ive only had one weird thing happen to me so far. I was browsing my library, and i looked over to the playlist window and there was another library in there that wasnt mine. someone named metalhaze's playlist was in my itunes and i could play all several hundred of his songs without any trouble. then i noticed the eject icon in the bottom right had changed into a music note. the mouse over said that it was to disconnect from the shared music folder. what i want to know is, how did that playlist get into my itunes without my doing anything, and why is it still there after i hit disconnect?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Anyone having problems with iTunes4 ??
- Thread starter uhlawboi80
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'm having volume fluctuations also. I first noticed it listening to previews from the new music store. Thought that was strange since Steve said they were "pristine" transfers. Then noticed it on some aac's I ripped from cd. The fluctuation seems to be in the playback only and not the ripping. If I play the same file in quicktime, on my ipod, or from a cd burned from itunes, the fluctuations are not there. But everytime I play the tracks directly from itunes, the fluctuations are there.
Hope theres a fix for this soon. My mac is attached to my stereo and all my music is played through it. The fluctuations are pretty annoying.
Hope theres a fix for this soon. My mac is attached to my stereo and all my music is played through it. The fluctuations are pretty annoying.
melchior....im not sure about encoding with quicktime, but, at least for me, the fluctuations are in MP3s that were never encoded by iTunes, let alone iTunes4. I am actually getting fluctuations in MP3s from my old PC!
it is definately a bug, and a crappy one at that. im going to dump iTunes4 and re-install it after my torts final at 1 today and see if that fixes anything
it is definately a bug, and a crappy one at that. im going to dump iTunes4 and re-install it after my torts final at 1 today and see if that fixes anything
Quick Fix
I had that weird fluctuations too. They seem to be worst in bass-driven songs. I first noticed it in a Erasure song. It sounded like a gate or cutout effect so I went to Preferences -> Effects. I turned off 'Sound Enhancer' effect and it stopped doing the weird volume stuff. It sounds pretty flat now (no matter what equalizer set you use). I wonder if the people who hadn't experienced this stuff have the 'Sound Enhancer' Effect disabled so they are kind of inmune to this bug.
I had that weird fluctuations too. They seem to be worst in bass-driven songs. I first noticed it in a Erasure song. It sounded like a gate or cutout effect so I went to Preferences -> Effects. I turned off 'Sound Enhancer' effect and it stopped doing the weird volume stuff. It sounds pretty flat now (no matter what equalizer set you use). I wonder if the people who hadn't experienced this stuff have the 'Sound Enhancer' Effect disabled so they are kind of inmune to this bug.
well i played with the sound enhancer settings and tried disabling it and it didnt seem to really change the sound fluctuations at all. Maybe you are experiencing a different problem Techne. Though, in my opinion, a flat song that doesnt respond to equalizer shifts is not a good fix 
i just wonder why it seems to be affecting only a few people...
i just wonder why it seems to be affecting only a few people...
i will have to play around with it some more and seeif it really is changing things...i just tried with one song.
does it really make your songs flat and unresponsive to equalizer changes though? if so, thats not a "fix" to me. i dont like my music at a flat equalizer. Its about 65% dance music, and it was not designed to be listened to at flat equalizer settings
does it really make your songs flat and unresponsive to equalizer changes though? if so, thats not a "fix" to me. i dont like my music at a flat equalizer. Its about 65% dance music, and it was not designed to be listened to at flat equalizer settings
Originally posted by uhlawboi80
i will have to play around with it some more and seeif it really is changing things...i just tried with one song.
does it really make your songs flat and unresponsive to equalizer changes though? if so, thats not a "fix" to me. i dont like my music at a flat equalizer. Its about 65% dance music, and it was not designed to be listened to at flat equalizer settings
yeah...it does make it kinda flat....which sucks a lot. But in about 2 weeks I'm going to re-rip my music as aac.....so, i'll deal with it till then
ok....well flat is crap to me. I have ripped things in as AAC and i still get the fluctuations in the newly ripped songs. This leads me to believe it is some sort or issue with the program itself, not any particular file - though it seems to only affect certain files.
i am simply wiping iTunes off my computer and reloading it as soon as i get a chance and see if that helps.
i am simply wiping iTunes off my computer and reloading it as soon as i get a chance and see if that helps.
