iTunes Alternative?

[Aznopium]

help

Hey Ya'll

This is my first post...so pardon my lack of knowledge with itunes and ipod's
I am running a PC and not a mac 🙂

I have an ipod and I used to use MusicMatch (Which sucks big time)
and I just dled Itunes 4.2 ( the latest release)

I made my itunes my default player and i added songs to my library

But for some strange reason whenever I try to play a song off with my itunes, it comes up with this error message =T

""iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.""

Anyone know why? Please help!
I appreciate it

Opm

 

[howard]

"Get Info" on any .mp3 file (File Menu, from the Finder). Under "Open With", select "QuickTime", instead of "iTunes". Then, click "Change All". This will make all your .mp3 files open in Quicktime instead, so they're not added to your iTunes library. This might not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's what I do, because I also hate how iTunes adds everything you open to the library. Also, you can use this procedure on all the different audio file formats you have, in case you have .aac or some other type of file.

thats basically what i do... well rather if i'm just opening a single mp3 i just open with quicktime

 

[eyeon]

The main reason I am not completely satisfied with iTunes is that anything I play automatically gets added to my playlist and I have to manually delete every song or URL that is played. I am used to Windows Media Player or Winamp for the PC where once I quit the program, my playlist is cleared unless I decided to save it myself. I recently switched from Windows so all of my files are arranged by directory (Oldies>Folk>Simon & Garfunkel). iTunes just doesn't seem to work well with my setup.

Thanks for asking this question, I have the exact same qualm with the program... to date (I hate to say this) but I have yet to find an mp3/audio program that's better than WinAmp.

 

[Awimoway]

There is nothing wrong with your request. I find that "feature" of iTunes a bit annoying too. For managing any amount of permanently stored music iTunes is the undisputed champion of the world, but that's not your need so who cares? 😛

So I agree with all the comments about making QuickTime your default mp3 player using the "Get Info" command if you're main interest is in sampling (in the old school sense of the word) music without having to go to the cumbersome step of deleting the song after the fact. Besides, QuickTime will play everything iTunes can play (in fact iTunes uses QuickTime to play audio), so you can do this with aac files too.

On the other hand, I do use iTunes and just delete added files if I don't like them. Here's a tip that makes it a helluva lot easier: sort your songs by "Date Added" in descending order so that the most recently added songs appear at the very top of your iTunes song list. Then newly added songs are very easy to find, highlight, and delete as needed.

 

[Awimoway]

Hey Ya'll

This is my first post...so pardon my lack of knowledge with itunes and ipod's
I am running a PC and not a mac 🙂

I have an ipod and I used to use MusicMatch (Which sucks big time)
and I just dled Itunes 4.2 ( the latest release)

I made my itunes my default player and i added songs to my library

But for some strange reason whenever I try to play a song off with my itunes, it comes up with this error message =T

""iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.""

Anyone know why? Please help!
I appreciate it

Opm

Aznopium, it could be almost anything, and you're not really asking in the right place, considering most of us are not heavy Windows users. My first suggestion would be to uninstall and then reinstall iTunes, but if that doesn't work (and it probably won't), I would suggest poking around the Apple.com iTunes support pages and forums, and the discussion boards at various iPod sites like iPodlounge because there you will find dedicated iTunes for Windows forums that will surely help you narrow down the source of your problem.

 

[Awimoway]

The main reason I am not completely satisfied with iTunes is that anything I play automatically gets added to my playlist and I have to manually delete every song or URL that is played. I am used to Windows Media Player or Winamp for the PC where once I quit the program, my playlist is cleared unless I decided to save it myself. I recently switched from Windows so all of my files are arranged by directory (Oldies>Folk>Simon & Garfunkel). iTunes just doesn't seem to work well with my setup.

Damn. I wish I had read this post more carefully before responding. You don't want to play one song so much as play a playlist stored according to the file storage system you've grown accustomed to. Am I right? You want to be able to play everything in the Oldies folder or go down a level and play only everything in the Folk folder, or go down another level and play only Simon & Garfunkel? And you don't want to have them loaded into iTunes because then it will play music you didn't want to hear that isn't folk as soon as it's done playing the oldies?

