Tune-up for iTunes-DON'T BUY IT!!!

Enigmafan420 said:

I realize this software uses CDDB/Gracenote to get its song titles. That being said, Gracenote must be in complete dissarry.

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You know, it's pretty simple to check the contents of the CD against your own records and previously-imported files, and then correct them before importing them again. Don't try and blame a piece of software for your inattentiveness.

Enigmafan420 said:

Yeah its as simple as that you are right-when I have over 1,000 CDs in the library.

If you don't have something helpful to say-keep your opinion to yourself-you are not adding anything to the discussion.

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So what? I have 800 CDs and have just re-imported over half of them recently, and I checked and re-edited the contents of the titles and so forth before re-importing them without any problems at all.

I'm sorry that your failure to do so resulted in things going awry, but blaming software for your own failures and trying to publicly persuade others there is something wrong with the software... this needs pointing out instead of unconditional sympathy.

Thanks OP. I was considering buying this for my dad's computer since his song library is a mess. I will definitely steer clear now.

What's wrong with just letting iTunes itself get names, titles, and artwork?

Why the crap would you need to use third-party software, anyway?

Enigmafan420 said:

Because sometimes iTunes doesn't do it right. Adds wrong Artist Data, wrong genre, etc.

It appears that iTunes and Tune-up are using the same database, however.

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Okay, so mass edit them manually. Select an entire disk, Get Info, type the title once, drag the artwork in once, and then do the names individually.

The Gracenote database, which is used by most CD ripping programs including iTunes, is user maintained. It contains what users have typed in manually and then submitted to the database. If you do reimport your CDs and enter the proper info, submit it so that it is in the database.

theLimit said:

The Gracenote database, which is used by most CD ripping programs including iTunes, is user maintained. It contains what users have typed in manually and then submitted to the database. If you do reimport your CDs and enter the proper info, submit it so that it is in the database.

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That's not totally true. I have tried submitting cd information to Gracenote and it has not worked. I submitted Artist, Album, Track Names, etc. for a CD I recorded and released myself. To this day none of that information appears on gracenote.

Also, I have tried several different software packages for auto-editing song information and getting artwork. None of them seem to work properly for me. All of them seem to mess up my entire library. I've faced the fact that if I want my library to be perfect I have to edit everything myself. Luckily I have a lot of time on my hands. Not.

there is an undo option

Well, I listen to underground music that is not that well known as well, and I also took the time to type genres in all of my music as well that were categorized to my liking so i could make smart folders based on genre. When I used tuneup, it messed my genre category up! I was mad initially, but instead of finding a forum and bitching like you are...... I solved the problem by using the undo option on tuneup. I dont know if you have to do it on the same session or what. But if you go to tune up you will see a red arrow on the top right corner, and simply drag the music that you want changed back and presto- problem solved.
Me personally, i like tune up and have been waiting for years for something like it. Granted, some of my music gets labled wrongly- but what do you expect......it is not going to be flawless being that it resorts to such a large database to find your music that is not always distinctively different from another song. Just kind of keep an eye on it as it cleans your music. I mean, woud you really rather type in stuff yourself? I also wrote to them suggesting that they should put a feature on there that allows you to lock certain categories like in my case genre. in other words i want everything cleaned but my genre category!

dont listen to this complainer, that just wants to complain because he is negative minded and immediately assumes the worse......

Wow. Someone posts, legitimately, that he bought software that claims to organize his library. It didn't work and he warns others. So far, he's been called 'inattentive', 'failure', 'complainer' and 'idiot'.

Blue Velvet said:

So what? I have 800 CDs and have just re-imported over half of them recently, and I checked and re-edited the contents of the titles and so forth before re-importing them without any problems at all.

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Wow that's amazing. You = my new hero. Where can I learn to be just like you? Sign me up. I'll bring my CD's and iTunes, you bring the coffee and biscuits .

Blue Velvet said:

I'm sorry that your failure to do so resulted in things going awry, but blaming software for your own failures and trying to publicly persuade others there is something wrong with the software

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Perhaps he, unlike you (and me), doesn't want to spend hours typing this information in when he imports the CD's. And it does add up to hours. I struggle to justify doing it myself - it's not like they sound any different, or that anyone will notice I put Beyoncé as opposed to Beyonce. Don't blame him for not being like you.

