i hate itunes
 

is there something better to use?
is there a way to make Itunes automatically update instead of having 3 different links to the same songs besides deleting everything and starting from scratch?

Or, if you have the source of the music move from one location to another. I just spent 1/3 of yesterday, re-importing my music back into iTunes, because I exchanged external hard drives

How are you getting multiple entries/links to the same file?

As far as reimporting, can't you just change the location of your library via itunes, and then "consolidate library"? I did something similar when I moved the wife and kids off of the windows box and onto the macbook.

I hate iTunes as well. The way it catalogs the library in particular.
I use Audion sometimes. It has nice mp3 tag editor. Sometimes it is Whamb.
But usually I do not play music through computer.

I will be quite honest as well iTunes has never been a favorite with me even when I used it 4 or 5 years ago with the Pepsi free song download deal.

On my MBP I use VLC player. I was looking for other media players as well and I saw my favorite linux player Mplayer has a port for OS X. I gave it a try and i wasn't as fond of the port as I thought I would be.

I'm still searching. Itunes just doesn't support all of the codecs I use.

I thought I was alone in my dislike of iTunes. It moves my music files (even with the setting for organizing my library turned off!). I want to be able to change tags and filenames without all the pain and suffering.

I actually used tag editors on windows (at least that's easier now with parallels!) maybe I'll go back to a windows based media player until a good alternative to iTunes comes to the mac.

This opinion will generate hate mail, but wasn't it a few years ago that people blamed Microsoft for buying companies and building their product into windows or building a similar feature into windows? And that this was killing the small software developer? Well, Apple providing iTunes and iMovie etc is preventing developers from creating good products for the mac. What developer will try and create a product and market it when there is something free - even if it's not real good?

Do you also want to manage what block numbers your files take up on your hard drive? Just as the operating system manages that for you, iTunes can manage everything about your music.

I like iTunes so much that it outweighs every negative vote in this thread.

So there.

Surely, if iTunes is so bad, then there should be a large market for a better product.

As for your other points: iTunes shouldn't move your music if you've turned on Copy music.

What pain and suffering is there in changing tags? You can change all the data in the Info panel.

I actually like using iTunes. It manages all of my music without me having to juggle around tons of music files.

I know some people who can't (or won't, for whatever reason) let go of being able to name and organize their songs. I could care less what iTunes names each file or where it puts them, as long as the name shows up correctly in iTunes with all the appropriate tag information and as long as the song plays properly. iTunes does that marvelously for me, so I am quite happy with it. I emphatically agree with the positive points above.

I can name, tag, and organize my songs with iTunes anyway I want...

I also dislike iTunes because it won't read from the directory level, and just be happy at that. I organize all my music by artist and then by album, so there is no need for iTunes to try and organize it for me. It gets quite annoying. VLC plays just about anything, but it's interface is not as spiffy as iTunes, and it will play from a directory and read all your music from how you organized it at the directory level.

But why? Is this akin to alphabetizing your LP collection on your shelf? If you have a lot of music encoded in formats that iTunes won't play (and you refuse to transcode because of the quality hit), then I guess I can understand needing to use other applications. However, if everything is encoded as MP3 or AAC, why not just let iTunes do all the heavy lifting?

It is because I do actually own and organize my vinyl like that. Plus when I rip everything I typically do it in high quality MP3, and in some cases FLAC. VLC supports all file types. In fact, iTunes is only used to sync my iPod.

I rip everything to high quality MP3 too (I don't bother with FLAC though), but I choose to let iTunes organize everything because I only use iTunes to browse and play my music. I guess it's just a matter of personal preference.

I organize it my way and would prefer if it would just read the music directory as it is. I don't like for example, how it will read meta data from a hip hop song where someone was featured or sampled and then tie that song to that artists. I want to just play whole albums mostly. In fact I hardly ever have it on random I typically just play albums at a time.

It wouldn't be hard for Apple to make one little preference and be like, you can turn this off and Itunes will just read it as it is from ~/Music.

If I had to manage files and folders of all of my albums, I'd probably never listen to anything or get any work done. iTunes FTW

I don't see how being able to lose an hour manually organizing is a benefit. What does that provide me? Do you REALLY need to sort by /Genre/Year/Artist/Album instead of /Artist/Album? What do you gain? Is /Artist/Album not clear enough when you finally have to go dig through the Music folder? Are you backing up manually like it's 1995?

