Before you Run iTunes the First Time

[spilk]

some other miscellaneous tips for new itunes users

alright, i've been reading some of these comments and just want to sum up some of the problems and how to fix them.

first, people are complaining that itunes is making copies of all their music. this is easy to fix: in the preferences, in the advanced tab, uncheck "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library." don't change the "itunes music folder location", this will just hose you up. if you don't use the copy files to library function, this folder will only contain the music that you rip/buy from within itunes.

i've also seen complaints about having to go to the menu to add folders individually. use drag and drop! just select the whole bunch, and drag it onto the Library in the source pane. easy as pie. as long as you followed step 1 above, it will not rename/move/duplicate your files.

the lack of a true maximize is sort of annoying, but perhaps if you send apple some feedback ("Provide iTunes Feedback" in the help menu), they will fix this. apple is pretty good about fixing these sorts of things. i would expect a maintenance update in the near future if enough people point these things out.

also, it may not be terribly obvious to many, but when you select your ipod in the source list, a little ipod icon comes up in the bottom right. click this and you get to tell it how you want to manage the files on your ipod (sync or manually). the one at the far bottom right unmounts the ipod. this more or less duplicates the functionality of the ipod manager tray icon that has since disappeared.

someone also complained about ripping cds that contain various artists, and how itunes rips them all to seperate folders. you can fix this by right-clicking on the cd in the source list (before importing), selecting "get info", and checking the "compilation cd" box. this will rip the files into a seperate "Compilations" subfolder of the itunes music folder.

another tip: if you are ripping a mixed cd (ones without gaps between the tracks), insert the cd, then select all the tracks and select "join cd tracks". this will encode the entire cd into one long mp3/m4a or whatever. this is how i've ripped many of my mix cds since i can't tolerate any sort of pause/popping between tracks.


hope these help some folks!

 

[m.r.m.]

thanks bunches spilk!

when i drag and drop my music folder (about 14GB) into itunes, it starts importing songs, but crashes very soon. i suspect this is because i only have 256mb ram. i?m running win xp. neither drag&drop nor adding the folder works for me. i have to manually add the songs in small groups. i?ve also noticed that the groups have to seemingly reduce in size, the more songs i have in my itunes library.

 

[spilk]

that is very unusual indeed. i have taken huge folders with several gigabytes of mp3s and dropped them into itunes without a hitch. i have 512M of ram on XP. it doesn't seem to have a problem with any of that, or the 25GB i have on my ipod. i have no serious complaints so far.

 

[Judd Sandage]

same here

I attemped to add a folder that had all my MP3s in to it, it has almost 30 gb just in that folder and itunes just hung, wouldent do anything at all had to "Force Quit" (crtl+alt+del) it so I dumped the indavidule files in, works great now but can't seem to handle more the 10gigs at a time

 

[spilk]

is it freezing, or is it outright crashing? i know when i drag a bunch of files to it it might appear to freeze up for a little while but its actually just working on importing the files (reading tags and such, i assume). have you let it go for a few minutes to see if it recovers?

 

[paladin732]

itunes kept freezing on me and quiting, then i figured out i had a bad rip, cause i finally started looking at the song it would crash at

and everytime it hung no matter what i did it was that song, so i deleted the song and added all my stuff again

bingo, worked perfectly fine(all in one go)

 

[thenightfly42]

There are a number of Windows users complaining that iTunes either duplicates all of their songs, or reorganizes their folder structures. Or both.

There is a very simple fix for this.

During the install of iTunes change the pre-selected option to "I'll add songs manually later". (thanks bstark!)

When you first run iTunes, go to Edit->Preferences->Advanced.

De-select the options

• "Keep iTunes music folder organized" (this is what would move all of the files into folders based on the Artist/Album tags)
• "Copy music to iTunes music folder when adding to library" (this is what would make a copy of every song that is not located in the selected iTunes music library folder location)

This will allow you to keep your pre-existing file structure intact when adding songs to the iTunes database. Enjoy!

 

[Kurt871]

lol, I wish someone had posted this earlier...

 

[HiRez]

There are a number of Windows users complaining that iTunes either duplicates all of their songs, or reorganizes their folder structures. Or both.

There is a very simple fix for this. When you first run iTunes, go to Edit->Preferences->Advanced.

I'm glad this notice was posted, however I want to point out that it's not necessarily something that needs to be "fixed", just something for people to be aware of. Having iTunes organize your files for you can be very useful (I love it personally), it's just not something that's fun to be surprised by.

I'd recommend backing up your tunes to another drive, then let iTunes have at your files. You may like it.

 

[thenightfly42]

I agree with you entirely, HiRez. I personally wouldn't care if iTunes decided to name every file Bob and put each in a different randomly-numbered folder. But, Windows users are accustomed to their file structrues, so I posted this note. They can always try it later.

