I Want To Get Rid of All The Songs!!

[djlen]

I'm a total newbie with a brand new 160gig Ipod Classic. I could really use some advice on where to find a site that will explain things so that I can understand the answers.
For instance, when I "synced" the Ipod itunes loaded a whole bunch of songs (over 2200) into my player. I want to get rid of them and start over by drag and dropping the songs I want into the Ipod. How do I get rid of them and totally clean out the player.
Another one: When I play the music the songs are all tinny sounding. I tried changing the EQ settings but that didn't seem to make any difference.
That's just two of many questions and rather than annoy you folks with them I'd like to find a site that will talk to me like I'm 2 years old, if you know what I mean.
Any help/links/advice would be appreciated.
And the kicker is that I'm a DJ. Put me in front of a Numark Mixer and a pair of players and I'll make you move.......this Ipod is like total Greek to me!

Regards,
Len

 

[kornchild2002]

There are several ways to get rid of everything on your iPod. The easiest is to just restore it. Open up iTunes, plug your iPod into your computer, wait for iTunes to recognize your iPod and take you to the main iPod window within iTunes (you will see a large picture of your iPod). Find the Restore button and hit it. iTunes will warn you that restoring your iPod will erase everything on it. Simply click OK and let iTunes do its thing.

Now, after all of that is done, iTunes will treat your iPod like it is a new unit. It will ask you if you want to sync audio content. Say no to this. Then wait for iTunes to take you back to the main iPod window within iTunes (again, you will see a large picture of your iPod). From there, put a checkmark in the box located next to "Manually manage music and video..." It is located near the bottom. Click Apply and you are done. From there you can drag-and-drop songs in your iTunes library to your iPod. You can also use Google and YouTube as there are visual guides out there for getting both of these tasks completed.

I should say this though: the best thing you can do is use Autosync and just manage your playlists. You can instruct iTunes to sync only certain playlists. That way you still have full control over the content on your iPod without having to manually drag-and-drop content. I did that for 2 years before realizing that playlists (and smart playlists) is the way to go when managing content on any iDevice.

 

[Cold Irons]

In addition to kornchild's excellent walk-thru of what to do to get up & running, I'd say you have already found the best site for learning/understanding iPod & iTunes.

Some terminology help:
1) When your iPod is set to "sync", when connected, it will put songs on/take songs off so that the iPod matches what is in your iTunes.
2) When your iPod is set to "manually manage" you will be in complete control - you drag-n-drop songs from your iTunes library into your iPod (note - this is still from within iTunes, not using the operating system's "file explorer"). One downside with this, you will have to manually delete songs from the iPod when you want them off; and if you change a song file (say, add or change the artwork), you have to manually delete the old copy off the iPod & drag-n-drop the new copy onto the iPod.
3) As kornchild says, long term, it is much easier to use "sync" - either to sync your whole library to the iPod, or to sync only a subset of your iTunes playlists to the iPod.

Your first step should be to go to the top of the iLounge page, under the "Help!" menu selection at the top of the page, and read some of the beginner's tutorials there. Lots of good information.

 

[djlen]

OK I followed kornchild's instructions and got the "Register" page with no sign of a restore button on it. Previously, I thought that if I deleted the songs, all 2200 of them from the itunes list on the screen with the Ipod attached to the computer they would come off the Ipod when deleted from itunes. They are still on the Ipod however. I feel like an idiot with all this. So anyway, I didn't even get to the other stuff yet.

Cold Irons, I have already switched over to "Manual' so I don't have to worry about this happening again. But I do also have a question for you. How do I delete songs directly from the Ipod as you mention in your post?

And I will definitely be checking the Help for beginners section.

Regards,
Len

 

[S2_Mac]

I thought that if I deleted the songs, all 2200 of them from the itunes list on the screen with the Ipod attached to the computer they would come off the Ipod when deleted from itunes.

Ouch! Are you saying that you deleted all entries from your computer's iTunes library? If so, you're gonna want to get those tracks back into iTunes before doing anything else. (Post again if this is the case.)

There are basically two ways to manage the files that go onto/off of an iPod:
1) Auto-Sync (or just plain "sync") -- with auto-sync, your computer's iTunes manages the music files on the iPod every time you connect the iPod to iTunes. It's truly automatic; if you change a bit of metadata (such as correcting a misspelled Artist name, or adding new album art) in iTunes, that info will be updated on the iPod. If you delete a track from iTunes that's previously been loaded onto the iPod, that track will disappear from the iPod on the next sync.

There are a number of options for setting up auto-sync: you can tell iTunes to load every checkmarked track onto the iPod; or you can tell iTunes to sync only selected playlists, genres, artists, etc. onto the iPod; you can tell iTunes to sync everything in its library to the iPod; or you can tell iTunes to "autofill" the iPod, influenced by a filter or two (autofill from one specific playlist; load all new tracks at every sync, random tracks, prefer higher ratings).

2) Manual management -- As the name implies, everything that goes onto or comes off of the iPod is done by you, by hand. In the early-early days, when auto-sync wasn't as competent as it is now, lottsa folks (me!) were die-hard "manual" folks. Nowadays, not so much....

When using manual "sync," you have to stay on your toes. Like, if you fix a misspelled album name in iTunes, you'll have to either manually make those same changes to the album's tracks on the iPod, or else delete the un-fixed tracks from the iPod and then reload the fixed tracks from iTunes; kind of a pain. To remove tracks from a manual iPod, connect the iPod to iTunes; then click the little "disclosure" triangle next to the iPod's icon in the left side of the iTunes window to list the iPod's libraries and playlists; then select the tracks to remove and hit the Delete key.

Two worthwhile iLounge tutorials to read are The Beginner's Guide to iTunes and Beginner's Guide to Filling Your iPod; neither article is up-to-date, but they're still fresh enough to give you a handle on what's happening. Give 'em a read, then come back here and pose your questions....

 

[djlen]

Yes, I totally removed all of them from the itunes list, but they all seem to be in the ipod. At least when I turn it on it still says 2200 songs.
I just want to wipe the itunes list and the ipod and start from scratch. How do I accomplish that?

 

[Cold Irons]

When you connect the iPod, look in iTunes over on the left hand column where it lists your music library, the iTunes Music Store, and all of your playlists, the iPod should appear under the "Devices" heading.

Click on the iPod's name in this left hand area, and you should get a window in iTunes showing a summary of the iPod - capacity, etc. - and in the center of this page should be two buttons; one to check for an update, and the other a "Restore" button. Clicking this button completely erases the iPod & resets it to a "from the factory" state.

 

[djlen]

Yeah, I found it after much trying. I'm finding out that when you make certain changes in the itunes window, at least I have to re-start my computer. For some reason if I don't it doesn't recognize my Ipod.
But it's all good now. Thanks a lot to all that helped here.

Regards,
Len