Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with music and ipod

Loud speaker. Quiet speaker. Alternate at random.

TheSecretDecoderRing — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:41:24 -0800

I want to listen to my digital music player at work (technically, WMAs and not MP3s) through speakers rather than headphones. With the latter, all my songs sound fairly consistent in volume. With the former, they're all over the map and ditto for the dynamic range. Suggestions? I'm using PC speakers. They seem of good enough quality, but is that what's magnifying the variation in volume? Would a cheaper, weaker set of speakers actually make it better?

This is at work, so sound quality and bass isn't too important. And I keep the volume just loud enough so I can hear it, and the environment is usual office ambience/conversations. I've tried maxing out the speakers and adjusting the player, vice versa, and in between on both.

I'd prefer to avoid the hassle of normalization software, unless there's something out there for WMAs that's really easy and effective. USB access to the work computer is restricted. Hopefully others have had similar problems and have found workarounds as simple as just getting the right speakers. Thanks in advance.

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!

HELP! Need Wedding Playlist!!

madmamasmith — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:35:50 -0800

HELP! I am (was) using my ipod instead of a DJ for my wedding that is in 10 days and it just CRASHED! It synched to my computer without warning and now all my wedding playlists are GONE! I'm a dope and only very recently started using an external hard drive...long story short I need help to rebuild my wedding playlists. With the stress of the wedding planning I cant even remember to poop, let alone the collection of music ive been building for years!! I would appreciate ANY and ALL recommendations but I need the most help with the dance portion. I love all kinds of music from all eras and I want to make sure there are some dance hits from my school days ie TLC, SWV etc but I also want to play some newer hits and I am suffering serious brain fart. I'm also 6 months pregnant so I have baby brain as they say.

So far my playlists are thus (in a nutshell)

Preceremony/seating:

sun kil moon, joni mitchell, elvis, alasdair roberts, some instrumental stuff etc., peter gabriel

Dinner/Cocktail:

cocteau twins, yo la tango, van morrison, fleetwood mac, sufjan stevens, nina simone, otis redding, nuetral milk hotel

Dancing:

MGMT, MIA, Soldia Boy, JAson Derulo, Kool & the gang, outkast, madonna, pssion pit, cure, aha, TI, iggy pop, peter bjorn and john, daftpunk, the knife, george michael.......

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)?

Help me find a CD player

LSK — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:28:53 -0800

Help me find a portable CD player. I'm looking for a portable CD player with all these traits:

- Plays CDs with mp3 files saved on them.
- Has a LCD screen (even a small one) showing basic information.
- Can be operated blindly and without removing it from my pocket.

I used to own a nice Sony one that did all these, but lost it. Help!

I need new headphones - Any suggestions?

Rendus — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:12:26 -0800

What are the right headphones for me? Big head, normal ears, likes loud noises, $100-$200 budget. Mostly for listening to music on my iPod Touch, occasionally playing games on my computer using it's (reasonably competent) onboard audio. I understand the listening experience is subjective, but if I can narrow it down to a short list, I can work on getting my head on various items to see how they work for me. My Sennheiser HD212 headphones recently died, and I'm looking for a new pair. For those familiar with the particular combination of equipment, I usually used these phones at about 75% volume on my iPod Touch, although I do occasionally go up to 100%.

The HD212s just barely fit around my ears, and I found them to be reasonably comfortable - Larger cups would be fine, smaller is probably not feasible.

My normal listening environment is riding on the bus, so noise cancellation wouldn't be an unwelcome feature, but it's far from necessary.

I'm 6 feet tall, and prefer to keep my music player in my front left pocket - Cables long enough to do this are preferred. 4+ feet is great. If all else fails, though, I can use extensions without a problem.

My attention to detail in music is rather lacking, really - 192kbps LAME-encoded MP3s sound perfectly reasonable to me, although I prefer higher bitrates. I just as often listen to Pandora (which I believe is 128kbps), and it only occasionally causes me to grit my teeth at the audio quality. This may bias your answers in one of two ways - Low end phones, or phones that sound absolutely fantastic and should show me what I've been missing. Feel free to take either approach.

