Managing MP3's: Playlists vs. Albums/Directories

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debris

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I bought the iPod 30GB Windows version about 2 months ago and it has been pretty much a headache ever since. Besides MMJB not working on my PC (it would crash the system) and a PCMCIA non-powered Firewire card which lets the iPod battery drain while transferring songs...I have been most confused about the whole "Playlist" concept and am seeking advice.

To wit: I have a large collection of CD's and have been steadily ripping them to a large external drive. Each of the CDs is being ripped into subfolders. For example, in the My Music directory, I have subdirectories broken down by genre and in each genre subdirectory, the individual album, with its directory name being the album and artist. So, you might find My Music\Bluegrass\Gillian Welch - Revival. I also have collections of random mp3s in various subdirectories that are my "mixes", some of which have ID tags and some of which dont' - but they are all within a subdirectory named for that "mix".

My hope was to have this entire collection of CD's transformed into a "virtual" CD collection on my drive. Then, when I was ready to load the iPod and head out the door, I would just choose which "CD's" to take with me on the iPod, including the mixes.

But no! It turns out that the iPod must sort everything by playlist. That apparently means that I have to turn each subdirectory into a playlist. And then I would just load those playlists each time I want to load the iPod and head out the door.

Yet, I cannot seem to find any software (MC9 and EphPod included) that can easily turn a giant collection of directories into a giant collection of playlists, at least without tediously going through and manually creating these playlists.

Does anyone who has run into this problem have any suggestions for how to deal with turning albums/directories into playlists? If I decide to manually create a giant pile of playlists using MC9 or something else, should they be in the album subdirectory itself or should they sit in a separate directory, for example broken down by genre?

You are my last hope before I give up and sell my iPod to someone else who can figure out how to use it without losing hair or spending hours managing their music.

Thanks,
Debris
 

debris

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Add'l Question: MC9 Syncing

When I try using MediaCenter 9 to sync with the iPod, after synching, I get my playlists on the iPod, but they have no songs in them. Very confusing...any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong with MC9?

Also, what happened to iPodremove, the utility for quickly ejecting the ipod? It is listed in the Compendium written by Adam Shawley, but is not to be found in the URL listed. Does anyone have a copy to share or know where to find the download?

Thanks,
debris
 

debris

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Okay, I keep adding to my own post. But I had a bit of a revelation. When I import new CD directories into MC9, the software appears to create a new playlist for each subdirectory, under the "Imported Playlists" line (under Playlists)! Wow...I was very relieved to see that, but not sure how it happened. How do I view those settings?

One things MC9 does is if it isn't sure of the album, it calls the playlist by the name of the first track in the directory. How can I change this?

As I continue trying to upload and sync playlists with the iPod, I am still noticing that only a few of the playlists appear to be loading, rather than all of them. It seems to be loading everything and then when finished, I get a box that just says "Ok" and that's it. When I check the iPod, only a few of the playlists I synchronized are there.

Thanks for any help. Sorry about the 3 posts.

debris
 

ashawley

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debris:

Took the liberty of moving this into the MC9 board as you'll get more help here.

OK, well, I think the first thing to do is go get you looking at the world in a different light. ;)

First off, I know you have everything organized based on Genre by folders and all, but that's a bit limiting for you. To really unleash the power of MC9, try and stop looking at things based on their physical location on your PC. We can use MC9's database to assign attributes to songs and based on those you can get all sorts of things done. Then, the physical location becomes moot. In the end, you'll probably just end up keeping all your tunes in Artist/Album subfolders, something MC9 can do for you automatically.

And forget about Playlists for the moment. We'll make smartlists based on genre that will automatically add your tunes. Oh, and you do know that you can Browse the tunes on your iPod by Genre don't you? That's already built into the iPod. Didn't know if you've tried that.

So, make sure you have the latest version of MC9. They have 9.1.256 up right now in their forums.

Next, in Media Library view, make sure you've tagged your songs w/the appropriate Genre. You can batch tag really easy. And since you already have folders set up by Genre this will be easy.

1. Expand the Audio tree item under Media Library
2. Expand the Hard Disk Location tree item
3. Navigate to one of your Genre folders. All the songs in that folder will show up in the lower pane. Hightlight them all and in the Action window in the left, click on File Properties, then on Tag Info. In the Genre field, type in the Genre for this folder.
4. Repeat this process for each of your Genre folders

Now, what I would do is to creat a smartlist for each of your Genre's. You really don't have to do this because the iPod already will let you play tunes based on Genre, but if you want to create separate playlists you can. It's your call.

Add a Smartlist, then click the Add Rule drop down arrow in the search bar and click on Add>Rule>Genre. Select from the list of Genres. Add any other rules you want.

Oh, MC9 can also automatically create your Genre folders for you if you feel you want to keep that structure. Go into Tools>Options and on the File Naming icon there are the rules by which files are named. You can create your own based on the tags. The default is [artist]\[album], but you could create one [genre]\[artist]\[album] and then just use the Rename Files from Properties feature to have the files moved into those folders after apply the Genre tag.

Hope this all makes sense. You sound like you know your way around a keyboard, so I haven't left all the gory details in.

