Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with music and iTunes

recommend me a good file transfer thing or something...

osloheart — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:15:21 -0800

How do I transfer music from old iPod to new iPod, without using iTunes? This may have been asked before, but I couldnt find exactly what I needed, so.. basically, I have music on my old iPod that is not in my iTunes library, and I want that music on my new iPod.

The guy at the apple store said "it's possible" but he wasnt allowed to tell me how, and I should google it. But I trust you guys, and there seem to be a lot of options floating around on the internet that I am afraid of just trying out (Im not very tech-savvy), so Im asking here first. How can one go about transferring those files?

Thanks!

Cleaning up messy music folders

1024x768 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:11:46 -0800

Help me clean up my messy music files I am embarking on a clean up of my enormously messy MP3 folders. After several computer switches, and crash+restore jobs I have approximately a dozen different folders containing between hundreds and thousands of MP3s each. The issue is each folder is at least a partial duplicate of several others. Each of these dozen folders contains subfolders in various organizational formats. There's far too many files for me to devote the time to manually eliminating duplicates. Confounding matters slightly is that many of the MP3s have woefully inadequate tagging/ID3 data.

This motley collection lives on a Macbook pro running 10.5. I'd like to find an app/script/method that does the following

1) Eliminates all the dupes
2) Cleans up the ID3 info

The cleaned up collection will then be put into an iTunes library which I will let keep things from getting too messy in the future. I would prefer to use iTunes due to ease of syncing with my iPhone, but if there is a truly compelling alternative that will take care of everything, I am willing to consider it.

I'd prefer a free method of doing this, but would shell out a little bit of scratch if there were an app out there that did exactly what I wanted.

Itunes/phone music sunc trouble

dougiedd — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:59:28 -0800

Cant easily sync itunes and Iphone. Running latest versions of both software. I can sync everything else but only way to sync music seems to be I had to check all of the songs in my core iTunes music folder as if i was selecting them to be played. When I synched my music from there it worked fine. Bug I think but this seemed to work. Any suggestions? Who writes itunes software anyway: really non-intuitive

Can podcasts act like music tracks?

LouMac — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:17:53 -0800

How can I get podcasts to appear as art of my iTunes music library? I subscribe to many podcasts of the "song of the day" variety. How can I get these songs that are "podcasts" to show up within the music section of my library? Is there a mechanism to move these tracks so that they play like regular songs, mixed into the other music in my library?

What's up with my music files on my PC?

ishotjr — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:12:02 -0800

What is up with my music files' titles turning into nonsensical four-letter titles? Ok, this is a little long, but it's a weird problem that is hard to describe.

I use iTunes on a (Dell) Windows Vista PC laptop. I noticed this issue probably over a year ago, but was too lazy to do anything about it until now.

Thousands of my music files are in files within "C:\My Music" that are named with F and then a number, F00 thru F49. All of my music was originally in "C:\Users\ishotjr\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music," and some of it still is. Within the F-named folders, the files are named/songs titled in three different ways.
1) Most are with four letters in caps, example: AJOM. They are seemingly random and not acronyms of the real titles. Within this, most, in the artist/album, etc. fields in Windows Explorer, have the correct info. A few have nothing at all in those.
In either case, if I choose to play it in iTunes (by clicking the option within Windows Explorer, where I'm viewing the files), it brings me to the song that is properly titled within iTunes (i.e., AJOM takes me to "Levitate Me" by The Pixies in iTunes).
2) A few of the songs are named with their correct name, but with the track number proceeding it (i.e. 01 Debaser)
3) Even fewer are named completely normally, with just the actual song title.

Another weird twist is that in iTunes itself, there are a handful of files that are actually named with the four letter names. Most of these are all from a Velvet Underground greatest hits compilation, but there are a few that aren't.

There seems to be no pattern as to how I procured the music and what's in these weird files. I did bring most of the music onto my computer from my iPod when I got the computer, but some of it I have purchased since owning this computer. The software I used to bring the songs from the iPod to the computer was some free program that I don't recall the name of and deleted to save hard drive space when I was done using it.

The real kicker is that most of these weirdly-named tracks are NOT duplicates, so I can't just delete them. Most of the time, it's one or two songs from a given album that are named weird and in the F-named folder instead of in the folder with the rest of its album-mates.

It seems that I might be stuck consolidating the 49 "F" folders into one (not so hard, just tedious), then trying to rename the thousands of song backs to their proper names by clicking them through to iTunes and manually entering the name of each song into the file name in Windows, then moving all of the songs to the correct place. It's not necessary to do this to be able to listen to the songs, but it's annoying having my files all over the place, especially when I want to delete entire albums off of my hard drive to make space.

