Seriously, I can’t say I’ve ever given it a moment’s thought as to whether all my fields are complete or there’s album art. I use a playlist on iTunes to synch my current selection of music and audiobooks onto the iPod. I do try to make a habit of removing an audiobook from that list as soon as I finish it so I don’t fill the whole iPod with redundant audiobooks. That’s really about it. I am laissez faire about music organization apparently.
If I want a playlist to shuffle I just make an on-the-go one with whatever I feel like at that moment that’s on my iPod. I love that feature. That was the only reason I ever bothered upgrading from my first gen. Well, that and the pink thing, I guess.
I try to have artwork for all the albums, thats it though.
I keep saying I’ll sit down and sort out all those songs that are stored under various artists or unknown artists but I never do. Also Id like to sort out genres but Im utterly hopeless at classifying music so I wouldnt get very far there…
Um … you can. “Composer” and “Artist” fields are both there. The “Composer” column isn’t shown by default, but you can turn it on easily. Just choose the “View Options” menu item, and turn on or off the columns you want to see. There are a lot to choose from.
Aha! Now that I have the attention of a group of Ipod OCDers, I’m hoping you can help me with some problems I’m having with my Pod –
(1) I’m obsessive about filling out the sorting rules for each item (although I haven’t yet figured out what “show” means). So, for example, if the artist is “Neil Young” the sort artist is “Young Neil.” If it’s “Neil Young and Crazy Horse,” I sort it as “Young Neil Crazy Horse.” Similarly I sort all titles to drop the “the” or a/an" at the beginning – I want “The First Time” to be alphabetized as “First Time.” Furthermore, I sort titles so that numbers are sorted as if they were spelled out and special characters (parentheses, quotation marks, etc.) are ignored. However, when I sync my Ipod and go into the submenus under “Music,” only the “Artist” menu follows the sorting rules. The other menus – albums, composers, songs – just ignore the sorting rules and so composers are sorted by their given names instead of their family names and there are dozens of titles sorted under “The.” What’s the solution to this?
(2) I download album art to Itunes. I notice that on the Ipod, when a particular song is playing, by pressing the center button, I can scroll through a few details, such as the duration bar, the ratings, the album art, etc. I would like the album art to appear in this sequence, but on the main screen, when a song is playing, I don’t want the album art to take up space that could be used by the title/artist/album information (which is usually too long to fit next to the album art). Any way I can do this?
(3) On the Ipod, when a particular song is playing, if the title is too long to be displayed in toto, then it starts scrolling. But the artist and album information doesn’t scroll. Why?
(4) What’s the “show/sort show” field for in the sorting rules?
Use the “Sort” fields brand new in the current version of iTunes. It now automatically disregards “The” in all of the fields and you can set it to sort any way you want it, while still maintaining the integrity of the actual titles.
As I said, I do use the sort fields. When I upload to the Ipod, the fields only work for the “artist” menu, not for the others.
Not for the “song” field. And the automatic disregard only applies to Itunes. Ipod doesn’t automatically disregard unless the “sort” fields are filled in, and then only for the “artist” menu.
When you opening the “sorting” tab in the “get info” dialogue box for a particular song, you are presented with the following fields: name/sort name, artist/sort artist, album artist/sort album artist, composer/sort composer, and show/sort show.
I understand what all but the last one are for. What is “show”?
Well, yes certainly. In reality. But in my Ipod world, if I’m listening to all the songs within the jazz genre, I don’t want to hear MC Hammer’s really obscure, early cover of “Summertime.” (Made up for illustrative purposes… although, wouldn’t that be sweet?!) MC Hammer is a hip-hop artist and his cover is a cover by a hip-hop artist so should be labeled “hip-hop.”
While I’m already on the subject: Damn you, Robbie Williams’ “Swing While You’re Winning.”
Soundtrack’s are fine. But get the soundtrack designation in the genre field.
I hate “Best Of” albums with a fiery passion. They really offend my music snob sensibilities. I have a fear that a random stranger will walk up to me and demand to see my ipod, flip through, and say sneeringly: “The Bangles’ Greatest Hits? Really? Couldn’t be bothered with the deep cuts, huh?” And, of course, the stranger will be Debbie Peterson.