I ask because I think you're making things unnecessarily hard on yourself. Obviously if you're open-minded and patient enough to use a Mac even though you're used to Windows, you ought to take it one little step further and discover the wonder that is iTunes. With iTunes, you can group your songs all these different ways and play only the group of songs you want to hear, and you can do it very easily. My suggestion is that you adopt a new system for playing music. Have you clicked on the "Browse" eyeball at the top right of the iTunes window? It will let you limit what you play by Genre (Folk), Artist (Simon & Garfunkel), and even album (Concert in Central Park). And you can put all your Oldies in a playlist listed at the right by either manually highlighting and dragging songs over to the playlist or by creating a smart playlist that automatically includes everything in the Folk and Rock genres (or whatever genres you please) made before any year of your choosing. And on and on and on. The possibilities with Smart playlists are really quite breathtaking. I have only scratched the surface of what is possible with iTunes.

I have a friend who is a PC user and he recently got an iPod. I convinced him to use iTunes rather than MusicMatch. He slowly warmed to it. Then one day he was over at my house and I did something with iTunes on my Mac and he wanted to know what I had just done. I don't remember what I did, but it was something really simple that he wasn't aware of. I realized that he hadn't come remotely close to appreciating how many different ways he could sort and group and locate music using iTunes. He didn't know you could highlight many files and right click on them and use Get Info to edit the ID3 tags of multiple songs at once, which is very handy if you want to change their genre or add the Year, or correct the artist name, etc. He didn't know about using the Browse feature (and turn on browsing by genre in Preferences), smart playlists, sorting by columns, etc.

iTunes is as simple or as complex as you want it to be. It's almost the perfect app. If only I could turn off that feature where it adds songs to its master playlist when I open a file... 🙂

 

[About2SwitchOvr]

GREAT THREAD and comments

Damn. I wish I had read this post more carefully before responding. You don't want to play one song so much as play a playlist stored according to the file storage system you've grown accustomed to. Am I right? You want to be able to play everything in the Oldies folder or go down a level and play only everything in the Folk folder, or go down another level and play only Simon & Garfunkel? And you don't want to have them loaded into iTunes because then it will play music you didn't want to hear that isn't folk as soon as it's done playing the oldies?

I ask because I think you're making things unnecessarily hard on yourself. Obviously if you're open-minded and patient enough to use a Mac even though you're used to Windows, you ought to take it one little step further and discover the wonder that is iTunes. With iTunes, you can group your songs all these different ways and play only the group of songs you want to hear, and you can do it very easily. My suggestion is that you adopt a new system for playing music. Have you clicked on the "Browse" eyeball at the top right of the iTunes window? It will let you limit what you play by Genre (Folk), Artist (Simon & Garfunkel), and even album (Concert in Central Park). And you can put all your Oldies in a playlist listed at the right by either manually highlighting and dragging songs over to the playlist or by creating a smart playlist that automatically includes everything in the Folk and Rock genres (or whatever genres you please) made before any year of your choosing. And on and on and on. The possibilities with Smart playlists are really quite breathtaking. I have only scratched the surface of what is possible with iTunes.

I have a friend who is a PC user and he recently got an iPod. I convinced him to use iTunes rather than MusicMatch. He slowly warmed to it. Then one day he was over at my house and I did something with iTunes on my Mac and he wanted to know what I had just done. I don't remember what I did, but it was something really simple that he wasn't aware of. I realized that he hadn't come remotely close to appreciating how many different ways he could sort and group and locate music using iTunes. He didn't know you could highlight many files and right click on them and use Get Info to edit the ID3 tags of multiple songs at once, which is very handy if you want to change their genre or add the Year, or correct the artist name, etc. He didn't know about using the Browse feature (and turn on browsing by genre in Preferences), smart playlists, sorting by columns, etc.

. It's almost the perfect app. If only I could turn off that feature where it adds songs to its master playlist when I open a file... 🙂

I appreciated everyone's comments here. I agree with your quote, "iTunes is as simple or as complex as you want it to be". Being a recent Mac convert, it was tough, at first, to understand iTunes. But I slowly began to understand it, and appreciate everyone's input.
I'm at work now (always browse this forum at work!), but I didn't really understand the BROWSE option, which I will check out once I get home..)