Originally posted by uhlawboi80
does it really make your songs flat and unresponsive to equalizer changes though? if so, thats not a "fix" to me. i dont like my music at a flat equalizer. Its about 65% dance music, and it was not designed to be listened to at flat equalizer settings
I didn't say that. I said that when you turn off the "Sound Enhancer" option the song sounds flat no matter what eq set you use. Sure, you can notice the difference between "Dance", "Piano" and "Flat" sets with the sound enhancer disabled, but they aren't even close to the sound you get when you have the sound enhancer activated. Which is a shame, of course. And yes, it is a fix because it stops the weird volume fluctuations, doesn't it?
I guess I can live without it althought it is n't a subtle thing. It's like when you have passed your teenage years hearing Vinyl records and then you hear them on CD and you miss the scratches, the hiss and that nice bass sound. With the time you don't even remember it. When I was in the Matrix (i.e. I was a windoze user) there was a nice korean music player called Soritong and it blowed me away when I heard its 'Techno Enhancer' and 'Wide Stereo' effects in a .mp3 file. Winamp didn't even have skin capabilities at that time.
Oh well.. I guess I'll wait until ma' Apple get aware of this as well as the USB hub related kernel errors introduced in 10.2.5. Yes, I'm one of those guys who got a nightmare installing 10.2.5 and nobody believed on it, because "oh yeah? I never got a problem with that and I don't know anybody who have problems with that.. does your Pismo have been modified? have you installed the combo or the single update? are all your peripherals from Apple? aren't they?".
hehehe
Originally posted by Kyle?
As you reported it, you were having problems with skipping. That indicates a poor data stream. Since you weren't running many apps at all, it would seem that your problem isn't a small ram buffer. So it would make sense that your hd isn't in prime condition.
And mac hd's fragment badly enough. Ever notice that on a clean install of the OS, the optimization step takes almost no time, but after a while that step alone can take 20 mins?
EDIT: I just saw that it worked fine in ITunes 3. Ignore all that.
Okay, Yes, Mac fragment, Yes it can be very bady. Does it cause a serious slow down on Macs? Not really.
Okay here's where your a bit confused. When you install a new file and it says optimizing. It doesn't mean degragging. It means it is prebinding the application. The reason it takes longer on an older drive is there are usually a lot of programs that need there binding fixed.
Originally posted by techne
I didn't say that. I said that when you turn off the "Sound Enhancer" option the song sounds flat no matter what eq set you use. Sure, you can notice the difference between "Dance", "Piano" and "Flat" sets with the sound enhancer disabled, but they aren't even close to the sound you get when you have the sound enhancer activated. Which is a shame, of course. And yes, it is a fix because it stops the weird volume fluctuations, doesn't it?
I guess I can live without it althought it is n't a subtle thing. It's like when you have passed your teenage years hearing Vinyl records and then you hear them on CD and you miss the scratches, the hiss and that nice bass sound. With the time you don't even remember it. When I was in the Matrix (i.e. I was a windoze user) there was a nice korean music player called Soritong and it blowed me away when I heard its 'Techno Enhancer' and 'Wide Stereo' effects in a .mp3 file. Winamp didn't even have skin capabilities at that time.
Oh well.. I guess I'll wait until ma' Apple get aware of this as well as the USB hub related kernel errors introduced in 10.2.5. Yes, I'm one of those guys who got a nightmare installing 10.2.5 and nobody believed on it, because "oh yeah? I never got a problem with that and I don't know anybody who have problems with that.. does your Pismo have been modified? have you installed the combo or the single update? are all your peripherals from Apple? aren't they?".
I've never used sound enhancer. If you have a decent hi-fi you don't need it. It always made bass heavy songs clip anyway so it really did suck. The same thing with colume check or whatever, also I never use any EQ settings either, keeping the sound flat is what I do, as a sound engineer, so naturally I like to hear my music flat, and IMO if you have a serious sound system it sounds better the flatter the sound input you can get. Maybe if I was using apple's pro speakers or the Emac's built in set I would use it but not on a decent hi-fi.
ive had a few of those sound fluctuations, but my main gripe with itunes 4 is the incredibly long start up. It takes like, 6-7 seconds on a dual gig on which it only took like 1 second on itunes 3.
You need to repair disk permissions and prebind. My dual/GHz/DDR Powermac starts iTunes 4 in just under 2 seconds.
