hello everyone!
i've recently started using mac os 'again' (from windows+linux; my first pc was an apple se but i've been out of the loop for some time ;-) ), and am seriously considering using itunes to manage my music... my problem is that i've a fairly substantial mp3 archive which i've amassed since the mid-nineties.... which it's always been my habit to organise through the file system rather than by metadata.
apparently, apple hates this - and macos equivalent of winamp (like cog) just don't cut the mustard. so i've resigned myself to finally catching up with the metadata (r)evolution... can you help me painlessly make peace with cupertino?
all of my music is properly identified (i.e. not random nameless things downloaded from the internet): my mp3 folder has subfolders for each artist/group, with a further subfolder for each album, and each file correctly named and numbered. what i want to know is this: how can i have my mac transform this information into metadata so that itunes doesn't just dump all my files into an ugly and unmanageable 'three thousand mp3s by unknown artist' mess?
failing that, would you really recommend something like tuneup or a free musicbrainz analyser to automatically identify all of my mp3s? i'm really rather loath to do this - both because of the price/trouble (respectively) and because it just seems like such a cumbersome solution... all of the requisite data is already here on my hard disk - just in the wrong format!
there must be a more elegant solution!
help me macrumours forum! you're my only hope!
i've recently started using mac os 'again' (from windows+linux; my first pc was an apple se but i've been out of the loop for some time ;-) ), and am seriously considering using itunes to manage my music... my problem is that i've a fairly substantial mp3 archive which i've amassed since the mid-nineties.... which it's always been my habit to organise through the file system rather than by metadata.
apparently, apple hates this - and macos equivalent of winamp (like cog) just don't cut the mustard. so i've resigned myself to finally catching up with the metadata (r)evolution... can you help me painlessly make peace with cupertino?
all of my music is properly identified (i.e. not random nameless things downloaded from the internet): my mp3 folder has subfolders for each artist/group, with a further subfolder for each album, and each file correctly named and numbered. what i want to know is this: how can i have my mac transform this information into metadata so that itunes doesn't just dump all my files into an ugly and unmanageable 'three thousand mp3s by unknown artist' mess?
failing that, would you really recommend something like tuneup or a free musicbrainz analyser to automatically identify all of my mp3s? i'm really rather loath to do this - both because of the price/trouble (respectively) and because it just seems like such a cumbersome solution... all of the requisite data is already here on my hard disk - just in the wrong format!
there must be a more elegant solution!help me macrumours forum! you're my only hope!