I'm generally more concerned with clear sound than deep bass. According to iTunes, I listen to Nightwish, Within Temptation, After Forever, Blackmoore's Night, Lacuna Coil and the like much more than Metallica, Rammstein, Stone Sour, etc.

If there's anything else you need to know, ask and I'll answer.

Playing iPod Videos an TV

gm2007 — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:34:42 -0800

How do I play videos from my iPod Nano on my Phillips television? My Phillips is a flat screen and has a USB port on the side, which my iPod can dock to. When I connect them, the television even recognizes that an iPod is connected, but doesn't seem to know what to do with it. Any ideas?

Headphone recommendations for road cycling?

Señor Pantalones — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:34:46 -0800

[cycling] best headphones, preferably not buds? A few years ago, a company called Slipstreamz introduced something called "The Slip" which mounted earbuds outside the ear on a windscreen and allowed the best of both worlds -- hearing your environment and hearing your ipod. They appear to be out of business (or at least hard to find, and their server has been down since I started looking).

I've tried riding with both forms of iPhone buds (the plug-style and the pre-plug disc-shaped "buds"). They block too much environmental audio, and I'm not comfortable being that detached from my surroundings.

What are you using? What do you like or dislike about them? Would you recommend them?

Thanks in advance. Bonus points for iphone-friendly (e.g., mic on the cable) recommendations.

Sorry I have to ask, but no "don't do it" safety responses please. This is a specific question for people who choose to ride with headphones.

How to listen to music on a bike tour

PercussivePaul — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:58:48 -0800

What are my best options for listening to music on a long bike tour? We're planning a two-month bike trip down the Pacific Coast (Washington, Oregon, California). I'm curious how people listen to music on such rides. Personal mp3 players seem to be the easiest - maybe listening with only one earbud in so you can hear cars ok.

I would be fine buying a cheapo mp3 player but it would probably not have enough space. I have a 16Gb usb flash drive and it would be great if I could buy a player that could read from that (the stereo in my car does this and it's very convenient). Does this exist? I can't seem to find it. Or will it be easy to find internet cafes on the road in which I could switch the music from the usb stick onto the player? I'm not planning on bringing a computer with me.

What about batteries? Should I get something that uses AAA batteries so I can do quick replacements on the road? Am I going to burn through a shitload of batteries this way? Are rechargeable batteries practical? I have a 4Gb ipod I could use but it seems like keeping it charged on the road will be a pain.

Also thought about portable radios but I doubt there is much to listen to on the coast, it's mostly small towns so not many radio stations (is this true?)

Any other ideas?

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..."

Lucky there's a....

alice ayres — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:49:04 -0800

can i extract the audio from youtube videos to create an mp3? is there any way that i can extract the audio from the multitude of videos for the family guy musical pieces to create my own compilation (something similar to what the simpsons have already done)?

also, let's say i could find every single musical number on youtube (or other video sources), how can i make them into iPod friendly a) audio files and b) video files?

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.

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.

Do you hear what I hear?

sio42 — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:09:00 -0800

Office Filter: I need to listen to music while working. However, we cannot use streaming music at my job. Also, I work in a cave and traditional radio gets no signals. I don't own a ton of music and really like Pandora and various NPR stations. Bringing my iPod to work is not really an option because I don't have a great music collection. I really enjoy listening to radio because of the variety and getting to hear stuff that I don't own.

How can I get music at work that is not streaming and radio like? Do HD radios have a stronger signal?

I used to listen to WXPN, KEXP, Pandora, NPR feeds all day long at my old jobs, but now I am without.

I never really figured out the podcast thing with my iPod. I'd end up with very disproportionate amounts of the various shows, like 3 hours of NPR and then 2 podcasts of music. I don't really have the patience to sit there and put 2G of podcasts on one by one.

Ideas, musical/podcast mefites?

The KEXP or KCRW of Europe

apollo3000 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:45:58 -0800

Best alternative-music podcasts in Western Europe and Latin America? I would like to know: what are the best alternative-music podcasts from Western Europe and Latin America?