My actual question is two-part:
1) Has anyone ever had this weirdo thing happen to their music files before?
2) Does anyone know a better way to fix it than to do everything manually (which will take for-ev-er)?

itunes for the Android?

Squid Voltaire — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:51:36 -0800

Tips for mp3 sorting with the G1 (how to replicate iTunes heuristics)? Back when I had an iPod + iTunes setup, I would connect my mp3 player, and it would automatically remove the songs that I had listened to, and replace them with new music.

This new music would be roughly:
1/3 songs that I loved (5 stars),
1/3 songs that I didn't hate (more than 2 stars) and also hadn't listened to in at least a month, and
1/3 songs that I had never heard before or hadn't rated.

What's the closest approximation to this that I can achieve with my G1? The key features are clearly not hardware-related, and the OS is open, so it should be really easy to replicate this, right? I certainly would not mind installing new software on my desktop, nor would I mind paying for the apps.

I'm currently using Meridian, which does support rating. However, I'm not sure how to update the mp3 file on my desktop after rating it on my phone automatically.

Meet the new drive, same as the old drive

pdb — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:24:35 -0800

Can I fool iTunes into thinking my library is on the same drive as it was before, even though it's not? I have my iTunes library on a 250G external hard drive. It's almost full, so I went out and bought a 2TB drive. Will the following method of moving music work?

1. Copy all the files from my existing external drive to the new drive
2. Disconnect my existing drive
3. Rename the new drive to the same name as my old drive
4. Start up iTunes
5. Rock

If I'm going from one external to a second, can I fool iTunes, or should I go through the same process as I did before? It seems like if I name the new HD the same as my old one, it should work, but it's entirely possible that I am missing something.

I'm on a Mac (OS X 10.5.7) if that makes a difference. And I'm not looking to switch away from iTunes so please don't recommend that as a solution. Thanks.

Experiences running iTunes off an Airdisk?

yesno — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:30:29 -0800

Experiences running iTunes off an Airdisk--particularly when things go wrong? Hello, I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on running iTunes off an Airdisk. I tried moving the entire iTunes library over to the Airdisk and it was painfully slow (because it is almost always better to move entire iTunes folders rather than just the music subfolder).

This doesn't seem to have worked too well, as either Aiport Extreme or my iMac (yes, latest firmware on everything) will periodically drop its connection. If iTunes loses track of its library files for even a second it freaks the hell out. Plus, it makes launching really slow.

So, I've since moved all the support files over to my iMac and have symlinked (through ln -s, not an alias) the music directory, which is on the Airdisk.

So--

What will happen to the symlink if the Airdisk is disconnected? Is it persistent?

What will happen if the Airdisk disconnects while iTunes is running? I imagine I'll get an exclamation point for each song it tries to access. Will I have to rebuild my library in any way? Will "lost" songs be magically refound when the drive comes back? Will iTunes freeze the way it does if its library files go missing?

Advice on uploading CD collection to Itunes

dougiedd — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:45:25 -0800

I am embarking on uploading all of my CD collection to itunes 3-400 CD's so not a huge job. I want to be done with the clutter, want to have easier access to them, and more portability for an eventual move But I was hoping some of you could enlighten me about what common mistakes to avoid in the process as well as recommended settings etc... thanks!

iTunes is randomly deleting songs...which ones?

arniec — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:18:49 -0800

Help me fix this absolute mess of my digital music collection which is in iTunes. Over 2300 CDs, but some are missing.... HELP! Okay here's the details. In the 80s, 90s, and early 00s I amassed a fairly large CD collection, well over 2,000 CDs. many times in the past i had worked to rip all these CDs but never succeeded because of problems with CD data, etc. I also, being a Windows guy, waned a specific folder structure which added a lot of manual labor.

Giving up on my wish list, last year I decided I would just rip all my CDs using iTunes. I would let iTunes decide the folder structure, as I am an iPod user. I set iTunes to rip the CDs in Apple's lossless format, and I was not particular about the metadata figuring it's best to get the discs ripped, and I can go back and adjust the metadata to how I like it later (such as changing Phil Collins to Collins, Phil and so on). I set a computer to automatically rip CDs as they are inserted and did about 50 a week. Months later, I was done.

In that time I also have switched from being a Windows user to being a Mac user. I have also belatedly embraced digital music, no longer buying overpriced CDs and instead buying single songs or some albums on iTunes, Amazon, or some other online stores. My music collection is now an amalgam of my own ripped CDs in the Apple lossless codec, MP3s, M4As, etc.

