How can I consolidate multiple playlists on one CD in iTunes?

August 25, 2007 1:09 PM

iTunesFilter: I have two playlists with ~21 songs. iTunes burns what it can fit onto CD #1, then I insert another blank CD. It burns the rest of the songs on playlist #1. Now I want to start on playlist #2 - but it won't burn the songs to the same CD. It insists on a blank CD. Is there anything I can do to avoid having multiple CDs with only 3 or 4 songs on them?

Relevant info:
iTunes 7.3.1.3
Windows XP SP2
Lite-On DVDRW SHW-1635S
TDK CD-R (standard cheapo CDs on a spindle)

posted by desjardins to technology (4 comments total)

I think the way iTunes works is one playlist -> one CD (or set of CDs if it's too large). What you could do is make Playlist #3 composed of all the songs in Playlist #1 and #2 together. Then when you burn #3, it should cram them together as tight as possible.
posted by PercussivePaul at 1:32 PM on August 25, 2007

Paul has it. You need to make sure that your playlists are small enough to fit on a CD. In your example, you'll want 3 new playlists

1) original #1 - end of CD
2) end of playlist 1, beginning of 2 (up to end of CD)
3) the remainder of playlist 2
posted by chrisamiller at 2:11 PM on August 25, 2007

actually chrisamiller, I think you only need one new playlist. If it's longer than one CD, iTunes should partition it into CDs automatically. (I haven't tested this, but that's what it seems to be doing for playlist 1 in the question.)

it should be quite easy actually.
1. create new playlist - "playlist 3"
2. drag playlist 1 into playlist 3
3. drag playlist 2 into playlist 3
4. burn playlist 3 and follow iTunes' instructions on when to insert CDs.

that should be all you need to do.
posted by PercussivePaul at 7:52 PM on August 25, 2007

In addition to PercussivePaul's suggestion above, you could use Smart Playlists to take advantage of the auto-updating - you'd still need to create a new playlist, but instead of dragging-and-dropping, you'd match the Smart Playlist based on the other playlist names, and then any changes you make to those original playlists would automatically be reflected in your "burnme" playlist.
posted by um_maverick at 6:55 AM on August 26, 2007