Also about the music output as stated in a previous message if you have decent speaker then all the sound enhancer does is screw up the sound. I never use the EQ or sound enhancer it makes it sound over saturated.
Not always, and it only sucks if you use an hi-fi. It depends on your circunstances. A lot of people just have a set of speakers for gaming and hear music while working in his/her box. I had used laptops as my main computer since 1995 so my preference isnt to travel with a hi-fi or a set of speakers else a light pair of headphones. I don't know how many laptop users do that, but if you like to travel light and still enjoy a nice sound you simply use sound enhancers in your player. Being a sound engineer you should know that not everybody use/can afford/like one specific audio set-up.
well i will have to agree with techne...ive never personally owned a desktop. im a student, and ive ALWAYS had laptops, as far back as when they had black and white screens and you had to get a track ball to add on to it!
that said, i listen to my computer mainly through a pair of sony headphones that are probably not the greatest. Therefore i need sound enhancer on so it doesnt sound like poo...i dont think the people at the coffee shop want me to bust out hi-fi speakers and make them all listen to alcazar
all the same, i still shouldnt HAVE to turn off sound enhancer to prevent my song volumes from yo-yoing like oprahs weight during the 90s! if its in the program it shouldnt screw stuff up.
that said, i listen to my computer mainly through a pair of sony headphones that are probably not the greatest. Therefore i need sound enhancer on so it doesnt sound like poo...i dont think the people at the coffee shop want me to bust out hi-fi speakers and make them all listen to alcazar
all the same, i still shouldnt HAVE to turn off sound enhancer to prevent my song volumes from yo-yoing like oprahs weight during the 90s! if its in the program it shouldnt screw stuff up.
I guess I sort of agreed with you in my post, only I forgot to inlcude headphones along with emac speakers and apple pro speakers.
Anyway, I'm not really a sound engineer, yet. Just on my way to being one when I finish University, heh!
I agree with bandit, it does make it sound too bright, it sounds good at first, but when listening to tracks that I know very well I find all the brightness can drown out some of the finer details and subtle background instruments that I love to hear, cos you often discover them on one of your favourite songs after years of listening to it. As for clipping, I think its soundcheck that makes it clip, anyone noticed this? Certain tracks basslines just distort and fart at you, no matter what the sound is coming from be it speakers or headphones. And no its not my amp or speakers, its the actually audio output from iTunes clipping in the DAC.
I'm listening to some newly encoded AAC files now, such an improvement over MP3. It gives you that brightness but with more clarity as well, and it doesn't cut out white noise like mp3's do. The main problem I had with mp3's, no matter the bitrate is that is butchered Norah Jones's voice, and any other "breathy" female singer. Thats because it cuts out white noise, and breathy boices have a lot of white noise in them.
</rant>
Re: Anyone having problems with iTunes4 ??
I had the same thing going on. Go into the prefs and turn off the effects. That stopped mine.
Originally posted by uhlawboi80
NOW, i am studying and listening to iTunes, but its buggy. CDs i ripped yeterday are acting odd...well the MP3s that is. I have had MP3s skipping and bumpiing...and i am only running iTunes and iChat so system slowups shouldnt be that bad. ALSO i am noticing volume fluctuations in songs that were NOT there yesterday. They seem to be happening in similar or the same spot in certain tracks. I either notice the volume just drop for no reason mid song or in some instances its a constant ebbing and flowing of volume. Its subtle, but once i thought something was goofy i was relistening to tracks like 6 times and it keeps happening. Again, these are the exact tracks i listened to while studying last night and iTunes 3 didnt do this to the tracks at all!
Anyone else having iTunes4 actin up??
I had the same thing going on. Go into the prefs and turn off the effects. That stopped mine.
by turrn off "effects" i assume you mean turn off the sound enhancer...but look at the last portions of the thread. Those of us not using Hi-Fi speakers/headphones to listen to our music get flat sounding output if sound enhancer is turned off.
again, i really dont consider the disabling of a feature, designed to be used under certain circumstances, a "fix" to a problem. it may stop the volume fluctuations, but then i get a new problem...flat and bad sounding output through my headphones.
again, i really dont consider the disabling of a feature, designed to be used under certain circumstances, a "fix" to a problem. it may stop the volume fluctuations, but then i get a new problem...flat and bad sounding output through my headphones.
Looks like they are aware of this.. no solution yet
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93051
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93051