In moving to being a Mac user, I put my music collection on an external drive hooked into a Mac Mini as the "server" and various other Macs in my house share the library. I set the Mac Mini to "Keep iTunes Music Organized". I figured since I had relinquished control of the folders to iTunes, I might as well leave it that way.

But here's the problem... I have since learned that checking the box to allow iTunes to keep the music folder organized can cause removal of data, so I turned it off about a month ago. But it was too late. I discovered this past week that at least 3 of the CDs I know I ripped are missing. Not just some songs, but entire CDs (my wife says iTunes is trying to give me taste as what I lost were the soundtracks to all 3 Beverly Hills Cop movies). Given that those 3 are gone I can only assume others are missing as well...but I have no idea which ones.

I'm now left with a problem. I want to validate all my CDs are there, and all songs on those CDs are there, but I don't want to have to manually pull 2300 CDs at an average of 10 songs per disc and then search iTunes to see if all the tracks are there or not. The amount of manual labor involved in doing that would be extraordinary.

I have thought about just saying "forget it" and reripping all 2300 CDs as that WOULD be quicker than the manual validation method, but I can't just start over as at least 100 songs I've paid for from the various sites are mixed in among the ripped tracks. (God only knows if I have lost tracks I bought from iTunes, etc. I have no real way to validate all those).

So what do I do? i need methods to either:
a) quickly and easily determine if my CDs are ripped in full

or

b) some method to extract the tracks bought from Amazon and iTunes, etc from the tracks I ripped myself so I can rerip all my CDs and reintegrate this music collection.

or

C) some other fix for this problem that will allow me to have a well-organized music library consisting of all the CDs I own plus all the tracks I have bought.

Where do I go from here??

Digital music syncing across multiple computers

philosophygeek — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:13:48 -0800

Help me manage multiple versions of my digital music collection across several computers. Geeky details inside. I'm trying to keep my digital music collections synced across a number of computers. I have:

- a Macbook (running Leopard using iTunes)
- an Ubuntu desktop (running 9.04 and using either amarok or banshee)
- a standalone raid-5 backup machine (running OpenSolaris 11)

I'm looking to keep not just the music files synced, but also metadata and playlists, if possible. I will be adding music from the iTunes store to the Macbook. If necessary, I can force myself to only add music to the Macbook and then propogate the changes to the other machines (rather than, e.g., ripping CDs on the desktop).

What's the best way to do this?

Help me organize my music

mizrachi — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:57:49 -0800

My music is all over my computer. I'd like to consolidate and organize. I just downloaded Media Monkey and it tells me I have over a 1000 more songs than iTunes tells me I have, my usual player. Why? I have no idea. I don't know what steps to take. I'd like it kept as simple as possible. I'd also like it as automated as possible. While I have no real preference of music player, I am used to iTunes and I like the iTunes store. That said, if Media Monkey can do it all, I'll switch over. I'm just afraid that if I rename some of the folders or move things around I'll screw everything up. I also would like the folders organized and named after the artist and not, as many of folders are, a series of numbers.

How do I get my files from Point A to Point B?

reenum — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:10:14 -0800

I need to move several gigs of music files from one external hard drive to another. But, there are a few problems... I have a 250GB WD HD in an enclosure and recently bought a WD Elements 640GB drive. I now want to back up all my music files from the 250GB to the 640GB drive. They total about 33GB.

Problem is, my computers do not have USB 2.0 drives. Every time I begin the backup process, it goes for a while, and then terminates due to an error in writing from the 250GB drive.

Is there an easy way to do this backup?

Wireless music

downing street memo — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 08:42:04 -0800

I have a computer hooked up to my entertainment system, and I'd like to stream music to it from my laptop. Help! I thought about buying an Airport Express, but if I can do this with tools I already have, I'd rather save the $100. Basically, I have a Windows box hooked into my entertainment system, and I'd like to make it so whenever I play a song on my laptop, the file is streamed to the Windows box and through my stereo, rather than through my laptop's speakers. Is this possible? My laptop is a standard MacBook, OSX 10.5.6 if that matters. Both computers are running iTunes currently but I'm happy to investigate other software. Thanks!

Help, Itouch musi has disappeared

lee — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:27:10 -0800

Asking for my friend, here's his dilema.... "Of course this happens THE DAY I leave for vacation. All of the music files on my iPod Touch have "disappeared." I say that in quotes because the "Other" file section is suddenly the same size as the music section was last night. Here's a screenshot:" "The only reason there is ANY audio recognized by the iPod Touch right now is because I just loaded some podcasts to listen to this morning.