Let the computer manage data. It's really, really good at that. You're way better at listening to music, anyway. Do that instead.

I disagree, I know most of my album names. It is most likely an OCD habit I obtained from owning and collecting vinyl. It is a method I am just used to, and I can go each specific record crate and know what genre it is, and it is arrange by artists alphabetically and then by each individual album. I keep singles and 7 inches separate in their own category.

I like to listen to whole albums, and when I rip the music I am already taking the 2 seconds it takes to organize it by artist and album. Then the computer will automatically arrange that alphabetically for me.

It would take about 2 seconds to edit a Smart Playlist in iTunes that would show all songs in an album by an artist. This of course ignores the fact that the Browse button in iTunes is already set up to show songs by any combination of Genre, Artist, and Album. ;)

My point is that iTunes is far more powerful and flexible than most of its detractors admit.

No, but if I want to pull up a hip hop album like mentioned earlier, and lets say that hip hop artist xyz is featured in one of these albums, it then associates that artist with that album, and it annoys the hell out of me.

Look I admit it, I am not the average user when it comes to digital media, and I prefer the open source products. Those open source products are a bit harder to use and don't have the pretty interface, however they let me do whatever the heck I want to, and that is why I use them. That, and they support every freaking format known to man, and I also refuse to use anything with DRM.

iTunes is great for people that just want it to work. I want it to work the way I want it to work, and I want it to obey my commands. I am not the average iTunes user.

I am not saying iTunes is horrible, but it is not my first choice of media player at all, and it can be a bit resource hoggy at times.

That would make Smart Playlists the better choice for you. Using combinations of them you can easily* create any list you like from your music.

* Maybe not as easy as it could be: combining AND/OR requires three Smart Playlists, for example, but it's not hard.

It takes all of 2 seconds to select the song, hit Command+I and fix up the artist name to your liking. And I somehow never had a problem playing an album at a time, works particularly nice when View is set to ... whatever its name, middle choice, artwork on the left, songs from the album on the right.

And if you tell it not to copy songs and not to organize, you'll just have to add them once to the library and there, your files remain untouched, unmoved and unrenamed. True, importing takes a bit of time, but not that much and you only do it once.

Well I just did that like 2 nights ago. I wiped out my library completely. wiped all preferences for itunes. Relaunched iTunes and had it scan a mounted network share to add all the music into the Library.

I still got duplicate songs, and I checked and it is physically copying those files twice. I also get a few things that aren't organized to my liking and I turn off all the automatic stuff.

Maybe I should get some tips from you. There are several versions of mp3 tags, my car stereo uses 3.2 and my mp3 player (no, not an ipod) uses 3.3, iTunes does not change both versions of the tags.....

And I do need to know the filename, it'd be nice to be able to change the file name based on the tag info (after I get the tags right). Unlike some people, I create MP3 files, not often, but enough, and I want to name them and tag them. After I import them into iTunes (and it moves them based on the blank tags) I have to tag them, remove them, readd them so they get organized appropriately.....

I would like to do as much of this in OS X native apps as I can, but seriously, there is a lack of good non-iTunes music management for the mac. If I'm missing it, please provide me with links. I even pay for good software that I use.

Thank you.

Note that there is a huge amount of 3rd-party add-on software for iTunes - in particular, a whole bunch of AppleScripts that can automate most common operations.

There are lots of scripts available to rename tunes based on ID3 tags - mine are like this:

The Blues Gypsys (2008) Blues Paradise-11-She's Leavin' (Pt 1).mp3

try dougscripts.com

I LOVE iTunes. You guys are just way, way too demanding... well above what the average user would want or need.

I only have a few hundred songs. I skipped most of the options in iTunes and simply stuck key words in "Comments" and that works just fine for my finding, sorting purposes. I don't want anything more complicated, or time consuming, than that.

VLC does seem have a slightly better sound, though. Then again my hearing is suspect.

High-quality mp3?
 

Isn't that an oxymoron?? Really, and this is probably better served in a new topic, when even 'CD quality' digital music leaves a bit to be desired (amp-DA quality is one BIG problem), how can any mp3 compression be labelled high-quality? No, I'm not criticizing - I'm asking.

Frank

(And yeah, I kinda like the sound of analog and tube amps, so I'm weird.):rolleyes:

This is a discussion of iTunes, not MP3. iTunes will happily handle non-compressed files. As a test, I just used it to play a 32 bit, 192000 Hz sample rate AIFF file, and iTunes played it perfectly.

