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Multiple CD's with iTunes

S

Stretch

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 26, 2005
22
0
Irvine, CA
Hi Guys,

I'm importing a 3-cd set into iTunes for the first time. I had to enter in all of the album info manually (iTunes couldn't find it), and was wondering what I needed to do to ensure that iTunes properly categorizes each CD.

I've imported 2 of the 3 cd's so far, and despite editing the disc # info, the tracks are all listed together.
 
How do you want it to appear in iTunes? If you want it to appear as a single album, you should be able to just make the album name the same for all three discs, make sure the Disc x of 3 fields are all full, and then when you sort by Album (or Album by Artist, etc), you should see all tracks across the three discs in sequence (all the tracks from disc one, then all the tracks from disc two, and finally from disc three). I don't think iTunes will really respect the Disc x of 3 fields unless you have the same album name for all three discs.

As for the Compilation button, I don't think it's actually necessary for this unless the artist varies from track to track.
 
Thanks for your fast reply. In iTunes, I was basically hoping that that tracks would be arranged by disc, i.e. disc 1, disc 2, disc 3. That way, when I go to access them in my iPod, I can get them through Music>Artists>Album Name>Disc #>Tracks

In itunes, under "Info", I've made sure that the album name is the same, and that the disc fields are filled in. They still appear listed together though.
 
For instance, I have:

Songs In The Key Of Life (Disc 1)
Songs In The Key Of Life (Disc 2)

They show up as separate albums because the titles are different. Is this what you want?
 
Yeah, that's the way iTunes deals with disk numbers within one album: it sorts by disk, then by track. Neither iTunes nor the iPod will deal with them separately. If you want them to be displayed as separate albums, you will have to add (Disk n) after each one.
 
Maybe a screenshot would help? Can you please post one? Let me wake up my iTunes and show you a multi-disc album in mine...

iTunes15200993804PM.jpg


Here you see that all the songs have the same album name, I used the Disc X of Y fields, and the songs show up in the intended order (all songs from disc one first). The reason I use this method instead of the one BV suggested is primarily because, if I listen on a device (iPod, etc), then when I select the album this way, it plays continuously across all discs.
 
yeah sadly i've always felt a little awkward about the way itunes, makes it simple yes, but it changes it too much if you have files with "unknown albums" i wish there was a way to leave them in the same way you have them in your music folder :(
 
My apologies if I'm not being clear enough, i'm really new to this subject myself.

Under the "Info" tab, I tried adding the artists name to the field entitled, "Album Artist". After restarting iTunes, the songs are now listed sequentially according to both cd # and track, which is great.

I think what I was hoping for was a further categorization, so that when I access this material from my Ipod, I can choose not only the album name itself, but what CD (i.e. CD 1, CD 2 or CD 3) in particular I want to listen to.

(In addition, I believe that I was also hoping that this distinction would should up in my iTunes listing as well. I mentioned above that all of the album songs are listed sequentially according to CD # and track, but there's no visual indicator to let me know were the breaks occur between material belonging to individual discs.)

Oh, and just to clarify, I don't really need each disc to show up as a separate album, (unless that would make things easier somehow). I'm just looking to distinguish b/w discs within the same album. Thanks once again for your patience.
 
Right, if I'm understanding you correctly, you cannot have it both ways. You could probably "fake" it by putting the info in another field (e.g. putting "[Disc 1]" at the end of the track name) but you can't have it both be true that they act like a single album and that they are also identified as separate albums.
 
mkrishnan said:
The reason I use this method instead of the one BV suggested is primarily because, if I listen on a device (iPod, etc), then when I select the album this way, it plays continuously across all discs.
Click to expand...

The Stevie Wonder album was imported a long time ago, so it's kept its separate titles for each disk. Some albums I have are collected together like your Talking Heads compilation.

If I want to hear Disk 1 and Disk 2 together, I just shift-click on the two album names in the iTunes browser and it displays and plays both disks together, one after the other. Can't do it on a 5th gen iPod though.
 
BlueRevolution said:
You can't. Your only options are to enter disk numbers to help with sorting but have them displayed as one, or to name each album separately.
Click to expand...

Oh, I see. Wow, i'm a bit surprised at that. I really would have thought that iTunes would intelligently sort through individual discs of the same album, and give the user the option to do so. I appreciate that info though, I think that means i'll experiment a bit to see what approach seems to suit me better.

Right, if I'm understanding you correctly, you cannot have it both ways. You could probably "fake" it by putting the info in another field (e.g. putting "[Disc 1]" at the end of the track name) but you can't have it both be true that they act like a single album and that they are also identified as separate albums.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much. And, just to make doubly certain, when you said here that, "but you can't have it both be true that they act like a single album and that they are also identified as separate albums."

....this applies to separate discs within an album as well?
 
Thanks again for your help and input, guys.:)

I've been experimenting with this for a day or two now, and I think that simply having all the tracks (and hence, all the cd's) listed under one single album will work all right for now.
 
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