[iTunes] ITunes 3 newbie

[Allan Hise]

On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Jay Friedland wrote:

> New to the list, new to OS 10.2.3 and itunes 3.01, so if these basics
> have been covered before please direct me.

Welcome
>
> 1) downloads burned to CD w/Toast, save as .aif files. Any SW to
> convert .aif to MP3 to use with iTunes? Can these CD's be used later in
> iTunes and somehow pick up ID Tags, or i-net info? Otherwise, it seems
> it is all manual.

Well, if they are audio CDs, and you burned them yourself from downloads,
you can't get ID3 tags automatically. CDDB will grab the data from any CD
in its database - so a commercial audio CD (or properly copied CDR) will
pick up the tags, but not your personal mix CDs.

Itunes will let you change thinks in bulk - for example, select all songs
from an album, hit command I and you can insert the album name, artist,
date, genre, etc. for all songs. Then you only need to do the titles
individually.

If you have MP3 files that don't have good tags, but have some info in the
file name, find MP3Rage on versiontracker. I have not used it, but people
say it is great for this sort of thing.

As far as converting to MP3, iTunes does that. Just click the import
button after selecting the CD icon on the left. It will rip away. You may
want to adjust the bitrate and things in the importing preferences.

> 2) As I use playlists for compilations, not albums, what's the best
> procedure to organize from download folder to itunes library, then to
> playlist. I download to Firewire external drive and store there. I've
> wound up duplicating entries, or having entries not make playlist, so
> they float in the library, etc.

Drag your folder of MP3s onto the iTunes icon. It will import them into
your library. A word of warning, you may want to uncheck "Copy files to
iTunes Music folder when adding to library" in the 'advanced' preferences.
Otherwise you'll have 2 copies of everything and fill up your internal
drive in no time.

As far as organizing things, if your ID3 tags are in order, you can sort
your library by album, artist, or anything. Select a bunch of tunes, hit
command-shift-N and it creates a playlist from the selection. Also, use
the search field and, if you have a large library, click the 'browse'
button, where you can easily narrow your library down to specific genres,
artists or albums. Finally, play around with smart playlists, especially
the advanced tab. It isn't perfect, but you can do some fun stuff with
them. There are applescripts out there to do some playlist magic as well.
Just google for applescript and itunes.

>
> 3) I had considerable trouble bringing iTunes 2 playlists over to 3
> (have over 70 playlists). Now that it is done, what is best backup
> scheme to protect myself?

Strange, if I remember right it just worked for me after the update.  All
the old playlists were there. But that was a while ago, and maybe I just
forgot. At any rate, people recommend the 'iTunes Librarian' app, also
available on versiontracker. It lets you have multiple libraries, so you
can easily make a backup. There are applescripts to do this too.

You could just go into your ~/Music/iTunes folder and make a backup of the
iTunes3 Music Library files and copy them yourself.

I hope that helps...

Allan