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Topic: Lost novice needs help building digital music library (Read 17152 times) previous topic - next topic
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Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #25 –
Quote from: peter223 on
Quote from: ghulse on
I actually have two separate music libraries, one in Apple Lossless and the other in 192 Mbps AAC format which is for my various iPods.


Hi ghulse, excellent, that´s exactly the situation I am in. How did you convert the CDs into two formats? Any chance to do this in one step or did you code them with itunes first and had the ALAC folders run in batch mode through a different tool?


Hi Pete. Here's the way I do it, probably not the simplest way, but it works.

First, I launch iTunes and make sure that my Apple Lossless library is selected. (I start with Apple Lossless for reasons that I will explain). Again, iTunes Library Manager is a great tool for selecting between iTunes libraries.

I then import each CD into iTunes and they end up as Lossless files on my hard drive.

At this time, I switch iTunes over to the 192 kbps AAC library (again using iTunes Library Manager). Instead of importing from the same CD (which is certainly an option), I simply drag-and-drop the Apple Lossless files into iTunes. It's a good idea to first go into the preferences for iTunes and uncheck the option to "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" (under the Advanced tab). You don't want to have multiple copies of the Lossless files on your hard drive.

At this point in iTunes I find those tracks I just added, select them, then use the "Convert to AAC" option under the Advanced menu. When it's done converting, the original Apple Lossless files are still selected and I just hit delete key and they go away. If you have unchecked the option to "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" you will not get a dialogue box asking if you want these tracks to be discarded in the trash.


Quote from: peter223 on
On that note: minimax recommend me the tool XLD for ripping - any comment on that? I have also seen a comparison between Max and XLD here and Max seems cool since I can edit the tags, but I guess itunes will just give me correct titles of the album (do they use CDDB? coz there are errors in the data sometimes).


I haven't tried these tools. iTunes seems to do a great job. Actually I do change the tags for some of my classical music and this is easy to do in iTunes. In fact, if you do change the tags, this is another advantage to using the Lossless files to convert to your second AAC library. You would change those tags in your Lossless library before converting them into the AAC library and it saves you from having to do it twice.

Quote from: peter223 on
Quote from: ghulse on
I typically use a browser window on the Mac to select what music to play (and I have an app on my iphone that works very well too). In the browser window, you can search by artist or album and make playlists.

What sort of browser window? Normal FX or Safari? Is that only a way to control squeezebox or do you replace itunes with that..?

Best
Peter


You can use the Squeezebox itself to find and select music, but that's pretty cumbersome. By typing http://localhost:9000/ into your browser window (be it Safari, or Firefox or whatever), it will give you access to all of Squeezebox functions. Select by artist, album, genre or use the search term to find what you want to listen to. Here's a couple of screenshots:



Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #26 –
Great man, thanks a lot! I now know my way to go, it´ll be a loooong way to import all my CDs but worth it I guess. Next project will then be some streaming solution. I will have a look at your squeezebox thing, actually I like  to set something up that can be controlled by an ipad, so my guests can choose the music on my couch like in a karaoke bar. Not sure at the moment, how or what will then send the music from a harddrive to the amp, maybe I need my macbook to be switched on or so. As I said, new project, new thread :-)

Have a good start into the week

peter
Mac OS X 10.6

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #27 –
quick one for you: what iTunes Library Manager are you using?
I had a look at the web and there seems to be a couple of programms that are called that way or describe their intention as iTunes Library Manager and are then totally different.

Thanks for a hint!

peter
Mac OS X 10.6

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #28 –
Quote from: peter223 on
quick one for you: what iTunes Library Manager are you using?
I had a look at the web and there seems to be a couple of programms that are called that way or describe their intention as iTunes Library Manager and are then totally different.

Thanks for a hint!

peter


ok, here is the missing information:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7689/itunes-library-manager

I think this is essentially a script. iTunes already has the function to switch between libraries (by holding down Option key while launching the app, I think). iTunes Library Manager saves us the steps of quitting the app and holding down whatever key that is. It works very well.

So I guess I am ready, set, go for digitizing my CD collection. Thanks to all folks in the forum for their ideas and hints.

peter
Mac OS X 10.6

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #29 –
HI ghulse,

I have set up everything now, but keep having trouble with itunes and the multiple libraries. When I click on itunes holding the option key itunes ask which library and offers me to install a new one. I did that and changed the import preferences. However, when starting this way again and selecting the other library, itunes doesn´t associate any preferences to that library and just keeps the last used ones. That means that in my AAC-library I have the lossles settings, when I used the lossless-library before.

The library-manager app seems cool from what you describe, but I might be too stupid to get it working. It doesn´t remember any libraries, always ask me to save the current library which it doesn´t recognize and there is only a blank selection window. (am I supposed to set up the libraries via the manager or via app+holding option?). Is it possible that the app doesn´t work without paid registration?

Thanks for your help, much needed. :-)

peter
Mac OS X 10.6

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #30 –
Peter, I recall the first time I set up my libraries with iTunes Library Manager it was a bit messy. The reason for this is that iTunes Library Manager uses a different backup routine than the iTunes application itself. So you have to create your libraries in the first place using iTunes Library Manager.

