ipod music management question - all on ipod or some on computer?

February 29, 2004 2:01 PM

Currently I have a 15 GB third generation ipod. Unfortunately it has come very close to filling up. In addition I started a new job which has a 60 minute commute each way. I decided to reward myself by purchasing a new cd each week (either in the store or through iTunes). So the question is: would I be better to purchase a second iPod for all this new music I am going to be purchasing or would it be better for me to just keep the mp3 files on the computer and only transfer the ones I really need to the ipod?
posted by thebwit to Technology (6 answers total)

Set up a smart playlist. In iTunes, click "file" and select "New Smart Playlist." Set it to make a random playlist limited to 15 GB (or whatever it really is after formatting). Then tell iTunes to only update that playlist on the iPod.

Play around with the smart playlists, they rock.
posted by evilbeck at 2:11 PM on February 29, 2004

It really isn't hard to set iTunes to not auto-sync its entire library with the iPod (I assume that's what it is doing now). You would then manually move new songs to the iPod when you get new ones, and remove ones from the iPod that you don't want on there.

I can't imagine buying a new iPod just for this, unless you have a lot more money than sense, or you are REALLY attached to the idea of being able to listen to any of your music anytime.
posted by xil at 2:17 PM on February 29, 2004

Though mine's still not full, I use a "Will I ever actually listen to this?" filter before letting anything go on the iPod. That is to say, even though I at one point in my life thought it was a good idea to own every Prince album, the odds that I'm ever going to want to listen to, say Graffiti Bridge are slim to none. If it was me, I'd keep about 10GB of the best stuff on the player at all times and then cycle new stuff through as it comes. That way you always have access to your 200 or so favorite albums and the rest is just gravy.

Or you could lose the old player on eBay, then upgrade to a 40GB player using a few weeks' worth of new CD money, and have done with it.
posted by vraxoin at 2:32 PM on February 29, 2004

15gb is a lot of music if it's all stuff you actually want to listen to. I recently loaded up just 2 cd-rs worth of stuff to my work computer and it clocks in at almost 17 hours. with 2 hours of commute, you could go more than a week without hearing the same song twice on just 1.2gb...mind you I have a greater tolerance for low bit rate than most people (128 is okay by me).
posted by juv3nal at 4:14 PM on February 29, 2004

Hey -- that's my Ipod commute! I do this with my [full] 20GB Ipod: I keep about 8-10 MB on it of stuff that I really like and like to listen to all the time. Some days I'm into random music and some days I'd prefer to hear all one band. I keep the rest of the Ipod free and basically either copy over a specific playlist [which will copy over all the songs in the playlist] or use a smart playlist to select some sort of jumble of what I've put on lately. I don't auto-sync and I keep the bulk of my music on my laptop. I also have an iTrip so that I can just play all the music through my car stereo. I mostly like it but it's less than perfect for commuting where the radio stations fade in and out.
posted by jessamyn at 5:56 PM on February 29, 2004

Smartplaylists are your friend. When I bought my 10gig 3G iPod I was bummed I could not afford the big one. Now I realize that anything more than a couple of gigs is too big for me. I have about a 35 min commute so I set up 10 Smartplaylists (Mon1, Mon2) that were limited in time to 40 min and then whatever criteria I wanted (new, or not played in the last 14 days etc) and then sync up once a week or so. I take everything off of the iPod pretty well and then up date the playlists from my Mac.

I also use the ability to rate the tracks with the iPod while on the go. 1 star means I will keep the song only for historical purposes on my Mac but do not want to listen to it on the iPod, so all my Smartplaylists have the rule 'does not contain 1 star' as well.
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 8:07 AM on March 1, 2004