Data Backup Filter: I have about 6TB (yes TB, not GB) of data. I need to back it up BEFORE it crashes. I also need a good way to share it on the network. How can I do this? Details within... [more inside]
posted on Jul 8, 2008 - 28 answers

My Macbook Pro was stolen. Just about the only non-shitty thing about it is that I keep my huge iTunes library on an external drive. All the music files are on the drive, but the data files (library.xml) were on the stolen Mac. I have another Macbook. What's the simplest way I can rebuild my library on it? [more inside]
posted on May 8, 2008 - 13 answers

How should I rip my cds...mp3 or aif? [more inside]
posted on Apr 20, 2008 - 18 answers

Why are some of the high resolution MP3s I've encoded recently (at 320 kbps) still turning out with traces of faint, but audible jitter? [more inside]
posted on Apr 5, 2008 - 9 answers

How can I archive my music? [more inside]
posted on Jan 16, 2008 - 17 answers

How would I go about posting some files? I want to ask metafilter about the last 16 songs in my itunes library that I can't identify, but I don't know how to go about putting those files up so you all can get to them. What's the easiest way to do this? [more inside]
posted on Dec 4, 2007 - 15 answers

Song goes something like "babbbyyy letsss groooveee" [more inside]
posted on Nov 18, 2007 - 12 answers

My wife is going to kill me. While "fixing" her computer (g5 Macintosh running Leopard), I managed to move 20,000 of her mp3s to the trash. I actually thought I as moving one genre with "select-all", but apparently I moved the entire frickin' library. She doesn't know yet, but it's only a matter of time. I have not yet deleted these files. All 20,000 (well, 19,868) are sitting in the trash can. There's no "restore to previous location" type option, though. Help! Is there anything I can do? Is my only option to have iTunes re-import the entire lot? [more inside]
posted on Nov 13, 2007 - 29 answers

Why won't my mp3s and videos play on my computer...at all? [more inside]
posted on Oct 31, 2007 - 12 answers

I'm thinking of nuking my hard drive and reinstalling Windows XP. This means iTunes, which sits on my C Drive, will obviously be wiped and reinstalled. If I do this, will I lose all the star ratings and other individual settings I have for my mp3s (which are stored on another partition that I won't be wiping)? If so, is there some file in the iTunes directory or somwhere else that I could back up and add to my new iTunes installation so I don't have to individually rate every mp3 I have all over again?
posted on Oct 31, 2007 - 5 answers

Syncing music between two computers help! Here's the setup... [more inside]
posted on Oct 26, 2007 - 7 answers

trying to locate a Korean song called SARANG HAESEOYO and/or by musician called KIM HYUN SIK 9or SHIK) [more inside]
posted on Sep 28, 2007 - 3 answers

Help me burn my 100GB of Mp3s to DVD in some sort of organized fashion! (Mac) [more inside]
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - 8 answers

Why can't I edit the track information of certain MP3s I've downloaded in iTunes? [more inside]
posted on Jun 18, 2007 - 6 answers

I love podcasts, but it very difficult to find new, quality programs. I am looking for broadcasted material on a range of topics - including philosophy, the mind, avantgarde arts and lectures by creative, original thinkers (see my list of current podcasts for detail)... Can you help? [more inside]
posted on May 31, 2007 - 20 answers

FirefoxMp3Filter: Why are clicked mp3s opening in Quicktime instead of giving me an option to save? [more inside]
posted on Jan 13, 2007 - 6 answers

iTunes 7 playlist help. I have music located on two different HD's on my computer, I imported the first batch of music okay and it added playlists for each album/artist automatically, but not for the second batch of music I imported. How can I have iTunes make another batch of artist/album playlists?
posted on Nov 23, 2006 - 6 answers

Winamp playlist help. I have a bunch of playlists in Winamp, but frequent re-organization of my music directory has broken all the links. Is there a way for Winamp to find the new locations of the files so I don't have to re-assign hundreds of songs, or, barring that, is there a smarter music library program that will do the work and can import Winamp playlists?
posted on Oct 27, 2006 - 3 answers

Is it legal to sell iPods preloaded with music? [more inside]
posted on Sep 12, 2006 - 17 answers

I just bought a new laptop for school. How do I transfer my music/video library from my old computer to my new one? [more inside]
posted on Aug 29, 2006 - 11 answers

How much or how little and in what ways should one consider breaking up the "Rock" genre when tagging MP3s? [more inside]
posted on Jul 26, 2006 - 20 answers

A little band called Ensimismada.... [more inside]
posted on Jun 7, 2006 - 27 answers

iTunesFilter: When I type in the search bar, how can I get iTunes to search songs' comments areas as well as the other areas? [more inside]
posted on Jan 24, 2006 - 8 answers

Any suggestions for programs that can turn up the volume on quiet mp3s for Mac Tiger?
posted on Jan 5, 2006 - 16 answers

I enjoy early American popular music (say up until the late 1920s), and especially period recordings of the same. I have about a dozen CDs compiling this music, and have downloaded other songs from alt.binaries.sounds.*. I'm looking for other sources of free mp3s of early American popular music. (Don't fret about copyright issues: the stuff I'm looking for is old enough that it's in the public domain.) I'd also love recommendations for modern(ish) recordings of these old songs. I know Garrison Keillor performs some from time-to-time (and just did on his last broadcast, for example), and I know of Joan Morris/William Bolcome and Jody Dall'Armi.
posted on Oct 2, 2005 - 19 answers

Is there an easy way to create a text file of all of the folders I have in a directory? [more inside]
posted on Aug 20, 2005 - 12 answers