No, not Best Of. “Alternative NRG” or “Music For Our Mother Ocean”. Themed music, but not soundtracks or Best Of. (Dig the MOM albums sometime. Great stuff.)
Can you use the “shuffle” feature with just a single playlist? Or does it always have to shuffle everything?
I’m having a bit of an issue sometimes. The iPod as I said is hooked up to my tape deck in the car. Sometimes when I turn it on instead of turning on to “pause” it immediately goes to play, and then it won’t play through the tape deck. If it turns on on “pause” then it will play. But then it will repeatedly turn on on “play” and won’t quit it. Anybody have any idea what this is about?
How come I can’t change the order of the songs in my playlists? Is there a way to do it once they’ve already been built? I’ve tried to do it through iTunes and it woks while it plugs in, but then they all reset.
Yes. Instead of choosing “Shuffle Songs” from the main menu, go into “Settings” and turn on “Shuffle” there. Then go to your playlist and start from any song.
(Disclaimer: my iPod is a 3rd generation; I’m assuming the menus work the same on more current models.)
Yes, this is correct - except there are two options, Songs and Albums. Well, three if you consider Off an option.
I almost exclusively have it set to shuffle songs, except when listening to soundtracks or concept albums that are meant to be played in a certain order.
My rules: all songs must have album artwork and the original album name, not a best of… or compilation. I don’t use star ratings since I share an iTunes library with the wife and we’d rate songs differently. I’ve been pondering going back and making sure the years are correct, but I worry I’d get too anal and start filling in track info (x of 10).
I use the Grouping field to separate songs between the wife and I for certain smart playlists. Thus, any song with 80’s in the comments and Dasgupta as grouping can go to my playlist, while anything with 80’s and DasWife goes to her. Das/DasWife goes to both.
I strongly wish iTunes had a lookup feature similar to Windows Media Player. IIRC, WMP would populate more than just artwork - year, artist, album artist, track, album, artwork, genre, etc…
I noticed a lot of people want to have the album art for everything, even it means downloading a 45 picture sleeve or concert photo. I don’t care about this at all – almost nothing on mine has album art (being stuff I ripped myself), and I don’t see what you get out an album cover the size of a postage stamp that makes the song titles harder to read. It’s generally in my pocket or on the passenger seat anyway.
So my question is – how much memory is being used up by all those album covers? Does anyone know? I now feel like going in and deleting all mine.
It depends on the size of the art. Mine range from pretty tiny to 500px x 500px. In the end, I’ve got a bunch of media on my computer that gobbles a lot more space than these images.
One of the reasons I like art is because I’m a visual guy (I’m actually an art director). The art is also used more than just on my iPod. I also like the reminder back to the traditional physical media release even though — maybe especially because — the song is now just bytes on a HD. I also take a little liberty when the song is related to something other than the album. For instance I have “Mah Na Mah Na” from the Muppet Show. I had the opportunity to take a screen cap from the DVD of the show, which I use for the “album” art. In other cases where there is no artwork available, I’ll use a picture of the artist… I get something out of being able to see who did the recording.
The iPod’s screen size is sure small but iTunes has several viewing options that also feature the album artwork. Between iTunes and AppleTV, they use album artwork at a much more viewable size than the iPod.
If you mean “play all songs by a given artist in random order,” you can do that. (Turn on “Shuffle” in the Settings menu, then choose the artist in the Music menu.) If you mean play all songs randomly by artist–so it might play all your Nine Inch Nails songs, then all your Louis Armstrong songs, etc.–I personally can’t see how that would be a very useful feature, but that may be because I tend to have either just one or two or else dozens of songs by a given artist.
I let iTunes do all my work for me. I don’t work to find the album art, iTunes just does it for me. It even gets the info and artwork for the stuff I rip. I play from two playlists: Hair Metal and Rock(Songs under 7 min except Barenaked Ladies::shudder:: ). I must have a hundred other playlists, but they just never get used anymore.
I figure I have plenty of memory to spare so I just import everything. Videos I transfer to the iPod then move to Megadrive to clear space on my laptop.
Yes, I am an iTunes drone. I have never known anything else. Resistance is futile!
I don’t mind “Best of” compilations from time to time. I’m a bit of a music snob myself and I think that some bands are just singles bands that just use filler as album tracks. Not many, but some.