There are several U.S. podcasts I enjoy on the iPod, such as KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic and Today's Top Tune; KEXP's Song of the Day; NPR's All Songs Considered and World Cafe.

These play artists like Loudon Wainwright, Rodney Crowell, Damien Rice, Magic Numbers, Zap Mama, Iron and Wine, Jim White, Conor Oberst, Kings of Convenience, Jose Gonzalez, Okkervil River, Julieta Venegas, Calexico, etc.

But I would like to know more about podcasts that feature such music beyond the U.S., preferably in English, or a Romance or Germanic language.

Thank you for any information.

What mp3?

mippy — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:03:22 -0800

I think I need a new MP3 player. What do I get? My Creative Zen Sleek keeps freezing up, and thinks the battery is dead when it isn't. I think it's on its last legs. the other half is trying to get me to get an iPod, but that seems a bit of a default option.

Things I need from a player:
<20gb capacity
Not too fiddly or easily broken
Feels nice in the hand
FM or, if possible, DAB radio plugin
Good sound quality

Things I'm not bothered about:
Colour screen
Video

I am a bit concerned the iPod isn't very durable (I tend to break things easily) and have read bad reviews on Amazon for the new Classic model. On the other hand, if I get a leather/padded case for it that could solve the problem. I'd like to hang on to the one I have for as long as it works, but in the meantime - some advice please! (I'm in the UK, btw)

Steve Jobs, SUP-er GEN-ius...

Methylviolet — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:42:40 -0800

Is there a downside to iTunes' Genius feature? iTunes recently forced me to update it, and now there is this Genius business -- a feature that apparently compares your library and playlists with those of other users to find which songs are most often found together. With this information, it will suggest playlists of music you already own, and -- of course -- songs available for purchase on iTunes.

Is there a catch? What if, just say for example, a person had a truly vast collection of unlicensed music? Is there a downside to this that you can see?

How to move contents of 3 iPods back onto my Mac?

rubadub — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:53:47 -0800

How do I transfer the contents of 3 iPods (2G, 3G, 4G) back onto a hard drive? I'm using Mac OS 10.4.4. There are tons of programs, which do I use? The entirety of my CD collection and about 75% of my vinyl collection was stored on a 500GB LaCie "BigDisk" hard drive which failed when we lost power in the hurricane remnants on Sunday. I typically back this stuff up periodically, but my backup drive failed a few months ago, so now I'm up a creek.

Most of my vinyl encodes are hard to find on CD, and I still have the vinyl, but ripping it is horribly time-consuming. The best of it is loaded onto these three iPods in question and I'd like to get it back onto my Mac with tags intact, and (hopefully) sorted by artist/album like it used to be.

I might be able to revive the hard drive but it's not mounting currently and I've had problems getting data off failed hard drives in the past, so I'm assuming for the moment that it's totally dead. If you know of a common way to fix this sorta drive, or repair the tree, etc. then please give me a heads up. I have a bad feeling that it may have been ruined by the power glitching on and off before it went out entirely.

I have no problem paying for shareware or a commercial program to do the iPod transfer, but there are so many of 'em out there, with such mixed results, that I don't know where to start.

Any suggestions?

How to transfer a lot of music to a such a small machine...

anoirmarie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:36:27 -0800

I just purchased a new 2.4GHz Macbook. I have approximately 45 GB of music on my IPod (I think, it's an 80 GB IPod and over half full), a lot of which was never backed up on my old PC. Do I need to get an external hard drive for that much music or can I transfer it to my Macbook using Senuti and still have the Macbook run well? If I do need to purchase some sort of external storage, which should I get? What runs best with the new Macbook? I'm not interested in spending more than $150, because I just can't afford it.
Once I have this hypothetical external storage, if it is in fact needed, is there a way I can transfer the music files straight from my IPod to the external storage? Please help a music nerd become a computer nerd. Thank you!

Make ipod talk to speakers.

betterton — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:32:59 -0800

I have speakers. I have an ipod. What goes in between? I have some speakers with cables with RCA plugs at the end. I have an ipod. I want the music from the ipod to come out of the speakers.

What do I need to go in between? Both general explanation and specific product advice is welcome.

