Managing Music on iTunes?

[scooterguitar]

Ok, did a very large move and everything seems to be correct. Setup organize, consolidate, etc...all on external drive to keep my imac cleaner. Working very well.
I've searched and googled, but with the exception of a lengthy techie article which I quite didn't understand I can't seem to figure out the following.

With a very large music collection (around 160 gbs), how would you suggest setting up playlists, etc? I don't get the tags and such.

Use the Genius, even though most of my music was ripped from my old cd's?

I'd like groups, subgroups, and then various playlists. My goal is to setup playlists (Smart ones?)...be listening to a song, then add that song to an appropriate playlist.
Thanks

 

[GGJstudios]

With a very large music collection (around 160 gbs), how would you suggest setting up playlists, etc? I don't get the tags and such.

Everyone has their own methods that work for them, but here's a few things I do:

I have smart playlists that group songs by genre or decade, and others that are more specialized. I have a playlist of everything stored on an external drive and one for everything stored internally. I have a playlist for checked items that haven't been played in the past day, so I can check songs I want to play and they'll only play once.

Unlike many, I don't leave my whole library checked. I only check what I want to play, so I can browse my library while music is playing and add to the playlist simply by checking items. It may not work for others, but it works very well for me.

 

[scooterguitar]

I like the smart playlist and just tried it. I do wish you could create your own smart playlist with certain tweaks. Or is this what you do with the decade thing?

I tried Genius, but sorta disappointed. I want to say choose 10 songs or last 10 played (maybe range from rock to blues) and then have Genius create playlists that delve from those groups of songs. Not just the same genre/style of the current selection.

This might be basic, but is there an easy way just be listening to a song, like it and add it or check it to be in a favorites folder. Then after many moons have passed, be able to manually create various playlists from those starred favs. Make sense?

 

[scooterguitar]

Well, found autorate, tunesart, and song genie on apple's app site. The autorate sounds like it is a good choice for ratings, played/skipped aspect.
I never download apps though. Are most of them safe to run?