What's your iTunes habit?

[SXR]

Maybe the title is a bit off , but I couldn't find another way to describe it. Im sure everyone has its own way of playing music in iTunes and keeping playlists in a nice order , ect.

What I do , is when I have a new album , I create a playlist for it. Put the album in the playlist so it can be synced to my iPod. But , I have a playlist called "1 Album Cover Flow". ( I put a 1 in front of it so it would show up as the first playlist ). I put all the playlists with the albums in them in that Cover Flow Playlist. Then , when I go to that cover flow playlist and I put it in Cover Flow mode I can navigate trough all my albums with cover flow.

Do you do the same? Do you have another way of doing it? Or do you have some other iTunes habits you wanna share? Go ahead

 

[rumz]

I tend not to use coverflow on either my iPod Classic (160GB) nor my iPod Touch (16gb). Though, it sounds like the method you described allows you to use coverflow a little more efficiently-- nice

Me? I just make playlists for custom mixes, which I don't often make. What I *should* do is make a playlist for recently added albums. Sometimes I'll add several albums at once and then forget to listen to one or two of them.

Otherwise, I usually just listen by album or by genre > album. Doesn't require much work in iTunes except for manipulating the genre of CDs that CDDB reports differently than I'd like.

 

[SXR]

Sometimes I'll add several albums at once and then forget to listen to one or two of them.

I have the exactly same thing sometimes. The iPod Touch is great , I don't have one though. I've been thinking of getting one , or save some money and get a MacBook. Is the touch screen really that smooth?

 

[Mactropolis]

I tend to open iTunes when I get to my office and turn on the radio. I like to try out different feeds each day to find the good ones.

If radio isn't treating me right I usually shuffle my own music and let it play.

I don't create too many playlists... I tend to do that only for burning CD's to pop into the car

 

[SXR]

I tend to open iTunes when I get to my office and turn on the radio. I like to try out different feeds each day to find the good ones.

If radio isn't treating me right I usually shuffle my own music and let it play.

I don't create too many playlists... I tend to do that only for burning CD's to pop into the car

Never really tried the Radio stations , I might I just do the cover flow thing to simulate an iPod or iTouch.

 

[Mactropolis]

Yeah give the radio a shot. I enjoy it!

 

[SXR]

Will do. Who is hosting the stations? Apple or some other people?

 

[xUKHCx]

I have iTunes on shuffle in the main library and whenever I come across a song from an album I want to hear I run a small application I made using applescript that will take the currently playing song and put the album it is from into a playlist and then play that album. Then once that has finished I start playing from the main library again until I come across another album I want to listen to.

 

[semicharmed]

I don't use regular playlists at all, I use the browse view to look for genres/albums/artists.
I do have less than smart playlists though, I have a lot of compilation CDs and such, as well as a lot of CDs picked up from distro sales that I wouldn't necessarily think to play but that I enjoy. So I have my party shuffle playing 90% of the time, it grabs music from the smart playlist (right now it's all music with <10 plays) so I get to listen to the unplayed stuff.

 

[rumz]

I have the exactly same thing sometimes. The iPod Touch is great , I don't have one though. I've been thinking of getting one , or save some money and get a MacBook. Is the touch screen really that smooth?

The Touch is a lot of fun. I'll admit that the Classic gets a lot more use-- thats because I can put everything on it and have it at my disposal, whereas the 16gb touch requires me to be more selective about content-- though I usually will throw new albums on there.

What I really bought the Touch for is watching video-- and it does that like a champ. Love the screen.

Oh and as far as the touch screen aspect... it's money. Much different than any other touch screen I've used (I've been using Treos for phones for a few years now)-- very cool that you can do gestures to zoom, scroll, etc.

 

[rockthecasbah]

When i download new music (legally) but don't have time to research the artist or listen to it that second, I'll make a playlist that is always like "DLs" or something to that effect. Then I'll delete it later when i have time to list to them


Another habit of mine is when I make a playlist for someone (especially when i intend to make a CD) I will always put an "x" before the actual name of the playlist so it will appear at the bottom of my playlists and it's easier to drag/drop files. I don't know why I choose an "x" especially since a "z" would make more sense. I'll then delete the letter when I'm done if i want to keep the playlist to listen for myself and it will then be reordered.