 

[bstark]

Important!
During the install of ITunes change the pre-selected option to "I'll add songs manually later"

 

[Kee-Lo]

Thanks for the tip thenightfly42, I was wondering what those options did.

 

[Surf Monkey]

I agree with you entirely, HiRez. I personally wouldn't care if iTunes decided to name every file Bob and put each in a different randomly-numbered folder. But, Windows users are accustomed to their file structrues, so I posted this note. They can always try it later.

That's an excellent point. Everyone should remember that one of the big things iTunes does is act as a total manager of your front end interaction with your files. The idea is that you do EVERYTHING in iTunes and just let the application deal with the physical files. I too railed against this when iTunes was new but once I got into using it I realized that it's better (at least for my purposes) to use iTunes in this way. You can do all your genre grouping, play listing, disc burning etc. etc. in iTunes itself and, because you don't have to move the actual files, you can reorganize everything in a snap by simply resorting lists, changing ID3 tags etc. which is (IMO) FAR superior to having to do it by hand.

 

[Roland]

Re: Re: Before you Run iTunes the First Time

Having iTunes organize your files for you can be very useful (I love it personally), it's just not something that's fun to be surprised by.

Hi Hirez
How is having iTunes take over my files useful?
I mean, what are the advantages/disadvantages?
I havent had a chance to really get into iTunes yet, but I did notice that iTunes won't automatically keep my library updated as I add (or maybe delete) a song from it. That's a pain.

thanks,

 

[thenightfly42]

Important!
During the install of ITunes change the pre-selected option to "I'll add songs manually later"

Good call, I added and credited this above.

 

[m.r.m.]

when i say it crashes, i mean it starts loading the song and then simply quits. doesn?t do this at one particular song either.

 

[emfinite]

My iTunes keeps freezing every time I mount my iPod into Windows (XP). I can mount the iPod, open itunes and let it sit there and it will be fine, but as soon as I do ANYTHING in iTunes it freezes, whether it be playing a song off of the iPod or my drive. It's really puzzling to me because it's random as hell. It doesn't happen with any song, it's completely random. It's definitely not my computer: P4 2.4GHz, 1024MB DDR RAM, 64MB Video...

Maybe someone can help us out... Thanks in advance.

 

[emfinite]

Keep in mind that as soon as I remove the iPod from the dock, after a few seconds, iTunes unfreezes and is fine.

 

[Spoonman]

Re: Re: Re: Before you Run iTunes the First Time

Hi Hirez
How is having iTunes take over my files useful?
I mean, what are the advantages/disadvantages?
I havent had a chance to really get into iTunes yet, but I did notice that iTunes won't automatically keep my library updated as I add (or maybe delete) a song from it. That's a pain.

thanks,

It's advantageous because the physiacal location of files doesn't matter...so you might as well be able to add the file to iTunes and have it deal with it. iTunes DOES automatically keep your library updated as you add od delete a song from it's library...as long as the file is in your iTunes folder...when you delete a file (or files) from the iTunes library it will ask you if you want to put them in the recycle bin, and provided your preferences are setup for it, any file added to the iTunes library will be copied into the iTunes folder, you can then simply delete the other copy.

The easiest way I found to switch over was to copy *all* my mp3's into one directory, say...d:\mp3 then set my iTunes music folder as that directory, and set both the copy and sort options to on, then add that folder to your library, iTunes will then parse through the files, and make it's directory structure WITHOUT copying anything, since these files are already in the iTunes folder. Now, anything new I get, I copy to a temp folder on my desktop, and once I have formated my tags and ran mp3 gain over it, I import it to my iTunes library, and delete the folder from my desktop. Any new files are then added to my "recently imported" smartlist, where I can easily rate them...hope this helps.

But, Windows users are accustomed to their file structrues

Don't throw us all into one big bucket...I'm quite partial to id3 tags over file structures, and generally like the database approach much better then naving directory trees. I'm pretty sure the reason most windows users are so partial to file structures is because it's EASY to understand, you don't have to comprehend what's going on in the background, because there is nothing going on in the background, and you don't need to understand id3 tags, because they're essentially rendered useless. You are in control of what's going on and this makes some people feel safe...afterall if you don't know what you're doing, you can really screw your files up...however if you DO know what you're doing, it makes managing a collection of any size, a breeze. I'm discussing a similar topic over at www.head-fi.org about why iTunes (or any program like it) is head and shoulders above the direct copy and paste approach of players that use direct drive letter access.

 

[ashawley]

I'm with you Spoonman. I've always used Media Libraries and have never frankly understood the File Management option. Cumbersome IMO.

Adam.