When I'm looking at a song in my iTunes library is there a way to tell which of my playlists it appears on? I can't seem to find a way, or an answer on Google. (4.0.1 if it matters.)
posted on Aug 16, 2005 - 9 answers

I have tapes of interviews that I'm paying to have transcribed. Some interviews were done in public places and have background noise. I'll be charged more for those. Unless I can somehow get the background noise off the MP3s.... [more inside]
posted on Jun 11, 2005 - 7 answers

I want to move a chunk of my music collection from a folder on one drive to a folder on another, without losing metadata in iTune's library and without reconnecting each and every file. [more inside]
posted on May 9, 2005 - 13 answers

I need a webhost who can turn the other way to things to media that is sort of the grey zone of legality. [more inside]
posted on May 7, 2005 - 5 answers

Rediscovering emusic - any mefiers use emusic? What are some stellar tracks or albums you've gotten there? [more inside]
posted on Apr 12, 2005 - 11 answers

Can anyone recommend a good cheap car CD player with CDR, MP3, an audio-in jack, or some combination of the three? [more inside]
posted on Apr 7, 2005 - 5 answers

Remotely controlling iTunes / WinAmp on Win2000 with a PDA?
posted on Feb 10, 2005 - 4 answers

My iPod is full. I used to encode MP3s at 128k, more recently VBR at 80%. Can AAC give me quality around the latter with a file size smaller than the former?
posted on Jan 14, 2005 - 8 answers

Does anybody know of a way to automatically listen to all the linked mp3s on a web page? [MI]
posted on Jan 10, 2005 - 7 answers

Is it my imagination or does WinAmp sound better than iTunes, everything else being equal (talking MP3s of course)? [mi]
posted on Dec 14, 2004 - 23 answers

Back in the day, I used to like to go slink around mp3.com, pull down a couple of mp3s based on bands' stated influences, and then, maybe, buy an album or two. Is there any sort of reputable band community offering free mp3 downloads of unsigned or indy bands now that mp3.com is dead? I found IUMA and SoundClick, but they don't seem to be as solid as mp3.com was.
posted on Dec 6, 2004 - 16 answers

Peaceful, atmospheric instrumental music...? I'm looking for music to listen to while I write. I prefer minimalist, repetitive stuff. Favorites include Stars of the Lid, The Dead Texan, Gas, Wim Mertens, and Philip Glass' soundtrack to The Hours. What do you recommend along these lines? (No Wyndam-Hill / Sounds of nature stuff, please.)
posted on Nov 24, 2004 - 58 answers

Peaceful, atmospheric instrumental music...? I'm looking for music to listen to while I write. I prefer minimalist, repetitive stuff. Favorites include Stars of the Lid, The Dead Texan, Gas, Wim Mertens, and Philip Glass' soundtrack to The Hours. What do you recommend along these lines? (No Wyndam-Hill / Sounds of nature stuff, please.)
posted on Nov 24, 2004 - 58 answers

I don't believe in headphones. Does anyone make an mp3 player with speakers built in, like a small boombox perhaps? Seems like an obvious market (even people who DO use headphones sometimes want to share their music with others in the room), but I have yet to see one.
posted on Nov 22, 2004 - 28 answers

PC verson of iTunes: all my mp3 & aac files are on my C drive, which is almost full. I want to lighten the load on that drive by moving all the songs to my E drive, which has much more space. Is there a way to do this without wrecking iTune's database? I don't want to have to re-import everything.
posted on Oct 21, 2004 - 6 answers

Potentially-really-obvious-mac-question-filter. Why does Safari want to open MP3 streams in QuickTime no matter what I do - and how can I stop it?
posted on Oct 15, 2004 - 8 answers

Is there any way/device to hook up an external harddrive full of my mp3'ed cd's and tapes to my stereo? I am not thinking of going the ipod way.
posted on Oct 2, 2004 - 3 answers

Now that you've an Ipod, what have you done with your music collection? [MI]
posted on Sep 18, 2004 - 20 answers

Thursday Tech Two-fer:
(1) What's the best way these days to have multiple MT blogs one one page-- RSS or what? What's the best way to implement this?

2) What criteria do you use to rate your MP3s? For example, does a five-star rating mean all-time best of, best of the artists' work, best within a genre? What rating method do you find most useful?
posted on Sep 9, 2004 - 12 answers

I've been buying my wife tracks from iTunes and putting them on her Archos Jukebox. Since the Archos doesn't accept the aac format, I have to burn them from Archos onto CDs and then rip the CDs back into my PC and then download the ripped files onto her Jukebox. (I don't feel like I'm cheating Apple out of revenue, because only my wife listens to this music.) [More Inside.]
posted on Sep 2, 2004 - 36 answers

MP3 Player Question: I have a Creative Jukebox Zen Xtra that doesn't seem to be recognizing that there's a battery there. [More Inside]
posted on Aug 23, 2004 - 9 answers

I have a PC with WinXP Pro. She has an iBook with Mac OS X. Together they fight crime share a router. e:\ is where I shove all my porn music. How can I make this available to her to copy what she wants to her machine or her ipod?
posted on Aug 7, 2004 - 5 answers

gadgetfiliter:

There seems to be a rash of "usb/mp3 voice recorder" flash thingies out there right now, like this. Many of them appear to be the same unit or same chipset, rebranded. Is there a good site that reviews stuff like this--generic gadgets available only online? And more specifically, how do I find the best one of these that will mount without drivers on my Ibook? I'd like to get something cheap to take voice notes in the car and be able to listen to mp3s.

I've been googling but not many reviews have come in. Many thanks.
posted on Aug 3, 2004 - 7 answers

mp3Filter: What are some 'best practices' for archiving a 600+ CD collection in mp3 format on CD-R?
posted on Jul 18, 2004 - 29 answers