Also, what I started to do was, once I either updated tags, or deleted songs I didn't want anymore.. I simply saved the LIBRARY (I believe it was the export Library into an XML file). So, if by a freak of nature, I add another 30 songs which I don't like after listening to, I simply reload the Library XML file (which I guess is analogous to winamp's .pls file) and voila, back to the list BEFORE i added the 30 songs...
done.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I appreciated everyone's comments here. I agree with your quote, "iTunes is as simple or as complex as you want it to be". Being a recent Mac convert, it was tough, at first, to understand iTunes. But I slowly began to understand it, and appreciate everyone's input.
I'm at work now (always browse this forum at work!), but I didn't really understand the BROWSE option, which I will check out once I get home..)

Also, what I started to do was, once I either updated tags, or deleted songs I didn't want anymore.. I simply saved the LIBRARY (I believe it was the export Library into an XML file). So, if by a freak of nature, I add another 30 songs which I don't like after listening to, I simply reload the Library XML file (which I guess is analogous to winamp's .pls file) and voila, back to the list BEFORE i added the 30 songs...
done.

The only problem with reloading the library in this way is that the songs that were added to the library before you reloaded it are still on your hard drive, in the iTunes Music folder. So if you really wanted to get rid of them, removing them from both your library and your hard drive, just select them all by clicking the first one and Shift-clicking the last one (if they are all in one group) or clicking the first one then Command-clicking the others (if they aren't in a continuous group), then pressing the Delete key (this only works in the Library view, not in playlists).

 

[Counterfit]

As far as previewing the MP3 or AAC, or whatever it is (even ogg if you get the plugin), you can just use the preview in the Finder's Column view.

 

[belf8st]

As far as previewing the MP3 or AAC, or whatever it is (even ogg if you get the plugin), you can just use the preview in the Finder's Column view.

I've always used xmms on my unix boxes. I've got it running on my powerbook as well. you can install using fink. If you like winamp, you'll love xmms. there's a aac plugin that allows you to play aac files as well. xmms plays mp3's and ogg too!

http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/search.php?s=xmms

 

[MacAficionado]

"Get Info" on any .mp3 file (File Menu, from the Finder). Under "Open With", select "QuickTime", instead of "iTunes". Then, click "Change All". This will make all your .mp3 files open in Quicktime instead, so they're not added to your iTunes library. This might not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's what I do, because I also hate how iTunes adds everything you open to the library. Also, you can use this procedure on all the different audio file formats you have, in case you have .aac or some other type of file.

Or right click (ctrl+click) on the file>go to Open With- when you have the mouse over Open With, press "alt" and change the default app to open your MP3s.

I think that would be faster. 😎

 

[About2SwitchOvr]

True...

The only problem with reloading the library in this way is that the songs that were added to the library before you reloaded it are still on your hard drive, in the iTunes Music folder. So if you really wanted to get rid of them, removing them from both your library and your hard drive, just select them all by clicking the first one and Shift-clicking the last one (if they are all in one group) or clicking the first one then Command-clicking the others (if they aren't in a continuous group), then pressing the Delete key (this only works in the Library view, not in playlists).

Good point. How I have it organized is this:
I have the default MUSIC FOLDER where all the mp3 files are living. Under this root, there is an iTUNES and GARAGEBAND folder as well.
I HATED it when iTunes would do something funky (first time I used it). It made a subfolder for every single mp3 I had according to the artist..ALSO keeping the original mp3 files directly under the MUSIC folder...
That was a bad deal.. ugh..

Anywho.. I still want to play around with that BROWSE button, and learn more about the SMART PLAYLIST.. Thanks all for your input. 🙂

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Good point. How I have it organized is this:
I have the default MUSIC FOLDER where all the mp3 files are living. Under this root, there is an iTUNES and GARAGEBAND folder as well.
I HATED it when iTunes would do something funky (first time I used it). It made a subfolder for every single mp3 I had according to the artist..ALSO keeping the original mp3 files directly under the MUSIC folder...
That was a bad deal.. ugh..

