Transferring music from pc

[cdg18]

I just got a new Macbook Pro a few days ago and I've put a few of my CDs on it, but today I tried to transfer albums from my external harddrive over to my Mac and got a little confused. My music has suddenly sorted itself differently and iTunes has separated songs from albums based on artist having other people featured in the songs and etc. I'm a very organized person and it's going to drive me crazy if I can't get everything to stay together, but I can't figure it all out.

Also, when transferring the songs onto my Mac I was just moving the files into the iTunes music folder. I don't know how to get them to actually go into iTunes though. Essentially I just need some advice on the best way to get things organized.

 

[John Doe 57]

http://lifehacker.com/242468/geek-to-live--how-to-move-an-itunes-library-from-a-pc-to-mac-and-back

or

http://reviews.cnet.com/ipod/9602-12576_7-0.html?messageID=2510455&kw=ipod

 

[cdg18]

Thank you for the suggestions, but my old iTunes library was a mess and I really don't want to move it over haha. I basically want to start fresh which is why I'm only putting CDs into it right now. I just can't figure out how to sort a few things and it's frustrating haha.

 

[HBOC]

I just got a new Macbook Pro a few days ago and I've put a few of my CDs on it, but today I tried to transfer albums from my external harddrive over to my Mac and got a little confused. My music has suddenly sorted itself differently and iTunes has separated songs from albums based on artist having other people featured in the songs and etc. I'm a very organized person and it's going to drive me crazy if I can't get everything to stay together, but I can't figure it all out.

Also, when transferring the songs onto my Mac I was just moving the files into the iTunes music folder. I don't know how to get them to actually go into iTunes though. Essentially I just need some advice on the best way to get things organized.

Ummm, I feel your pain, buddy. This is no joke, but I have spent probably about 40 hours or so organizing my 50Gig music library. I simply cannot STAND having the "black and gray music" icon, and also having 15 different album art for the same album! It is now neat and tidy.

Funny thing...well not really funny, is that when i installed SL (i accidentally drug an iTunes XML file into the garbage..so I decided to start fresh) and used my B/U iTunes discs I burned in July, I found that a LOT of shiest was messed up, and spent ANOTHER 15 hours effing with iTunes, getting it organized. I listen to music all the time, and am on my Mac a lot, so it drove me crazy. I am going to be backing up iTunes again.

I will post some screen shots on how to get them organized correctly.. just a few seconds..

 

[HBOC]

Ok, this is going to be a bit longer than i would like, but this is how i keep my nearly 7K songs organized! There are probably shortcuts, but whatev I just HATE how when you rip a CD to iTunes it is just unorganized! At least it is better than WMP by far.. I will break this into 5 posts, because i have 10 screen shots, and all screen shots are at the bottom of the posts..

Ok, this is what the album (track listings) will look like after you rip a cd FROM your Mac. My girlfriend has an XPS and when i rip CDs to her computer and then transfer them over on a jump drive or whatnot, they will say unknown - unknown!

From there, i will highlight all the tracks and right click on them and choose "get info".

 

[HBOC]

I will then fill in the blanks, as such.

Once i do that, I will hit Ok. Your album track listing should look like image 2 (step 5). Note the empty album art I hate! lol.

I will then right click and select "get album art work". It is self explanatory, but I included a screen shot of that Most of the time, iTunes will have the album art work in their database, but sometimes you have to google image it. I usually get images of 400x400 or 500x500 if available...

 

[HBOC]

Now for the last few steps.

Ok, the track listings are still screwed up, so to speak. This first image shows this. To fix this (and this works perfectly 95% of the time, meaning no duplicate album art for the same album, etc etc.)

To fix the track listings, I right click on the first song, and select get info.
I edit all the garbage on the song name column, leaving just the song name. I fill in the track number in the appropriate column to the right. If you have a double disc cd, I would fill that in as well. I like to have 2 album arts for each disc. For example, on Tupacs' All Eyez on Me, i have 2 album art work, one for the first disc, and one for the second disc. That way, I can navigate quicker through the album.

Once edited, the track listing will look like the last image.

This is what works for me. Yes I have spent more time than i needed to on this, but I like organization on my music. Maybe i have ADD (iTunes ADD that is), but whatev