I see a relevant note on the developer's web site:

iTunes Library Manager cannot manage multiple libraries created with iTunes' multiple library feature (initiated by holding the Option key when activating iTunes). Each uses a different back up routine.

It also appears that you do need to register the program and pay the $10 shareware fee to be able to manage more than one library.

Again, I heartily recommend using iTunes Library Manager, but the choice is yours. Apparently you do need to use one method or the other to manage multiple libraries because they use different backup routines. Sorry I didn't realize this before. I've been using iTunes Library Manager for a couple of years now and I haven't looked back.

I see another note on the developer's web site: that iTunes Library Manager is not yet compatible with OS X Lion that has just come out, but the guy is working on an update.

I'm not at home right now, so I'm going mostly off of memory. But once you register iTunes Library Manager, you should be able to create a new library and then it will launch iTunes and then you can set up your preferences for that library. When you create a second new library, it will save your first one and retain all of those preferences.

If you've already imported your music, you can just drag-and-drop those music files to iTunes after loading the appropriate library using iTunes Library Manager.

Hope that helps. Here's the developer's web site for iTunes Library Manager:

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/itune...rarymanager.php

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #31 –
Ghulse, thanks so much for your quick reply. Shame on me that I didn´t check the dev´s release notes. Since you convinced me to use the Manager and itunes obviously doesn´t keep the preferences apart from different libraries I will definitely pay my 10 bucks and get the Manager. Good that you mention the Lion compatibilty since I will upgrade at some point (but first let them sort out the problems I read in forums). Hope the dev is quick with his new version.

I´ll give it a go and post my experiences here.

Have a good one,

peter
Mac OS X 10.6

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #32 –
Quote from: peter223 on
Ghulse, thanks so much for your quick reply. Shame on me that I didn´t check the dev´s release notes. Since you convinced me to use the Manager and itunes obviously doesn´t keep the preferences apart from different libraries I will definitely pay my 10 bucks and get the Manager. Good that you mention the Lion compatibilty since I will upgrade at some point (but first let them sort out the problems I read in forums). Hope the dev is quick with his new version.

I´ll give it a go and post my experiences here.

Have a good one,

peter


Peter, I'm curious how this all worked out for you. Tell me about your experience.

I'm listening now to Paul O'dette's fabulous lute playing through my Squeezebox server. I decided to add artwork (via iTunes) to this 5-CD collection to see how it looks in the web browser where I control my music playing. Since I imported all of my music from CDs, I've never bothered with adding artwork. I guess it looks pretty good. Not sure I want to do this for all my music though.

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #33 –
Quote
Peter, I'm curious how this all worked out for you. Tell me about your experience.

I'm listening now to Paul O'dette's fabulous lute playing through my Squeezebox server. I decided to add artwork (via iTunes) to this 5-CD collection to see how it looks in the web browser where I control my music playing. Since I imported all of my music from CDs, I've never bothered with adding artwork. I guess it looks pretty good. Not sure I want to do this for all my music though.


Good morning ghulse,
you bet that I will definitely send you my success story once it is one  After all the help you provided!
At the moment I am waiting to be registered with the Lib Man developer, paypal payments take days to clear, after that I am ready to digitize. I might be able to use the time in between to find out how to reset my itunes since I have the bad feeling that apple has kept some information of my formerly in itunes set up libarries in some hidden ".plis-files".
Art work sounds cool, especially if you have your large screen interface; I thought itunes could do that in a single run for all your library...

Have a good one, talk to you soon
peter
Mac OS X 10.6

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #34 –
If you've already imported your music and you have it in a suitable place on your hard drive, you can just start a new library using iTunes Library Manager. Once iTunes is launched, be sure to uncheck the "Copy Files to iTunes Media Folder" (Prefs-->Advanced) and then just drag-and-drop your music folder into iTunes.

I like to check the "Keep the iTunes Media Folder Organized" myself.

Lost novice needs help building digital music library

Reply #35 –
Hi ghulse,

SUCCESS - and 50 thank-you on this Sunday morning to you. I finally did it and it worked so flawlessly!!

I kept shoving my CDs into my laptop and didn´t have to look at it for days since it was smoothly importing the CDs in the background.

Before I will  convert all of them to lossy I will go through them and add missing artwork, I found some useful scripts (e.g. at dougscripts) to add missing gracenote-artwork on Amazon and co.

A few things that still bug me, but are true itunes shortcomings, are that compilations are not kept together, even if they are tagged as "part of a compilation". There are hints on the web to rename them as Various Artists, but that´s not what I want, to have dozens VA in my lib.

I also made a test conversion to lossy which worked well, but the artwork was missing. Is this supposed to be like that, is artwork linked to the library rather than embedded to the files? *WTF*, how stupid is that? Only one album, where I added artwork manually in the metadata window was appearantly embedded, I wonder what gracenote does...just put it in some xml-file?

Sadly, my iTLM, which else works fine, also bugs me, it has somehow lost the connectionn to my lib and now thinks that my AAC-lib is the lossless one. I believe that happened when I powered off my connected external HDD with force. I have contacted Doug in regard to that and hope there is some way to alter one or two entries in some xml-file or referrer file.

But...as you can see, happy as a pie I am and yesterday at a barbecue I had already given  away 40 CDs I don´t need any longer to friends.

Have a good one

peter
Mac OS X 10.6