Modeps
Lifer
Originally posted on my website, I figured I'd add this guy here:
I recently discovered the wonderful world of Apple's iTunes program. I have been using Winamp 2.x for years on end, partially due to the fact that it's what I've grown accustomed to, however ever since it's move to version 5, it's just sucked. I think that could be attributed to AOL purchasing Nullsoft but who knows? They tried to make a useful library feature but it didnt do it for me and my search began. I tried out several players, (Foobar2000 & WMP among others) and ended with the installation of iTunes.
The biggest "drawback" is that iTunes uses the ID3 tags to orgainize everything and offers no support for filename naming conventions (track-artist-title.mp3). Due to the fact my collection and naming system was as varied as the genres therein, I really needed to get things updated on that front.I ended up using a web based app called Musicbrainz. I'd like to have things organized my way so I'm currently going through them all again to put in sort of broad genres and groups. While not filling out the entire ID3 tags all the time, Musicbrainz definately saved a ton of work.
I have been utilizing the MP3 format since late '96 and never really adopted a standard way to name them that I was happy with and stuck with, unlike my friend Craig who has always organized his collection in a simple folder / filename method (avoiding the ID3 tags completely). The most I've done is organize my full albums into their own directories and split those off into genres.
Once you've got your tags ready to go, there are some realy nice features. You can sort first by Genre, then by Artist, then by Album (and any combination of these) with a few mouse clicks, searching is fast and easy. iTunes will even track how many times you've listened to certain songs and, if you would like, what you rate every song (on a 1-5 scale). Smart Playlists are probably the bread and butter of iTunes though. They are auto-adaptable lists of songs that you create based on certain criteria. Want all Live and Acoustic music in a list? You got it. Want to listen to songs that you havent in a long time? No problem. The possibilites are damn near endless.
I really needed a way to be able to transport my collection and stats to and from work seeing that I spend most of my time there and wanted to track my listening habits. The way iTunes stores your library information is in a few files located under your "My Music" directory. That is usually found under your C drive, so I just had to modify it's location using Microsoft's TweakUI. Piece of cake, and now my library is portable and I can keep track of my habits everywhere except when my player is using it's internal software to pipe songs into my car stereo.
:thumbsup:
I recently discovered the wonderful world of Apple's iTunes program. I have been using Winamp 2.x for years on end, partially due to the fact that it's what I've grown accustomed to, however ever since it's move to version 5, it's just sucked. I think that could be attributed to AOL purchasing Nullsoft but who knows? They tried to make a useful library feature but it didnt do it for me and my search began. I tried out several players, (Foobar2000 & WMP among others) and ended with the installation of iTunes.
The biggest "drawback" is that iTunes uses the ID3 tags to orgainize everything and offers no support for filename naming conventions (track-artist-title.mp3). Due to the fact my collection and naming system was as varied as the genres therein, I really needed to get things updated on that front.I ended up using a web based app called Musicbrainz. I'd like to have things organized my way so I'm currently going through them all again to put in sort of broad genres and groups. While not filling out the entire ID3 tags all the time, Musicbrainz definately saved a ton of work.
I have been utilizing the MP3 format since late '96 and never really adopted a standard way to name them that I was happy with and stuck with, unlike my friend Craig who has always organized his collection in a simple folder / filename method (avoiding the ID3 tags completely). The most I've done is organize my full albums into their own directories and split those off into genres.
Once you've got your tags ready to go, there are some realy nice features. You can sort first by Genre, then by Artist, then by Album (and any combination of these) with a few mouse clicks, searching is fast and easy. iTunes will even track how many times you've listened to certain songs and, if you would like, what you rate every song (on a 1-5 scale). Smart Playlists are probably the bread and butter of iTunes though. They are auto-adaptable lists of songs that you create based on certain criteria. Want all Live and Acoustic music in a list? You got it. Want to listen to songs that you havent in a long time? No problem. The possibilites are damn near endless.
I really needed a way to be able to transport my collection and stats to and from work seeing that I spend most of my time there and wanted to track my listening habits. The way iTunes stores your library information is in a few files located under your "My Music" directory. That is usually found under your C drive, so I just had to modify it's location using Microsoft's TweakUI. Piece of cake, and now my library is portable and I can keep track of my habits everywhere except when my player is using it's internal software to pipe songs into my car stereo.
:thumbsup:
