New to the Forum/iTunes Question

[tp76]

Hey all - I am new here and have some iTunes questions I was hoping I could get answered...new to apple but not the Forums - I am a Mod on Droid Forums.net and Android.net and an Smod on a few of the newer mobile device forums, all Sister Sites within the Forum Foundry Family, so I thought what better place to seek answers but here

Anyways I recently bought a 160GB iPod and iTunes seems to organize my music in complete disarray - I did purchase a "Tidy Songs" Liscense and their software does help a little but it is far from being a complete problem solver -

What I would like to be able to do is add my Music collection to iTunes exactly as it is showing in my folders on my computer - for example

Nine Inch Nails <- Artist
*Pretty Hate Machine <- Album
1.Track One
2.Track Two
3....
4....
*Broken <- Nine Inch Nails Album
1....
2....
3....

Soulfly <- Artist
*Three <- Album
1...
2...
3...


...and so on - iTunes seems to have a mind of it's own and I am at a loss - I am taking 7,000 songs or so from my hard drive and by the time they hit my iPod I can't find a specific track to save my life

Thanks in Advance

 

[f4780y]

Unfortunately iTunes relies on good mp3 tagging, not good folder and file structure and file naming. You are going to have to go through some pain I'm afraid.
I used Tag&Rename which is a great utility for building tags from the file structure... Give that a go.
Hope that helps...

 

[tp76]

I was hoping I would be directed to a setting that I was missing that would do the foot work for me, nothing worthwile is easy though - thanks for the Software Suggestion and wish me luck

 

[twerppoet]

Under the Advanced tab in Preferences you can change the library location, prevent folder rearrangement, and not allow the files to be copied to the media library.

I have no idea what the impact would be on tagging or how the tracks are displayed and sorted.

Form a personal point of view, I don't care how the songs are stored on the computer as long as I can easily find them to play. iTunes does a decent job of this by default if the songs are added through the store. It usually does a decent job if I add them manually.

For the exceptions there is Get Info. You can select multiple songs and change things like album, artist, genre, etc. It would be a pain if I had to do it all the time, but for the occasional track or CD import that goes wrong, I can live with it.

 

[tp76]

I will have to dig deeper into those advanced settings - another question, yesterday I changed some folder preferences within the advance menu and I just deleted my entire library and readded everything hoping to see some changes, is there a way to make folder/placement changes from within the menu's take effect on the music that is already within the itunes library without deleting and readding everything ?

 

[tp76]

Unfortunately iTunes relies on good mp3 tagging, not good folder and file structure and file naming. You are going to have to go through some pain I'm afraid.
I used Tag&Rename which is a great utility for building tags from the file structure... Give that a go.
Hope that helps...

I downloaded Tag and Rename and it seems to have potential but I am a bit lost as to where to get started - any help would be appreciated

 

[twerppoet]

. . . is there a way to make folder/placement changes from within the menu's take effect on the music that is already within the itunes library without deleting and readding everything ?

Not that I know of.

 

[tp76]

Well here is my painstaking but (hopefully) perfect solution - Playlist folders and playlists, So I set up a Playlist folder as "Artist Name" and the playlists within get named as the "Album Name" this way Apple gets their way and sets up my songs as they like and I get mine, the downfall is 80+ Artists with probably 3 or 4 hundred albums - it's a lot of folder creating

 

[tp76]

Well I made it to the N's - definitely tedious work, folder/playlist making but after I get caught up keeping it organized should be cakewalk

 

[DontUnderstandMyIpad]

Ideally, you would add MP3 tags to all your songs, so that the songs show up properly under Artists/Albums, etc.

Personally, I have never used Tag&Rename, but I have tried Magic MP3 Tagger
It creates a copy of your music library and adds MP3 tags to all your songs in the process.

Downside: The trial version can only convert 5 tags at a time and the fullversion costs ~20 Euro.
But you would have a working music library afterwards.

 

[tp76]

I finally got it through the "folder" method, it was a lot of work but looks good -