Hi all,
My boss bought me an iPod and I am about to start converting all my CDs over. Is there any tip/tricks that I should know before I start?
Any interesting tips are welcome. I am new to this whole business and am so jazzed to listen to my music and audiobooks!
Learn about iTunes’ “Smart Playlists” feature. They are your iPod’s best friend. 
Once you have your CDs ripped, back up the mp3 files. Getting songs off your iPod turns out to be nontrivial. When your computer harddrive crashes, it’s easier to import 10 data CDs of mp3s onto your new harddrive that to rerip 100 audio CDs.
Can you give a few examples of the ones you use? The only ones I have found useful are the ones already included during the install, like Recently Added and My Top Rated.
Do some reading about compression before you begin. 128 kbit constant bitrate MP3s seem to be the coin of the realm, but sensitive ears prefer things like 192 or higher kbit with variable bitrate encoding, as well as some different models, like the LAME model, etc. It is pretty complicated but you may want to encode a CD in a few different ways at a few different rates and compare sizes and if you can hear a difference. Also AAC versus MP3 but most everyone uses MP3 so you can use them in other things except iTunes and iPods. I encoded the first 100 or so CDs at 128, the iTunes and GRIP default, and I wasn’t happy with them so I have largely reencoded them using LAME/GRIP at 192 vbr.
In the end, you have a fundamental decision – sound quality/file quality versus amount of songs on your iPod. I had everything at 128 kbit AACs on my 15 GB iPod and had around 3000 songs. After adding artwork and moving everything to 192 kbit, it is more like 2000.
Also those first 100, I didn’t do the ID3 tags correctly (I hadn’t checked the right box in the ripper) and using WinAmp/XMMS I never noticed. Only when I started in earnest to organize iTunes did it become a huge pain.
There are other things – you may decide how you want to organize things. If you are going to be using iTunes primarily, it is a nice feature to have the compilation tag set and import artwork, although this is not recognized widely by other players yet. There are some plugins (for instance iTunes/LAME for Mac and an artwork plugin) that can help out, so definitely look into those before setting out.
Some of mine:
Decent but not recent: Rating of 3 stars or higher, not played in the past 2 months.
Neglected: Play Count of less than 2
15 minute mix: Rating or 4 stars or higher, with the entire playlist restricted to 17 minutes. Since it just goes through adding songs until the next song selected would be over the limit, this usually results in a list around 15 minutes long. This makes a pleasant motivator, if I tell myself that I’ll work on some dreaded task for 15 minutes, while listening to some of my favorite music.
Unrated: Unrated songs, i.e. songs I need to assign a rating to (and maybe I want to hear them a few times before deciding.) If I’m playing the Unrated list iTunes, and rate a song that is on it, the song suddenly ceases to qualify for the list, and iTunes rapidly switches to the next song, which is a bit abrupt. However, if instead you set the Party Mix to select songs from the Unrated mix, they continue playing even after the rating is changed.
Intervals: For when I’m doing interval training (running 2 minutes and walking 2 minutes, for example). Songs with a length between 1:45 and 2:15.
Except for the Interval list, the big disadvantage of these is that they only update in iTunes, not just on your iPod, so you need to plug in your iPod fairly often, but I do that anyway to update my podcasts.
Don’t drop it out of your pocket when riding a motorcycle so the car behind you runs it over. It is interesting as a conversation piece/paperweight post-squishing, but better as a working music player.
Make sure iTunes can access the internet when you rip CDs so it can pull the track names etc. down for you to save typing them in, but also check carefully what it is tagging with. There seem to be a fair number of inaccuracies/typos etc in the CDDB database, and they are annoying to have to deal with afterwards. Put in CD, read tags/correct as necessary, save and repeat.
Make your tags consistent and work them out beforehand. I.e. for genres, work out 10 or so that cover everything, and the criteria for assigning CDs to them. Then tag away. Otherwise you will end up with 87 genres only a DJ could make head of, half the songs in the wrong genre, and 20% of songs in ‘Other’
Ditch the headphones for some that fit 
I completely agree with ditching those HUGE headphones. They fall out of my wittle ears. My husband got me these great Sony ones that fit into your ear and make a suction almost like an earplug. They are great—but not something you want to share with anybody else. :eek:
I bought the Tag&Rename software that was suggested on a different thread. It fixed about 800 songs that needed artists, albums and bad song titles. Worth the 30 bucks to do them all at once, but you can use a 30 trail and do 10 atta time.
Thanks a bunch for all of those. Suggestions like that are exactly what I was looking for.
Consider turning off the “Sound Enhancer” in your preferences. IMHO, it severely detracts from the music’s sound quality. Just use the equalizer presets or adjust the EQ yourself.
Oh and I suggest buying one of those nifty protective covers. iPods scratch VERY easily. Check out www.iskin.com.