Yet another in my long chain of Itunes questions:
I loaded my Monty Python and Firesign Theatre CDs onto Itunes and they aren’t divided into tracks, just “side 1” and “side 2.” Is there a way that I can divide them up into shorter segments and have Itunes treat them as separate tracks?
And more sorting problems with my Ipod:
Sometimes it pays attention to the difference between “artist” and “album artist” and divides them up; sometimes it doesn’t. What’s up with that?
I’m not sure about splitting a track within iTunes itself, but it does allow you to set start and finish times for each track.
So you could make multiple copies of the same track, and then set the start and finish times for each track, e.g.
Track 1 : Start at 0:00 and Finish at 15:00
Track 2: Start at 15:00 and Finish at 30:00
Track 3: Start at 30:00 and Finish at 45:00 etc
Can you elaborate?
I tried that, and it wouldn’t let me. It considered them the same track, and wouldn’t list it twice.
In Itunes (Assume my data as being correct in this example, i.e., no “but that should really be credited to …”):
Song Title / Artist / Album Artist / Album Title
Oh, My, My / The Monkees / The Monkees / Changes
Ticket on a Ferry Ride / The Monkees / The Monkees / Changes
Do It in the Name of Love / Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones / The Monkees / Changes
Lady Jane / Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones / The Monkees / Changes
(Theme From) The Monkees / The Monkees / Then and Now…The Best of the Monkees
Last Train to Clarksville / The Monkees / The Monkees / Then and Now…The Best of the Monkees
That Was Then, This Is Now / Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork / The Monkees / Then and Now…The Best of the Monkees
Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere / Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork / The Monkees / Then and Now…The Best of the Monkees
When I transfer the data to my Ipod, it comes out like this:
Artists:
Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones
– Do It in the Name of Love
– Lady Jane
The Monkees
– Changes
— Oh, My, My
— Ticket on a Ferry Ride
–Then and Now…The Best of the MOnkees
—(Theme From) The Monkees
—Last Train to Clarksville
Albums:
Changes
– Oh, My, My
– Ticket on a Ferry Ride
– Do It in the Name of Love
– Lady Jane
Then and Now…The Best of the Monkees
– (Theme From) The Monkees
– Last Train to Clarksville
– That Was Then, This Is Now
– Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere
“Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork” does not appear in the “Artist” menu and those two tracks don’t seem to be accessible through that menu at all.
UPDATE: I think I’ve figured it out. It’s because I have the “Then and Now” album marked as a “compilation.” So my question now is this: What is the point of the compilation tag? All it seems to do is screw up sorting data.
I believe a program called “audiobook builder” can do it…its mainly used for JOINING multiple tracks into an itunes-recognizeable “Audiobook” capable of being bookmarked and the like, but I swear on the screen where you join the individual mp3 tracks, there is also a “split” option…I can’t check for sure since I am at work, but I’m almost certain this is the case…
Okay, now that I’ve un-compilated a thousand tracks, I see the problem. When I go into “cover flow” view in the Ipod, it divides up every single album with multiple artists as separate albums. Frack! Why can’t it just do cover flow like Itunes does?
Audacity is usually recommended. I haven’t tried it much myself but its supposed to be fairly easy
Disconnect from the internet and put the disk in. It won’t be able to get the track listing so you can import it as ‘Track 1’ then rename it. Rinse, repeat.
But then that might require me to have one album in Itunes like 20 or 30 times. That’s taking up a lot of memory.
This will work, trust me. Let me put my own spin on the comments regarding this so far.
Take your Side 1 track and set your “Start Time” and “Stop Time” in the Get Info window.
Go to the menubar and select “Convert Selection to MP3” (or AAC or whatever setting you have applied in your “Importing preferences”
iTunes will make a copy from the file you selected using the “Start” an “Stop” points you’ve used.
Give the track a unique name and enter whatever Track number you want this to be.
Go back to the source track, adjust the new “Start” and “Stop” times and repeat as neccessary.
Oh, and when you’re done, you can trash the original "Side 1"and “Side 2” files. So you won’t be taking any additional space than what you started with.
Okay, I’ll try it.
Anyone have any further insight on the “compilation” problem? It comes down to this:
If I mark as an album as a compilation, then in the Ipod menu, the individual artists don’t get separate entries.
If I don’t mark an album as a compilation and it has multiple artists, then cover flow splits it up into multiple albums.
Any solution? I want every discrete artist that has an entry in any “artist” field to get its own entry in the “artist” menu. But in the “cover flow” view, I want each album to get only one entry.
Just seconding the method Brad Serum outlined, and I also wanted to mention that when you initially import the track you want to split up, ideally you’d want to import it using a lossless format. I’m pretty sure that when you do the “Convert selection to MP3”, even if it’s already an MP3 it will re-encode it thus compounding the data loss of the original import. I stand to be corrected on this though.
You’re going to toast the original import anyway, so you don’t have to worry about the extra disk space used by importing it losslessly (is that a word?).
It probably doesn’t matter for a Monty Python album though.
Okay, I haven’t tried it yet. I’m going to have to wait a few days until I have time on my hands. I might be back for more questions for Brad and Mr. Squishy.
acsenray : do you have an iPod touch, with cover flow display? Or are you only talking about cover flow display in iTunes?
For what it’s worth, I do this (but I don’t have an iPod touch):
Albums with several artists get marked as Compilations.
Albums that are only one artist but a couple of tracks have different artist credits (e.g. a collection of Lennon songs where some songs have ‘John Lennon’ as the artist and some have ‘John Lennon and Plastic Ono Band’) are not marked as Compilations, but the “Album Artist” for all the tracks for the collection is set to “John Lennon”.
It sounds like you’ve already tried this though.
Ipod Classic 160.
Cover flow display in iTunes works properly, when I click on “album” as the sorting criterion.
To me, an album is not a compilation just because it has several artists. It’s a compilation when its contents have been compiled from multiple pre-existing releases.
Yep. I fill in the “album artist” field for everything.
Audacity is really easy. Snip snip the original to get what you want (being sure, of course, to rename so you don’t lose the material you snipped from the “master.”)