Also, when i add new songs to iTunes (downloads, CDs, etc) I will always format the data like song and artist to make sure every new word is capitalized ("Apostle Of Hustle" not "Apostle of Hustle") before i listen to the song. I don't know why I do it, i just like caps for first letters of everything haha.

 

[pjarvi]

Party Shuffle and Smart Playlists for me.

I go through all the music in my library and change the tags to reflect my personal organization needs. For example: I recently went through and changed the tag of any Christmas songs to: Christmas. Then I just create a smart playlist for that particular tag.

I've really enjoy the Party Shuffle mode, too.

 

[Tom B.]

Also, when i add new songs to iTunes (downloads, CDs, etc) I will always format the data like song and artist to make sure every new word is capitalized ("Apostle Of Hustle" not "Apostle of Hustle") before i listen to the song. I don't know why I do it, i just like caps for first letters of everything haha.

I always do that too. But I still find un-capitalised ones every day.
Another similar thing that I always do is replace every "and" with "&" to save space. I always change "Featuring" to "&" also.

It must just be because we are perfectionists then.

 

[SXR]

I always do that too. But I still find un-capitalised ones every day.
Another similar thing that I always do is replace every "and" with "&" to save space. I always change "Featuring" to "&" also.

It must just be because we are perfectionists then.

Laughing , guess we all are. I am thinking , what should I get. Save some money and buy a MacBook ( long wait ) and buy an iPod Touch ( short wait ) aaaaaah, I have a 2G Nano , I think Ill just wear it out and then get a new one. Doesn't apple bring out iPods every year? Then Ill get one next year, I think

 

[LLPE33]

I generally put my 60gb Photo on shuffle and let it do its thing. I had a bunch of playlists but they got wiped out oneday when I openned iTunes without having my external hardrive (where I keep my library) on...odd thing to happen, but no real big deal.

Prior the aforementioned wipe I had playlists to lumped all the work from a given artist together, be it solo, band, collaborations, cameos, etc. I also made some playlists for really long songs, for my family members, for instrumentation (acoustic music, regardless of genre, being the standout). I need to get them going again now that my 60gb has come back to life. With my new nano Red, I sync from a smaller subset of my music on my wife's laptop from work. It's pretty all newly acquired music (which still is mostly older stuff, as I'm always adding to my back catalog of music).

I'm not interested in having album artwork on my iPods, but I could see how using coverflow without the art could be a nice way to manage playlists. But again, full iPod library shuffle is what I do most of the time, unless I want to hear a specific artist/album/song and then whoever isn't driving (as that is where I end up listening to music the most) does the manual search.

I thought this was going to be about how much we might use theiTunes store, in which case it would have been hardly ever for me. It's still cheaper to buy actual discs from BMG, emusic, and now Amazon MP3. I also like to buy downloads directly from artists, cutting out the middle man whenever possible. But I have found a few artists whose stuff is most easily or literally only available digitally and via Tunes, so I'll be making some purchases very soon.

 

[SXR]

I thought this was going to be about how much we might use theiTunes store, in which case it would have been hardly ever for me. It's still cheaper to buy actual discs from BMG, emusic, and now Amazon MP3. I also like to buy downloads directly from artists, cutting out the middle man whenever possible. But I have found a few artists whose stuff is most easily or literally only available digitally and via Tunes, so I'll be making some purchases very soon.

I purchase all my music at the iTunes store. I love it.
Thanks for the detailed reply So much people using Shuffle these days. ( including me ).

 

[hexonxonx]

I thought this was going to be about how much we might use theiTunes store, in which case it would have been hardly ever for me. It's still cheaper to buy actual discs from BMG, emusic, and now Amazon MP3. I also like to buy downloads directly from artists, cutting out the middle man whenever possible. But I have found a few artists whose stuff is most easily or literally only available digitally and via Tunes, so I'll be making some purchases very soon.