How do I get my music back? What the hell happened?! I've searched a bunch of forums but can't seem to find the answer to this..."

Begin the Beguine on my iPod

Toekneesan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:46:05 -0800

What is the best way to get music onto the iTunes store for sale? Not something of my own, but popular music from the 30s and 40s which the institution I work for has the rights to. I've been asked to see if I can get some of Fred Waring's recordings onto the iTunes store for sale but I'm not quite sure how to get content onto iTunes. Some of the advice I've gotten suggests the only way to do it is to find the appropriate aggregator and have them work out the deal. Is that the only way? If so, who might be appropriate for the music of Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians?

Audio files for non-audiophiles

fusinski — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:27:21 -0800

What is the simplest way (free or otherwise) to convert M4P and M4A audio files to MP3 en masse?

Share iTunes, with a catch.

kbanas — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:31:09 -0800

What's the best way for my dad to get access to my iTunes library? I recently gave my old MacBook Pro to my dad. On a lark, I installed SimplifyMedia and configured it with my account details so that he could gain access to the music on my home media center PC. I didn't really think he would ever do this, I just kind of did it on an impulse - but it turns out he loves the fairly large selection of music and uses it all the time.

The other day he asked me how he could get my music not just on his MacBook Pro but on his home stereo system. I just so happened to have an old Airport Express sitting in my closet, so I took it over and hooked it up to his stereo and configured it to work with his home WiFi network.

Ta-da!

Except SimplifyMedia is not really doing it for me - or, more precisely, for him. He calls me frequently to complain - songs cut off abruptly, sometimes my library disappears, sometimes it takes a half-hour or more for my library to fully populate, sometimes songs won't play at all... and SimplifyMedia is a pretty "no configuration" application, so when it doesn't work for him, my only real recourse is to reboot my home server and hope that fixes it.

There has to be a better way.

I know there are lots of programs out there (like Firefly and SuperSync) that can basically take your iTunes library file and serve it up via DAAP, and he could get any number of clients to listen this way.... but he would most assuredly then lose the ability to play to the Airport Express. Outputting to that device seems like a pretty specific to iTunes kind of thing, unless there's a way to set the master sound output to use it.

I've also had great success with the Hamachi VPN. If he installed and configured this and joined it to my "VPN Group" then his iTunes would detect my iTunes library via the built-in sharing feature, and he could simply listen this way. Unfortunately, Hamachi on OS X is a total bastard. The GUI front-end that is put out by a 3rd party is buggy and never really works, and the command line setup and configuration is a little too much for my dad to trudge through. I could set it up for him and configure an AppleScript that initializes the connection at startup, but this seems like a recipe for "only works intermittently".

So I don't know. I feel like there has to be a better way to do this. Worst case, I drive over to my dad's and do some configuration myself, but ideally this would be a solution that doesn't have a huge likelihood of completely breaking down.

Any ideas, MeFites?

Using iTunes music on my website.

junipero — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:47:50 -0800

Can I use iTunes music on my website if it is not for resale? If so, how do I get it on the website (it has to be in MP3 format). I'm creating a website and would like to have song playing when the site opens. I have picked the song I want to use, but I am not sure about the legality of using music downloaded from iTunes. The song will not be available for users to download from my website. How do I go about doing this?

Also, the song has to be in MP3 format in order to be compatible. How can I convert my iTunes songs to that format in order to upload to the site?

How can I de-dupe my entire music library while preserving iTunes data?

DrDreidel — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:49:50 -0800

How can I de-dupe my entire music library while preserving iTunes data? Don't ask me how, but I've recently discovered my entire iTunes libary exists in duplicate. Now, normally this wouldn't be a huge problem, just ditch the duplicate files and re-import. However, my music files are structured as such:

Music -> [Artist] -> [Album 1] [Album 2] -> [Track 1] [Track 2] etc.

Each track is buried within each album file which is buried in each artist file.

Bonus: The files which are currently "the good files" (those which iTunes is pointed towards) are those which were more recently duplicated. In other words, each .mp3 files ends with a (1) at the end of the file name. Being the crazy compulsive person that I am, this seriously bothers me.

Is there any way to run a script on the music folder that will trash any file that ends in 1? I really don't want to have to go through these by hand as there are 244 artist folders and 490 album folders.

Double bonus: I know I'll have to re-import, but I'd like to keep the track ratings (I use a bolean system, they are either 5 star or no star) and the play counts, as I have smart play lists based on this. I've already exported my iTunes library file, but am not sure that is enough to keep anything besides my playlists.

