iTunes update messed my music names

[NewGenAdam]

so I installed the new iTunes release and it automatically, without asking me updated all of my music's info: composers, artists, to the online defaults which are supposedly "better".
It's completely messed up my system of using the artist field for composer and the composer format [surname, first name].
Itunes is not useful for people who have lots of classical music, and this careless automation will cost me hours of correcting my 8 days' music.

Irritated!

 

[Hellhammer]

Do you have a Time Machine backup? You could just "go back in time" and just use the version which worked fine

 

[stridemat]

Automator has an many options with iTunes. I will have a look and get back to you to see if there is an 'automatic' way of doing the changes.

Edit* I had a little play, but couldn't really achieve what you want it to do. I think it should be possible. Can you explain what you need altering? i.e the fields that need replacing and with what.

 

[dadosonny]

There`s an option to allow itunes in latest version to manage your music folder. You must uncheck it or this mess will happen.

Another option is to enable "copy files to my itunes folder" so it will copy your files and this mess won't be done in your original files. Sometimes the itunes management is really good to organize you music files.

 

[NewGenAdam]

@Hellhammer I think I'll do that, although I hope I don't have any issues with library file compatibility or anything

@stridemat the trouble I had was that I like my Artists to actually be the Composers, so "Bach, Johann Sebastian" in the Artist field rather than say "Academy of St Martin in the Fields", because this made sorting through my music by composer far easier.
Now I think about, I suppose it's actually easier simply to change the 'composer' field from the default entry to 'Bach, JS' since I'd also like to retain the actual artist information such as performers, conductor etc. Can automator be powerful for stuff like this? I'm mostly intimidated by it and struggle to use if effectively (n00b?)

@dadosonny yeah I appreciate its ability to consolidate all my files, it makes moving them and just being sure of their whereabouts less mental work. But if it screws with my admittedly anal naming system, I might have to manually manage my file locations.

If I'm honest iTunes is far from the best music player. OK, it has the best store and the best (only) iDevice interface, but it's rather lacking in many ways. Although what it does it does rather well, it's very lacking in features and can be arbitrarily (Apple-itrarily, I should say) restrictive. I suppose the above can be general criticism towards much made by Apple, but here it's a particular niggle I'm not too satisfied with - like the fact that you can convert on-the-fly to 128kbps for iDevice conversion, but not anything else!

Thanks for your replies and reading this far if you did. I can live in the hope that Apple fixes my little niggles, but each Apple fan has their own and we can never hope all to be satisfied. It seems that much of Apple's community spirit comes from people moaning about what they don't have, except rephrased with the perspective of dreaming about what they can have. I'm as guilty as any of this, and to be honest I quite like the social, geeky lustdebate. The interminable optimism of Apple fans about what Lord Steve is to hypnotise the world into buying is compelling and maybe I'm under his spell. But if so many are, how wrong can it be?

 

[Nermal]

I like my Artists to actually be the Composers, so "Bach, Johann Sebastian" in the Artist field rather than say "Academy of St Martin in the Fields", because this made sorting through my music by composer far easier.

Are you aware that you can swap the Artist column out for Composer and sort that way instead?

 

[NewGenAdam]

Are you aware that you can swap the Artist column out for Composer and sort that way instead?

yeah and that's what I'm probably going to do now. But the old iPods couldn't sort by composer so my system bore a relic of its Apple-itrarily restrictive past