I don't know much about stereo equipment. Please use small words.

70's and 80's songs to play in a business.

ptsampras14 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:15:49 -0800

What are some good 70's and 80's songs suitable for playing in a pharmacy? My father owns a family pharmacy and we have an iPod with nice 70's and 80's songs set to play for the customers. Can you tell me some that I can add to the playlist? Remember nice calm easy listening ones are best, and no dirty or bad songs about dying etc.. To get an idea of some of the songs I have here's a link to the playlist so far. Specific songs are great, but I will also take artists. Try not to give duplicates. If 10 people give 10 songs that's 100 new songs! Thanks!

iPod iTunes music library management

Yorke and Vedder — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:36:45 -0800

Is there a way, (3rd party program, plug in, etc...) that will let me compare my iPod's music library against my iTunes library, (maybe on dual panes?) and visually mark which songs on my iTunes library are not in my iPod and viceversa? Maybe there's a script out there that does this...? I've tried other media managers, (MediaMonkey, Songbird, Winamp, etc...), but none of them offer that feature either.

Any suggestions?

How to best handle my iTunes library?

arniec — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:47:29 -0800

What is the easiest and best way for me to share my large iTunes multimedia library amongst 4 Macs? I have a multimedia library (mostly MP3 files ripped from my personal collection, a few purchased iTunes songs some with DRM somewithout, and one or two movies/TV shows purchased from iTunes) that is approaching 100GB. This is stored currently on a 100GB external hard drive.

My wife and I have 4 computers; we each have a desktop and a laptop. All 4 are authorized on our shared iTunes account for our content.

Currently the library is hooked into my Airport Extreme's USB port. As the router uses little power and is always on, it seemed the best way to share the files across the network. However we have 2 problems:

1) To add this library to a computer takes overnight. It must process all the files on the drive, then cover index, etc. This isn't a problem if it were a one time thing or even once per computer but...

2) When one of us purchases more music, etc. it only appears on one computer at most (if, for example, we make a DRM free purchase at Amazon it shows up on no computers).

As we like to keep our media organized by Artist, Album, Song, we end up having to purge our entire iTunes library and re-add it (taking, again, overnight) to find the few tracks added.

What I want is a simple way to have the library on all 4 computers and when any computer adds a file all computers see it.

Bonus points: 1) If one of us accidentally opens a file like an MP3 sent by e-mail in iTunes and then deletes it, it does not cause a dead link on all computers.

2) Uber bonus points if there is also a way to share these files with my X-Box/PS3/multimedia receiver to play my music in our living room.

Thank you hive mind! Help me see the links I can't see for myself in this conundrum.

Dock for aging iPod?

beniamino — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:43:08 -0800

I am looking for an iPod dock/speaker system which fulfills the following criteria: definitely known to be compatible with 3rd generation iPod (i.e. the dock provides power and receives sound via dock connector), AC powered, available in the UK, cost (new or used) less than about £30. Most retailers are vague about which iPod models are compatible with their docks, and most current docks only support 4th generation or newer iPods (it seems the dock connector on the 3G had a different pinout). I'm struggling to find available docks that are known good with the 3G.

How to cheaply and easily encode 3,500 CDs to MP3s?

tundro — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:04:51 -0800

i have about 3,500 CDs. I want to rip them to MP3. I'm too lazy to do it one at a time on my computer and too cheap to pay a service like MusicShifter. Any other options? So I'm a bit of a music nut. Managed to collect about 3,500 CDs. The new ones I get I tend to rip to MP3 right away, but I have a serious backlog. In fact, some are obscure and require manually adding in song and album information which adds to it being a pain in the butt.

I'm entirely too lazy to do this one by one on my computer, and way too cheap to spend $2,500 - $3,500 on paying a service to do it for me. Any other options? I'm looking for encoding at no less than 192 VBR joint stereo.

Bonus question: i also have about 1,000 cassettes and 500 - 700 vinyl records (in various sizes from 7" to 10" to 12"). Would love to get them to MP3s too. All ideas for how to accommodate my laziness and cheapness are appreciated.