Please help!

Music library sharing with iTunes

Argyle — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:47:26 -0800

Help me figure out how to share my music on one computer with two other computers in a way that makes iTunes happy. I want to share my music library simply in the house. I have paced all our music content on a server that is available to all computers in the house. We are using iTunes to front end our music library because both my wife and I use iPhones.

Here is a diagram.

I am trying to figure out how to tell iTunes to keep it’s information about iTunes (playlists, sync settings, etc.) locally and see all the media on the remote server.

From what I can tell, iTunes places two files: iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Music Library.xml in the iTunes folder in what it calls the Library. How do I get iTunes to understand that these files are in one place and that the music files are in another place without it trying to bring them together?

BTW, I am running Windows on all these computers.

Things that don’t work that have been tried:

Pointing both computers at the same iTunes files on the same server causes conflicts between the two computers when used at the same time.

Elaborate syncing to place copies of all media on all computers, works in theory, chaos in operation.

Thanks for your help and ideas!

iPhone: my ears are happy, but my eyes are bored.

grumblebee — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:31:47 -0800

I'm looking for a very specific sort of game for the iPhone: one that (a) takes almost no conscious brain power and (b) doesn't interfere with my iTunes music. I want a game I can play while listening to iTunes. I listen to music and audiobooks on my iPhone. Usually I do this when I'm out and about, so I have plenty of visual stimulation from the city or subway. Or I listen in bed with the lights off, so I don't need any external sights. But when I'm stuck waiting at the dentist or whatever, I find myself wanting something to look at while I listen. Better yet: something to look at and manipulate with my hands.

I can't surf the web, because I can't pay attention to that and an audio book at the same time. But a really simple game could work. For instance, I've listened to audiobooks and played snake (that game where you make a snake move through a maze and eat apples) with success. Something like Bejewelled might work, too -- basically, something that's more about getting into a zenlike state or a tactile state than a logical-deduction state -- the way you can drive your car down the freeway while listening to talk radio.

The other problem is that so many games override the iPod/iTunes functionality. I've heard people say there's a way to stop them from doing this, but I can't figure it out, despite reading "instructions" on many websites.

The instructions always say to start the iTunes song playing, then switch to the game, then double-tap the home button. When I do that, sure enough, my music controls pop back up, but I'm also closed out of the game. The game doesn't come back when after I start the music playing. If I close out of the music controls and restart the game, the game music overrides iTunes again.

As far as I can tell, the reality is that some games allow you to play your own music and some don't. So, unless you can tell me the secret of overriding any game's sounds with my own audio, please recommend simple games that let you listen to whatever you want while you play.

PS. I already know about Galcon.

Legality of CD Swap

perrce — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:37:30 -0800

I'm a high school teacher. The kids want me to be the adviser for a new music club that swaps mix CDs. Is this legal? So the kiddos want to to organize a recurring swap of mix CDs (a la the periodic MeFi CD Swaps) and they want me to be their "club adviser." I think it sounds like a fun idea, but obviously the school can't sponsor (and I can't be a part of) something that's illegal.

Virtually all the kids have digital music, which I will assume came from various legal sources: ripped from CD, iTunes, Amazon, etc. What restrictions could be placed on the the rules of the club (no trading digital music files, only mix CDs, no ripping loaned CDs, etc.) that might make this legal?

And for record I'm in the USA, and you are not a lawyer (or at least not mine). If you have any sources you could link to it would be spiffy, because someone (I'm sure) is going to eventually ask me to back this up.

Legalities of Selling Legally Downloaded Music?

Effigy2000 — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:56:34 -0800

Assuming I am true and honest to my word and delete the music from my hard drive once I sell it, how can I legally make money selling old music that I have legally downloaded and no longer want? I have bought a lot of music from the iTunes Store over the years. My music tastes have changed a bit since the days that I first started downloading music from them and so now I'd like to get rid of some of the older songs and albums that I no longer want, preferably for cold hard cash if I could. But unlike an old unwanted CD, I can't just go and sell it down at the local music shop. Is it OK to do this on eBay? If not, and assuming I am true and honest to my word and delete the music from my hard drive once I've actually sold it, how can I legally make money selling old music that I have legally downloaded and no longer want?

I don't want to listen to this song anymore.

Fairchild — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:48:16 -0800

I can't remove songs from my iPod touch. Please help me before I lose my mind. In "options" I have clicked "manually manage music and videos", but in my Music folder everything is dithered out, except the "Sync music" box.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks so much.