I’ve been using iTunes for a while now and decided to get an iPod so I can listen to my music at work. I can’t get iTunes for work because my division has yet to migrate from NT; our software reportedly won’t work with anything newer. I’m asking the Teeming Millions (Thousands?) for help because I’ve misplaced my manual. I installed my iPod software last night. What do I do now?
Open iTunes. Connect your iPod to the computer with either a high-speed USB cable, or FireWire. iTunes will automatically transfer all of your music files to the iPod. Fun!
Sorry, should have mentioned that my iTunes is having trouble recognizing my iPod. Keeps saying it needs to be “updated”.
One of these days I’d like to get an iPod. I’m sure I’ll want to download music, but what I really want to do is to transfer all of my CDs (and some LPs) to it. I’d like to retain the quality of the original recordings.
First: How would I transfer the CDs?
Second: How would I get the LPs onto a computer, and how much space would I need?
Third: How would I organise the music, since I bought most of my CDs back in the Stone Age of PCs?
Have you let it update? If so, try undocking the iPod, rebooting and re-docking.
It’s been updated. I’ve also rebooted but while it was still docked, would that matter?
Feeding your CD collection into iTunes is mindless. You can set it to auto-rip whenever a new CD is put into the drive. In the preferences, you can choose whether you want to rip as MP3 at various bitrates or to use Apple’s AAC format. I used highest-rate MP3 for mine as I’ve also got a Squeezebox to play music through the stereo in a different room. This little beastie is (at least, as of the time I bought it last year) one of the few devices that can just wade right into an iTunes collection and use it without any configuration needed.
iTunes will grab the CD info from the CDDB database if you’re online - I ripped nearly 500 CDs in a wild variety of genres and CDDB knew how to handle each one. Once your CDs are in iTunes, the whole thing is organizable in any way you wish - sort by artist name, album name, track name, genre, length, etc.
To expand on my earlier post: iTunes still says it wants to update the iPod but “update” is greyed out. Should I try “restore”? I assume that would result in starting the whole process over.
I’m not a Windows user, but that message sounds more like it’s appearing in the iPod updater than in iTunes. As I remember, the iPod updater will grey out the Update option if your iPod doesn’t need updating, whilst still allowing you to return the iPod to factory settings if you should so wish.
What is the exact message you get from iTunes when you plug the iPod in?
OB
I’m at work at the moment so I can’t give you the exact messages. I don’t know if they’re from iTunes but I’ve been getting two messages: iPod needs to be reformatted for my system and that it needs to be updated. Both of which have already been done.
I know on my daughters Mini Ipod when I updated it, I had to plug it directly into the wall charger to allow the firmware to reflash or some such gobbledygook. It had to be plugged into the wall before it would work.
You should also be aware that you need to stop a hardware device like an iPod prior to undocking it. Have you done that?
Since no one’s tackled this. . .
If your soundcard has an audio-in and your record player has an audio out, you should be set. When you go to do it, you’ll want more specific instructions, but basically you run an audio cable from the record player to the computer, fire up a sound-recording-program of some sort (I use WinAmp with a couple plug-ins). With an LP, I find it a lot easier to record an entire side and use an audio editing program to split them into individual tracks. You can also use that to clean up the recordings (pops and crackling, yes, but I’ve also noticed most of my LPs sound a little tinny and light on the bass compared to CDs…may just be an artifact of the encoding or my record player).
As for how much space, that depends on the quality you want to encode to. I generally encode to 128k and allow for 1MB per minute of music. I figure it’s a good rule of thumb even if it’s not exact.
Did that. Mine was plugged in all night to ensure a completely charged battery this morning.
I’m not sure what you mean by “stop”.
There should be a Safely Remove Hardware icon in the System Tray (among the other icons next to the clock). Double-click on it to open it, select the USB Mass Storage Device and click on stop. There are a couple more steps beyond that as well. Or you can stop the iPod within iTunes. Basically, you need to close all read/write processes to the drive before it can be removed. If you don’t, you can muck up the contents of the device.
I think you need to make sure that iTunes is updated to 4.7 or greater.
Okay, didn’t know about that stop thing in Safely Remove Hardware. I’d have to get iTunes to recognize it before I can stop it from there.
I’ve had 4.7 ever since it was available for download.
Another suggestion: Have you downloaded the iPod updater software from Apple? If you didn’t, go to http://www.apple.com/ipod/ and scroll down and on the right is iPod software updates. Maybe that’ll help. Also, the manual is on the CD that came with your ipod. You have to flip through a bunch of folders to get to it.
I’ll try that next.
Thanks! At least I know where the CD is.
You can’t plug a turntable directly into a line-level input. Well, you can, but the sound will be tinny. You need to use a “tape out” or other line-level output from a preamp (or the average home theater type amp) with the turntable plugged into the amp’s phono input. Reason for this is that phono signals are both low-level and missing the bass due to what’s called “RIAA equalization” or the “RIAA curve” which removes a particular amount of bass and compresses the volume to compensate for an LP’s modest abilities to faithfully hold “deep” and “loud” sounds. An amp’s phono input reverses the RIAA equalization to make everything sound right. You can also buy what’s known as a phono preamp at places like J&R or Radio Shack for about $25 if you don’t want to drag your PC over to the amp in the living room or vice-versa.