Adam
 

psm0110

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debris said:
You are my last hope before I give up and sell my iPod to someone else who can figure out how to use it without losing hair or spending hours managing their music.
Bad News: It takes hours to manage your music when you first get involved with dedicated MP3 players and library tools. This is all up-front work, so that using your library and MP3 player are easier day-to-day.

Hot Tip: I've been using MC9 as a batch ripper. I rip straight to wav files, fully named, for and hour or two, and get about 20GB of wav files. Then, I view the library by the parent directory, and sort it by file type, then select all teh wavs, right click, convert to MP3. Now I can walk away. About 24 hours later, my 20GB wav batch is fully converted to MP3 and I do another stack. This is much faster than converting as you rip.
 

debris

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Thanks Adam and psm!

Things are much better along now and I am not at the desperation stage I was at when I sent that first post.

I have been loading CD's in and the genre thing is working pretty well in MC9. I will try to start training myself to think outside the CD "box". :)

I downloaded the latest version of MC9, but a couple of ongoing questions remain:
1. I am having trouble getting playlists loaded into iPod from MC9 using Synchronize Files. If I select a playlist, for example, and right click and Send to: G (my Ipod drive), it will queue up to be loaded. But the files will load onto the ipod not from a playlist but just on their own...and will not show up on the ipod under Playlists (they will show up under browse songs or artists or whatever).

2. If I try to load playlists by using the "Synchronize Files" command (right clicking on the iPod in MC9), I find that only a few of the playlists transfer over. The songs are often there, but not visible by Playlist or Browse (I only know they are there by looking in the Windows Explorer at the ipod's drive).

This means that the only way to get playlists onto the ipod and have them work right is to drag and drop. And since the ipod is only available to drop on in the left window and the playlists are only visible in the left window, i have had to do a lot of dragging playlists down a long list of other playlists to arrive at the ipod below. Its a big pain. Is this a bug I am seeing? The Send to: and Synchronize Files commands are supposed to work but aren't.

My last question is about the Imported Playlists - when MC9 imports media it creates a playlist from a directory (hooray!) but if it isn't sure of the album, it calls the playlist by the first track in the directory. How do I change that feature?

Thanks all! This is a great forum. The best of the best I have found.

debris
 

ashawley

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debris:

Well, what I would suggest since you've been having problems and you upgraded is to start out fresh on the iPod. Do a Reinitialize (right-click the iPod and select Initailize iPod). This will wipe the iPod clean and all. Then, right click again and select "Rebuild iPod Database".

The, do a sync again, make sure you select only the playlists you want. Don't do the Select All thing. Make sure you haven't checked something you don't want.

Syncing does work fine and this is the preferred method. The playlists will show up fine on the iPod.

Not sure if you have more music in your library than will fit on your iPod. If you don't, just make smartlist like this:

Click Add Rule>Advanced>File Type and select mp3.

This is the smartlist you should sync with. You can also add any other smartlists or playlists, but this will ensure that everything in your library gets to the iPod.

If you have more tunes in your library than will fit on the iPod, then create a Master smartlist, add rules (like Artists or Genre rules) to manage the list to less than the size of your iPod. Remember you can use the "exclude" feature in the smartlist wizard as opposed to the include feature. I outline this in my help guide pretty clearly if you haven't checked it out.

Regarding Imported Playlists. I'm totally confused about this as I've never seen it before. When I import media, playlists aren't automatically made. And I've never seen this option before. So, it's somewhat confusing to me as to how you're achieving this.

Are these Playlists showing up under the Playlist Tree? I've only seen imported playlists when I manually import an .m3u file.


Adam
 

debris

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hey adam:

i'll give the rebuild database a try - i've initialized a few times.

i have enough room currently on the ipod to fit my database, but eventually i won't have enough room for everything. i'll really have to get to know the smartlists. thanks for the tips.

the Imported Playlists are definitely weird. i didn't expect them, but they are exactly what i wanted. they show up under "Playlists: Imported Playlists". What I do is every time I bring in a few new CD's, I go to Tools: Import Media. I make sure to check "Check for new files in subdirectories" It then does an import of my "My Music" folder, and finds the new files. Then under Imported Playlists, the entire collection, named by the title of each directory/album, appears as individual playlists. Accurate, too. Its weird. I don't know how it happened. Some of the Imported Playlists incorporate the name of the first track in the playlist name, a quirk that has me puzzled.

anyway, i'll let you know if i figure out how it is happening.

thanks for all the amazing tips.

debris
 

ashawley

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weird, weird, weird...I've never seen this before. But heck, if it's working for you.

But we'll get you out of this "folder" world one of these days debris. Time for a little Paradigm Shifting. :D ;)

Adam
 

trw7

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Regarding the "batch-rip-to-wav-then-batch-convert-to-mp3" trick... I tried this and it seems that MC9 leaves the original WAV files after it converts them to mp3. I have the "delete temporary WAV files after converting" option turned on in the encoding settings, but the WAV files remain after batch converting - probably because I am not ripping and converting, so the WAV files are not considered "temporary". Any way to get MC9 to delete the WAV files after converting them? Or is there a way to delete them all manually that doesn't require that you navigate around in the music folders on the hard drive, sort by file type, select all the WAV files, delete them, go to the next album folder, repeat, repeat, repeat?
 
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