I would buy from Amazon these days buy every time go there to search for a CD I want, it's not there. I go to iTunes and they carry it. I was even amazed last night that iTunes carried the Kristofferson/Streisand A Star is Born. Bought it! Itunes Music Store is simply amazing on content. Maybe in a few years Amazon will have caught up but till then, I'm happy with iTunes.

 

[SXR]

I would buy from Amazon these days buy every time go there to search for a CD I want, it's not there. I go to iTunes and they carry it. I was even amazed last night that iTunes carried the Kristofferson/Streisand A Star is Born. Bought it! Itunes Music Store is simply amazing on content. Maybe in a few years Amazon will have caught up but till then, I'm happy with iTunes.

totally agree with that. iTunes is huge. I hope it will never die. They even carry a very very bad singer ( Daphne Kalfon ) probably only because she makes the songs I Love My iPod and I Love my Mac I bought the I Love my iPod song because im a fan. But I wouldn't say that Daphne can sing. But its always better than me..

 

[Slip]

I have all of my music in Library and the songs I actually listen to I put into a single playlist and put this on shuffle.
This is also the playlist that's synced to my iPod

Also, @ xUKHCx
Ive just been getting into ApplScript and have managed to make a few little scripts such as deleting the playing song from the playlist and skipping to the next track but I would love to know how to turn off shuffle when I get to an artist that Id like to listen to more of, such as if I know the next song is one I *heart*
Thanks in advance (Y)

 

[SXR]

Thats neat, where can you learn AppleScript?

 

[72930]

A playlist for every artist, and more...so I don't have to go through the 'All Albums' stage on my iPod for artists with only one song...

 

[Shaduu]

Permanent shuffle, thanks. I'm generally indecisive about what I want to listen to so shuffle fits me perfectly. Makes sense that I have a shiny orange one then, eh?

If I want to listen to a specific artist I just use the search bar in my main library and leave shuffle on. Okay, it's not entirely foolproof as iTunes (and Spotlight) searches lack Boolean but I can live until Apple gets all Boolean-friendly.

I also have this thing about having all my tracks in AAC so I have a Smart Playlist to collect up all those nasty mp3s and a small AppleScript application to convert and delete 'em all every month.

 

[Slip]

I have all of my music in Library and the songs I actually listen to I put into a single playlist and put this on shuffle.
This is also the playlist that's synced to my iPod

Also, @ xUKHCx
Ive just been getting into ApplScript and have managed to make a few little scripts such as deleting the playing song from the playlist and skipping to the next track but I would love to know how to turn off shuffle when I get to an artist that Id like to listen to more of, such as if I know the next song is one I *heart*
Thanks in advance (Y)

Not to worry, finally managed to figure it. And to those who want it:
----------
tell application "iTunes"
set shuffle of playlist "Insert name of your playlist here" to false
end tell
----------
This will turn off shuffle for that playlist.
Replace 'false' with 'true' to re-enable shuffle.

Thats neat, where can you learn AppleScript?

I found this Wikibook quite helpful AppleScript, once you grasp the basic fundamentals you can google some other tutorials that tend to be more developed than that. Don't feel put of though, the english nature of the language makes it quite easy to pickup
Have fun

 

[SXR]

I found this Wikibook quite helpful AppleScript, once you grasp the basic fundamentals you can google some other tutorials that tend to be more developed than that. Don't feel put of though, the english nature of the language makes it quite easy to pickup
Have fun

Thanks alot. I will give it a shot !
Do you need a Mac to make AppleScript stuff? Because I am saving up for a Mac, but don't have one right now.

 

[Slip]

Thanks alot. I will give it a shot !
Do you need a Mac to make AppleScript stuff? Because I am saving up for a Mac, but don't have one right now.

I'm afraid so
It's built into OS X and only works with OS X so there's no use for it in the general PC world
That's not to say that you can't write scripts in Notepad for example, you just won't be able to see if they work, or get them to actually do anything