The real point is...If I take my car in for a suspension repair due to my inattentive and idiotic driving, when I pay someone who holds themselves out as being able to fix it, I (rightly) expect to get what I pay for. The fact I caused the problem (via mischief or mistake) in the first place is absolutely and unconditionally irrelevant.

Have you actually run the software? Before posting I searched and downloaded this program and then run a few files over it. I completely agree with the original poster. It's awful. Even if the tagging actually worked (out of 500 files - the demo maximum - only 'definitely confirmed' 3 and had 'suggestions' for around 150), it's still awful. Your mouse lumps over the lists, many times it didn't accept user input at all. Seems to 'attach' itself to iTunes as opposed to being standalone (I therefore initially couldn't find it because my iTunes window is always maximised) which also means you can't run iTunes without also running this (slow) program. I didn't trust it to actually write the tags. It does however claim that it can undo such writes.

AppleMatt

I'm glad the OP gave this information -- I was considering purchasing it. But after reading what's been mentioned, I'll reconsider.

ziggyonice said:

I'm glad the OP gave this information -- I was considering purchasing it. But after reading what's been mentioned, I'll reconsider.

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Same here.

I personally love tuneup. It's not as automatic you'd/I'd hoped, but if you learn the program and it's tricks, it's a real time saver.

Tip: grab 4-500 tracks and drag them into tuneup. Wait for it to look up all the tracks. Once it's done, scan through the list for complete albums. Save those only.

Now you can expand each album in the tuneup window to see what tracks are missing. If you know you have those tracks in your library, then locate those and change the info to match. Click save in tuneup and iTunes will sort them to be the complete album with the artwork. If you want ( what I do) you can then drag the the entire album back to tuneup. Tuneup will thenmake all the tracks match completely.

Tip2: the album thumbnail can be expanded to show differen versions of the album artwork so you can pick out which one you like best before saving.

You don't have to click save all. If you do and tuneup messes up the library then it kind of falls back on user inexperience.

There is a trial version you can download that will clean 500 tracks. Try before you buy before making some sweeping statement about how crappy a product is warning others not to buy.

FYI - I've got over 2000 albums. 99% cleaned with tuneup.

Enigmafan420 said:

PS-Really not sure why there are a few EXTREMELY HOSTILE posters here. Two people may not agree-that doesn't mean this is a forum for name calling.

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Possibly because, rather than contacting the people who make the software (god forbid), you came straight here and basically told people to not even try to get their own opinion, but to just accept that it's awful and you're right.

It's understandable that you were mad, but developers do usually care and you telling everybody - except the developers themselves - about how bad it is won't solve anything (other than cause a drop in their sales and potentially halt development)

I've tried Tune-up myself and personally hated it because it was so unresponsive, docked (badly in my opinion) to iTunes and I had to spend *quite a while* just getting it off my system. Plus it didn't work at all for me (would freeze iTunes upon music drag, then do nothing once it became responsive again). I didn't pay for it and didn't need it *that* much, so I didn't contact the developers. I know how you feel

All programs that link up to Gracenote, freedb.org or the like will have similar problems as the data they link to are only as good as their submitters.

I try to avoid letting iTunes fetch artwork or rename tags as it will do the same as this program seems to.

Enigmafan420 said:

I did download the trial-I didn't try to clean 500 songs-maybe about 20.

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You tried 20 songs by an admittedly obscure artist and decided you should warn others of this faulty software? Man thanks for the informative opinion.

I haven't found a Mac program that can compete with Tag&Rename. It is windows based but it is by far the best program I have used for doing jus this. The only issue you will have is you have to re-import or re-save your files within iTunes to show the new meta.

Thank you for sharing this about Tune-Up. I was hoping for a Mac application that could switch me from Tag&Rename.

OP, you've learnt your lesson - don't post a new thread on MacRumors and expect to get away without being flamed.

Another thread that'll put off anybody from trying, legitimately, to help others, or at least ensure they dot their i's and cross their t's before running the software.

Great.

The real point is...If I take my car in for a suspension repair due to my inattentive and idiotic driving, when I pay someone who holds themselves out as being able to fix it, I (rightly) expect to get what I pay for. The fact I caused the problem (via mischief or mistake) in the first place is absolutely and unconditionally irrelevant.

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Great analogy, AppleMatt.