Well the title says it all, but I’ll restate it for clarity’s sake.
Disclaimer: I am asking about copying music I already own into iTunes for use in my own iPod. I am not asking for info about nor am I advocating music piracy.
I find myself disagreeing with the ‘genres’ that a lot of commercial cds show up as when then are ripped into iTunes, and I often change that to reflect something that makes more sense to me. For example, Dar Williams comes up as ‘Alternative & Punk’ - while I feel she’s more suited for ‘Acoustic.’ You get the idea.
What I want to do is highlight the genre for all the tracks on the album, and do a bulk name change. Currently, I have to click on every track and paste the new info in. It’s really getting old, as I have recently finished changing the genre of every single bluegrass tunes I own (well over 1000 tunes) from ‘Country’ to ‘Bluegrass.’ Yes, it’s nitpicking, but I am nothing if not anal about my bluegrass.
Does anybody know how to do this, or if it’s even possible?
What you want to do is select all the songs you want to change. You can do this by holding down the Shift key while clicking on the first and then the last song. Once all the songs are highlighted that you wish to change, just right click on any highlighted song and select “Get Info.” If you have a Mac then the buttons will be slightly different.
A screen should pop up called Multiple Song Information. Just type in the new genre name (and anything else you want to change for the batch) and then press OK. Let me know if you have any problems.
I don’t get a warning. There’s a checkbox next to the genre drop-down list; I thought you had to check it to change genres, but it doesn’t appear that you have to. The list includes all the genres that are currently on your iPod, as well as some default options (I think). You can also add your own genre name by typing it in. There are countless subgenres in the music I listen to, and the genre tags are mostly wrong, so I discovered this feature quickly.
Related question: if you set the equalizer preset in iTunes and have an equalizer selected on the iPod, does the iPod use the selected preset when you play the song, or does it use the preset you’ve selected in Settings?
At least in iTunes 4, if you change any information in the box the box is automatically checked for you.
Ouch. For almost any program in Windows holding shift or control while clicking will select multiple items (Shift will select them consecutively). It’s a very useful thing to know for working with files and such.
Is there any way to conveniently sync the ipod when it’s capacity is lower than your library? I tried playlists, but I get an error saying that they can only be used with <250 songs. I can’t figure out a way to pick certain albums or songs and have only those sync.
It’s been driving me nuts, and since I’ve had to resort to dragging and dropping, I’m using winamp with an ipod plugin.
I’m not sure what happens when you select a different eq on a track that has a preset eq, but to use a preset eq you need to have your ipod eq set to “flat”, IIRC.
Lazlo, select your ipod in the Source column and click on the ipod button at the bottom of the itunes window. Click on “manually manage songs and playlists” to drag songs, albums or artists to the ipod. To remove music, drag it to the trash (empty the trash before disconnecting). Oh, in manual mode you have to eject the ipod before disconnecting it. Or select “only update checked songs” and check/uncheck individual songs in your library.
Huh? I create playlists with more than 250 songs all the time. I’m looking at a Smart Playlist with 480+ songs right now, even…
One idea off the top of my head is to use the “Comments” field. Create a Smart Playlist that selects all songs that have the word “SYNC” in the comments, then stick that in every song you like. Then have the iPod sync with that playlist.
Despite the other answers, I don’t think just a playlist will do it for you. There’s an option to only sync checked tracks in the iTunes library. No, you don’t have to manually check/uncheck hundreds of songs. Go to an album, genre, entire library, whatever, and (on the Mac) Apple-click one of the boxes. They’ll all turn on or off. YMMV if you’re on a PC.
The problem is likely that you’re using an unsupported way of getting your songs on your iPod (winamp with an iPod plugin). iTunes and the iPod itself has no such restrictions. Is there a support forum for the plugin you’re using?
Ah. I should’ve made myself more clear on this. I tried using iTunes, but when I couldn’t get it to work the way I wanted, I resorted to using the winamp plugin. I’m trying to get away from dragging and dropping since it’s a PITA.
Yes. Making one big iPod playlist was not my ideal solution. I’m using the PC version and I couldn’t figure out a way to check/uncheck large amounts of songs. There was nothing in the manual that said it could be done. I’ll try using ctrl-click or alt-click and see how it works.
Thanks for all the responses! (and sorry 'bout the hijack)
I have an iPod playlist which I delete songs from manually as a hangover from when I only had a 10gig iPod… I use this in conjunction with smart playlists organised by year added to keep swathes off old music off my Pod but still have it available to listen to on my computer by only syncing my iPod playlist and playlists containing all new music for the last couple of years.
On a Mac you can uncheck/check all displayed songs in a playlist by cmd-clicking on the checkbox. So, using the search filter on your iPod playlist enter search terms which display the music you wish to uncheck (the artist and/or album name for example) and cmd-click the check box of any one song to uncheck them all. On Windows the Ctrl key often duplicates the function of the Cmd (Apple) key - iTunes help should have a list of shortcut keys. I admit, it would be nice if one could just highlight a number of songs in a list and click a single checkbox to check/uncheck them all, but I’m sure there’s a reason why that isn’t implemented…