Win iTunes plugins to have?
April 8, 2010 9:50 AM   Subscribe

There seem to be some interesting plugins for doing tedious library management chores (like say, TuneUp or TidySongs). Googling produces tons of non-reviews reviews and noise, and I don't feel like messing my stuff (and time) with lots of try-and-see's, not to mention you have to pay for them (yes, I'm ok with paying for a couple of these things if they are worth it but not just to experiment). So if you're so kind to share, tell me your personal experience and recommendations for iTunes plugins, for Windows. If your experience if s of something so vile I should run away from it, do tell too!
posted by Iosephus to Computers & Internet (8 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Lifehacker.com just published their "Start to Finish Guide to Whipping Your Music's Metadata into Shape", which contained some very specific recommenations.
posted by MexicanYenta at 9:58 AM on April 8, 2010 [1 favorite]


I used TuneUp. It's not bad, but I can't caution you enough on one thing -- do not let it operate unsupervised. I thought it was trustworthy but it ended up inserting wacky album art from Japan and renaming entire albums into oblivion (it would recognize some tracks, pull them out, rename them etc.).

And to be honest, I don't use it anymore.
posted by teedee2000 at 10:23 AM on April 8, 2010


TidySongs is OK, but has had some reliability issues for me. Also forget about letting it do its thing automatically -- it gets bad results from time to time (and seems to have particular trouble on artists with lots of reissues or greatest-hits albums).

Sure, a 99% success rate sound impressive. However, in a 1000-song library, you'll lose 10 songs, and will have a hell of a time trying to find them again.
posted by schmod at 10:37 AM on April 8, 2010


Personally, I use Media Monkey and go through everything individually. I like having control like that. Granted, you'll need a lot of time, but I think it's worth it.
posted by theichibun at 11:20 AM on April 8, 2010


I used a whole bunch of these things, and then I downloaded this app you had to pay for called Jaikoz. It was inscrutable, it was really slow, and I think it was Java-based, but it got the job done, modulo a handful of things that it tagged. IIRC it actually used a fingerprinting library to identify tracks. Occasionally, it did weird things where like, it took apart mixes I had and credited the tracks back to their albums or sometimes compilation albums, but I'm not sure what could be better in that case.

Anyway, its not 100% right, but I had a huge amount of music on my computer and I wasn't ever going to be able to straighten it all out even semi-manually. So personally, Jaikoz is highly recommended, even though it gives off a major suck vibe.
posted by jeb at 11:29 AM on April 8, 2010


Seconding Lifehacker, I usually go there first for new software and then branch out as they do good reviews.
posted by occidental at 12:37 PM on April 8, 2010


I actually paid for TuneUp and I'm not impressed. It kept dividing single albums into multiple, separate albums (see here, which nobody ever replied to) and was worse at finding cover art than most of the free tools. It's also slow and needs to be babysat, as teedee2000 said. I wouldn't recommend it.
posted by alicetiara at 4:08 PM on April 8, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks all. I guess I'll go with Lifehacker's advice and either get Pollux or Jaikoz then!
posted by Iosephus at 11:29 AM on April 9, 2010


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