ksyrup]

It's a really awful (PC) program. There's really nothing about it I like, but it's necessary. The other thing that sucks about it is finding artwork - unbelievably awful at downloading artwork, even for major CDs. I'm not sure what's worse - no artwork, or the wrong artwork. I have to spend a chunk of time finding my own CD covers to manually add.

[RainMaker]

I actually avoided buying an Apple MP3 player because I didn't want to have to deal with iTunes recently. I just can't stand it and enjoy having a player I can just plug songs into with ease.

[Mota]

It's a really awful (PC) program. There's really nothing about it I like, but it's necessary. The other thing that sucks about it is finding artwork - unbelievably awful at downloading artwork, even for major CDs. I'm not sure what's worse - no artwork, or the wrong artwork. I have to spend a chunk of time finding my own CD covers to manually add.

It used to be good. I think they purposely let it go back in the past several months because they want to sell you on their $24.99 a year service to upgrade your cheap MP3 to Itunes Plus quality with covers.

[wade moore]

FWIW, I love iTunes. I don't get the hatorade.

[Ksyrup]

Mine's based on actual experience though. It's a terrible program, in terms of making you jump through hoops and freezes and what-not. I just blew 2 hours last night having to look for artwork for a bunch of my CDs. Like... Tori Amos Little Earthquakes, Matthew Sweet Girlfriend, Kyuss Sky Valley, among others - you know, really obscure albums.

[Ksyrup]

Also, what's the deal with restricted MP3s? My daughters bought one of those Kidz Bop albums on iTunes, and when I went to put it on my daughter's new iPod, it wouldn't allow it - said it wasn't authorized or some crap like that. WTF?

[AlexB]

FWIW, I love iTunes. I don't get the hatorade.

+1. Never frozen for me, don't have any issues at all.

[Ksyrup]

I've never used iTunes where it hasn't frozen and I've had to shut it down and restart it.

*shurg*

Last night was fun, trying to scroll through my song list. Three times the program scrolled without my help from beginning to end as I sat there mashing buttons trying to make it stop. All I was trying to do was move down half a page and I went from B to Z in about 90 seconds.

[Easy Mac]

mediamonkey is better. Syncs with ipods. It can take a little getting used to, but it works essentially like iTunes. The only problems I have with it are that it takes a few seconds to load the library (20k songs) and that it messes up album art on the ipod if you also sync videos using iTunes (your files stay normal, but the album art on the ipod is wonky).

It lets me keep my music in FLAC (lossless) then autoconverts it to mp3 when I sync a song (which takes a couple of seconds per song, tops, then it stays an mp3 on the ipod).

There's definitely a learning curve opposed to iTunes, but it is much more useful.

[Doug5984]

mediamonkey is better. Syncs with ipods. It can take a little getting used to, but it works essentially like iTunes. The only problems I have with it are that it takes a few seconds to load the library (20k songs) and that it messes up album art on the ipod if you also sync videos using iTunes (your files stay normal, but the album art on the ipod is wonky).

It lets me keep my music in FLAC (lossless) then autoconverts it to mp3 when I sync a song (which takes a couple of seconds per song, tops, then it stays an mp3 on the ipod).

There's definitely a learning curve opposed to iTunes, but it is much more useful.

I actually downloaded media monkey last night and started trying to use it. Seems like a pretty solid program. Do you know if there is an easy way to get album artwork for all my CDs, or is that something I have to manually do?

[Mota]

Mine's based on actual experience though. It's a terrible program, in terms of making you jump through hoops and freezes and what-not. I just blew 2 hours last night having to look for artwork for a bunch of my CDs. Like... Tori Amos Little Earthquakes, Matthew Sweet Girlfriend, Kyuss Sky Valley, among others - you know, really obscure albums.

I installed to a new computer and did a backup / restore on my iTunes Library. It worked pretty well except for the cover art.

I used mp3tag last night and restored over 100 album covers in no time. Mostly it searches the album title on amazon.com and pulls the cover art from there. There were only a few albums where it wasn't available and I found those on the wikipedia page for the artist. For some reason when you rip directly off the CD, iTunes has much better luck finding the cover art.

[Mota]

I've just started importing as Itunes Plus recently. Sounds perfectly fine to me, and Itunes does a pretty good job of tagging / album covers.

I used to use multiple programs to extract the .wav from CD's and encode to MP3, and then tag. In my old age I've become far lazier and just pop in the CD, click the yes button and it all gets done for me.

[thesloppy]

I actually downloaded media monkey last night and started trying to use it. Seems like a pretty solid program. Do you know if there is an easy way to get album artwork for all my CDs, or is that something I have to manually do?

Highlight the songs you want to tag, right-click and select 'Auto-tag from web'. I'm not sure if it'll handle large batches well, or if you have to stick to one album at a time.

Loves me some media monkey. I am reminded every time I upgrade that I bought a lifetime license many years ago, which gives me a software boner.

[Ksyrup]

For some reason when you rip directly off the CD, iTunes has much better luck finding the cover art.

I am ripping directly from CD. The Tori Amos CD, it imported the wrong cover art for some shit that had no relationship to Tori Amos or even the word Little or Earthquakes in it. Also, my wife's greatest hits CDs (Chicago, REO, Garth Brooks) or movie soundtracks (Top Gun and Footloose, really?), almost none of them were found and I had to get them manually.

[terpkristin]

Does anybody have one of the newer clip-style Nano (5G or 6G I guess are the terms)?

If yes, do you listen to audiobooks on them? I'm wondering how the audiobook interface is on the new touch Nano, if it's like it is on the iPhone/iPod Touch with the slider bar and the 30 second back button...

/tk