Anywho.. I still want to play around with that BROWSE button, and learn more about the SMART PLAYLIST.. Thanks all for your input. 🙂

iTunes copies your music to its own internal library by default. If you don't want two copies of all your MP3s, just delete the copies outside the iTunes library (if you want your MP3 collection consolidated) or disable the copy to library preference in the Importing tab in the iTunes preferences dialog (if you don't want your organization system disrupted).

 

[beg_ne]

Can't you just uncheck the "Copy files to iTunes Music FOlder when adding to Library" in the Advanced section of iTunes preferences?

Might want to uncheck "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" also if you already have a set format for you music.

When you are done with a song and want to get rid of it just hit delete with it selected in the playlist. You can then choose if you want to just delete it from the playlist, or also delete the file itself as well.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Can't you just uncheck the "Copy files to iTunes Music FOlder when adding to Library" in the Advanced section of iTunes preferences?

Might want to uncheck "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" also if you already have a set format for you music.

When you are done with a song and want to get rid of it just hit delete with it selected in the playlist. You can then choose if you want to just delete it from the playlist, or also delete the file itself as well.

That's what I meant to say, you just said it better 🙂

 

[Nny]

I am used to Windows Media Player or Winamp for the PC where once I quit the program, my playlist is cleared unless I decided to save it myself.

Stay tuned... iTunes 5.

Rumored feature: Enqueue songs from Finder or iTunes to create on-the-fly playlists.

 

[About2SwitchOvr]

Sweet

That's what I meant to say, you just said it better 🙂

Gotcha guys.. I'm going to try this out tonight...

 

[Awimoway]

As far as previewing the MP3 or AAC, or whatever it is (even ogg if you get the plugin), you can just use the preview in the Finder's Column view.

That is an outstanding point. I always forget that feature exists because I don't often use column view. (I'm a list view man, myself.)

Gotcha guys.. I'm going to try this out tonight...

I hope you have a good experience tonight trying things out. Feel free to share any questions you have. You can PM me if you want. A reminder: to browse by genre you have to turn it on in the General tab of iTunes Preferences (click on "Show genre when browsing"). Otherwise, clicking on the eyeball will only show Artist and Album.

 

[Counterfit]

That is an outstanding point. I always forget that feature exists because I don't often use column view. (I'm a list view man, myself.)

I hardly use list view, except when I don't want something (like a .avi) previewed.

 

[Zion Grail]

Now if only iTunes, Quicktime, and iPod supported OGG natively... that would be really, really awesome.

 

[roofraider]

pfft

So let me get this right, you only listen to each of your mp3's once and then delete them? Else I don't see why this is a problem....

unless you don't use iTunes to organise your music and keep them in folders somewhere on your HD and click on each one when you want to listen to them....this is just strange.

You do know about the great organisation facilities of iTunes, you HAVE clicked the browse button havn't you?

why would u b so patronising when u dont know what ur talkin about? the thread asks for responses pertaining to alternatives, not displays of ignorance.

itunes sounds like ****. i'd rather have a cd player

file information is not consistently transferred back and forth. i am so sick of seeing "track 1" thru "track 10" on cds i burn and in my library.

i'll try the ideas in the helpful posts. pity i have to wade thru ill-informative, sarcastic drivel to read them.

 

[defborn]

Hello everyone. I have a small question regarding this thread. Myself, I am not too happy with iTunes either. For only one very important reason: it's utterly slow when it comes to importing my collection. It is not only slow, it just won't import my collection. It is about 9000 songs big, but while important it suddenly crashes.

I would also like to prevent iTunes from getting album art or anything.
Winamp does the job superfast, importing al the songs in about 15 secs (on my laptop). But on my quad Mac Pro, it takes ages in iTunes (and it eventually crashes). And off course winamp does not read all of the ID3data, which is just perfect for me!

Anyone has an idea?

 

[Winterfell]

What I wouldn't give for a Winamp clone for OSX that works the same. I just can't get into iTunes. I really want Winamp back.