iTunes alternative?

Alternative to iTunes

I recently made the jump from Windows to Mac, and I love it. No complaints.

EXCEPT. for this iTunes business. While it is a relatively flawless program, the organization factor is an absolute pain. I want my music organized! I hate how iTunes tears apart my organization system, giving things names that completely ruins my system.

What is the quick and easiest way to organize iTunes to your liking, or is it a beast that can't be conquered?
Or better yet, what alternative is out there to help with my problem?

 

As long as you keep your music correctly tagged, Itunes works fine. A free tool I use for windoze is mp3tag.de.

 

I remember when iTunes first came to Windows (I was a Windows user at the time) and I absolutely refused to use it and now I don't know how I ever lived without it.

 

You can choose to keep the music organized yourself, or let iTunes do it for you.

 

If you choose the "let iTunes do it" option, all of your files will be tagged and stored on your HD as they appear in iTunes.

 

Yes, I know. That's why I posted, to let the OP know that there are two choices in iTunes: Let iTunes organize things, or do it yourself.

 

I don't know if it would help your iTunes organization hatred, but I know Songbird is a decent alternative, although still in production.

 

Since you never have to look into the files created by iTunes, what is the problem?

I used to have the same problem, until I learned to use iTunes.

 

i mean

iTunes won't let me rename certain songs. This is the main issue. How do I go about renaming ALL files?

 

For mass tagging / file renaming / heavy lifting I use the free version MediaMonkey app for Windows in both Boot Camp and Mac OS X using Darwine. (Note: trying to use the built-in audio player via Darwine will result in error messages and crashes, but the browsing/indexing/tagging should be fine)

For everything else I use iTunes... I've just gotten used to it, grudgingly. Hopefully someday they'll port MM to Mac OS X...

 

Okay, let's delve deeper. Why would you rename every file at the same time? I can't work out a scenario that would require it. You can always use CMD+I to change anything about a single song or a selected group. I have always found iTunes nice once I just let go and let it take care of my filenames.

 

If you're having iTunes manage your library, there's no need to rename songs. If, like me, you prefer to keep your own library management, I recommend Name Mangler for mass renaming of files.

 

iTunes does not get everything right when it comes to organization. For a lot of hip hop, it will name off several artists who worked on the same song under 'artist.' I don't want that - if it's Kanye West, I want it to simply say Kanye West. If its a song thats part of a soundtrack, it will toss the entire soundtrack around my library because of the different composers. I don't want that - I want everything together, and listed under whatever soundtrack title it happens to be under. iTunes can't take care of that, but I can. Unfortunately, the issue is that I do not have access to rename ALL of the songs in my library and I'm not sure why that is.

 

I'm with you on the multiple artists thing - it is annoying. However, how difficult is it to open up iTunes, click on the artist name twice and type in Kanye West?

For soundtracks, you can just click on "Album" above the song list. It will then organize everything by album, and your soundtrack will be together.

My apologies if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying and are telling you something you already know.

 

iTunes can group soundtracks/compilations (iTunes > Preferences > Group compilations when browsing). Easy fix.

As for songs with several artists, this into is coming from either the CDDB (if imported from CD) or assigned to the track by the record company (if purchased from Apple (assumption here, not sure if Apple employees tag the songs or the labels). Either way, iTunes is not doing this, it is a user assigned input, the CDDB is user contributed and fortunately it is very easy to correct.

 

Don't see what the big deal is, just go with the flow, which is let iTunes organize it for you. No worries, no pains.

 

I'm with ya on Mediamonkey....It lets you auto-tag files from Amazon and is quick and rather accurate. As for the artists names part, MM still does that on some tracks, I just change em manually. Why won't iPod's just let you sort by album artist?! That would be the easiest solution to all of it

 

I didn't used to be comfortable with iTunes either until I understood more about how it works. Look at your iTunes music folder and you'll see that it's pretty intuitive in its organization.

If you have multiple artists on one album and you don't want it to interfere with your Coverflow, just select all those tracks, Get Info (Cmd+I) and check the "part of a compilation" box.

Also, I recently found that Senuti helps a lot if you want to just move specific playlists via your iPod. This is impossible to do otherwise since the music folder filepaths and playlists are structured completely differently.

Another feature I like is Smart Playlists. They'll save you a lot of time.

 

Some people worry about if the AC wiring inside their walls runs in a straight path of if the color has faded from the internal parts inside there TV set. Others worry about how iTunes stores file ion their disk.

 

You guys have been very helpful, and I understand the points you are bringing up.

However, the main issue is that it won't let me rename everything. I have never used iTunes to buy music — I go with Soulseek or other peer-to-peer programs. So I'm not sure if this is making it impossible for me to rename everything I want to rename, or some other secret I'm not aware of. Can anyone help with this issue?

 

I'm assuming your music is in a folder somewhere. I mean the music that you imported into iTunes, letting iTunes make a copy somewhere. If I'm right, you have 2 copies of your music. The original, and the copy that iTunes made. If this is the case, the easiest method would be to delete your iTunes library (it won't delete your originals, if iTunes made a copy... be sure before you delete, and don't empty the Trash until you're done with the whole process.

1. Delete the iTunes Library
2. In your original music folder, rename any files you choose. It's better if you do this before importing into iTunes.
3. Go to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced and make sure the two boxes in the illustration are NOT checked.
4. Drag the folder with your original music into iTunes and let it rebuild your library.
5. Now your music will be named properly, and you can manage the organization of your music, rather than letting iTunes do it for you.

 

If you cannot rename songs (change name, hit ok, but then the meta data does not change), it's due to file permission proably set to read only. This happens when certain apps burns music files to optical disks, those music files when copied from optical disks, will be read only.

Organizing by name worked 10 years ago. Technology has evolved since then. (For example live search offered by OSX and iTunes as you type)

 

renaming files in iTunes

On a Macintosh I have found two programs invaluable in my quest for music.
1)Audialhub
2)renamer4mac

Audialhub allows me to convert to what ever music format I like, even FLAC to Mac's lossless. and Renamer4mac allows me to rename any files that I download so the work perfectly in iTunes. You can do all of this prior to loading the music to iTunes. Before I had to edit all the information in iTunes one song at a time. I highly recommend both of these programs for the Mac user.

The other option is to select the music you want to edit, and hit command I, this brings up a information panel that allows editing the information displayed by iTunes. This is slow and tiresome to say the least. I have 23 000 songs in my iTunes library and most have had to be reformatted some how.

gold03

 

itunes alternative?

i'm sick of itunes messing up my music collections and just tossing everything everywhere. Is there a good alternative to this program on the mac?


if possible do any other programs sync with the ipod touch as well?