An iPod/iTunes Question

[Chuck Jackson]

In my iTunes, and on my iPod, I have the same composer listed twice with a work split in half. I have checked all the info and made sure that it is matched up, but I STILL can't get these works to flow from one movement to another. I have the Mendelssohn Symphonies loaded in, but half of #5 is under one Mendelssohn and the other half under a duplicate. Sometimes one movement of an entire Bach Passion is listed by itself. Any ideas on how to get everything to match up? TIA

Chuck

[TubaTodd]

Check spelling and capitalization. Assuming you are on a Mac (although you don't have to be), you are using an OS that is case sensitive and treats the following names as unique...

Tuba
tuba
tUba
TUba
TuBa
....

I believe iTunes follows that same sensitivity. Additionally, check the metadata (tags) for your files. They too could have subtle differences.

[bort]

iTunes is a hassle, I've never liked it.

You might also want to check for blank spaces at the end. Sometimes when you rip files, programs will append spaces to fill the rest of the field, like this (pretend the _ is a space): "tuba______________"

There's also the "compilations" feature, but I don't really know what it does. To be honest, I haven't even touched my iPod in a year or so.

[TubaTodd]

If you don't mind some extra work on your part to make sure your files are as accurate as possible, here is a GREAT application for music metadata. It's called Musicbrainz Picard.

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/PicardDownload

Basically you drag a folder of files (I recommend no more than a single album at a time) to the application, then you click "Lookup" and the program will check with the Musicbrainz database (mostly Amazon.com content) to see what album the files appear to belong to. It's not perfect but it does an excellent job of getting your music organized. I have over 50GB of music files so this was an ongoing project. The results have been great.

Tips:

I recommend the following preferences in Picard.

1. Install the cover art plugin.
2. In options, select to have the OLD tags removed prior to writing new tags. This will insure that your metadata is clean.
3. Select the option to have your cover art embedded in the file and have a copy of the file saved to the local folder.
4. Have the software save your files with uniform names.

Code: Select all

%artist% - %title%

This would give you track names like...

Rush - Roll the bones.mp3
Rush - Tom Sawyer.mp3
Rush - 2112.mp3
etc..