If you're worried about the D/As in your computer, you can use the built-in digital outputs of your computer to a nice external D/A convertor, or if you don't have built-in digital outputs, get a USB or FireWire sound card with digital outputs.

If you prefer to rip all of your half-inch stereo 30 IPS open reel analog tapes (or whatever high quality source format you prefer) to 32 bit, 192000 Hz AIFF digital, I think that you will find that iTunes should do everything you need*. Make sure to have lots of available hard drive space.

I also like the sound of analog and tube amps. Unfortunately, it's hard to carry them around--an iPod or laptop computer is far more portable. And in some circumstances at least, portability is important.

Trevor


* Edit: iTunes cannot itself rip to high sample rate or bitrate AIFF. You'll have to do the conversion elsewhere. But iTunes will play tracks that use high sample rates and/or bitrates.

Agreed!
 

Trevor,

I heartily agree with your comments (but there are a LOT of non-computer DA's that are cheaply made and really don't do a good job - and some are not cheap in price. Yeah, Quality sound isn't cheap takes a lot of space. Those tube amps get HOT too!) - I was just pondering "high-quality" mp3's. 'Nuff said. Thanks,

Frank

Sounds to me like everyone who hates iTunes just doesn't actually get the very intuitive interface and functions therein. I mean...can anyone really find a more simple app out there.

problem is getting multiple links to the same song...solution: you are not using iTunes right.
You are clicking on the original file on your hard drive that is not in the music library, thus iTunes is adding it again. IDIOTS!!!! just open iTunes and find the song there. Set it to always copy music to the library and delete those F@$#ING originals.

GEEZ! What are you guys talking about. It gets easier and easier with every update, but you are acting like this app should be interfaced with your brain or something. Take some time and learn an app before you bash it. I bet you guys all have PC's, too.

And you wonder why you are desperate for human contact?

From reading his posts, I would be willing to bet that tlarkin is in fact NOT clicking on the original file and thus causing iTunes to add it again. The fact that you would simply assume that was the case without any confirmation only illustrates your arrogance. That, and the fact that you feel inclined to call people idiots!

Here is maybe why I don't like iTunes...

I have been ripping digital music since like 1999ish right when MP3s first came out. I ripped all my CDs and a good chunk of my Vinyl over the years. I used many open source standards that itunes doesn't support like FLAC and OGG, and then my lower quality stuff is typically MP3 256bit VBR or something similar. I ripped almost all of it either one Windows or a Linux box.

Whenever I import my Library (around 75 gigs of music) iTunes doesn't like something and it dupes some albums, and it gets meta data wrong.

It already works fine on other systems and other platforms, so why should I spend even more time than I already have to make it work on my Mac and in iTunes? Plus iTunes can be a bit resource hungry, and yes that matters to me running ARD admin, a few VMs, multiple desktops, various utilities, terminal sessions, etc. I can eat up RAM pretty fast so I need all I can spare.

It is not like I am not capable of learning iTunes or haven't tried, I just don't like it. I don't have to like everything Apple puts out do I? Am I out of the club now or something?

Ok, let me clarify one of the problems I have with iTunes, maybe y'all can enlighten me and make my life simpler.

I use several devices where I need to copy music files manually (to my non-iPod mp3 player, to blank MP3 filled cd's, to share with a friend). So I DO need to know where the file is stored and get them. And looking up each one with the iTunes get info is not easy.

So I import files into iTunes, change the tags. iTunes now has them organized into a folder based on blank or grossly inaccurate tag data. I now remove them from iTunes and reimport them with the corrected tags so iTunes can store them in a logical way.

Many of the files that I have this with are things I have worked on in garage band or other programs, files that are not ripped from CD because they are converted from tape, LP or audio recordings I make.

Thanks for the help converting me.

jpclark49:
I think you too would probably benefit from one of the many iTunes utilities or scripts. Search www.macupdate.com for example.

Can't you just set the Album Artist to the main artist, so it groups them together?

VLC is a media player.

iTunes is a media database application. Thus, it is more flexible with respect to the manner in which it can organize and display the files to the user.

Why not just drag and drop the files from iTunes (instead of from Finder) to the destination CD or MP3 player?

Also, you can right click on a song and select show in Finder. It's easier than going through Get Info.

You can also select a song in iTunes and hit command>R and that will show you where it is and the folder it is in. I make a playlist in iTunes and then use a script from Doug's called "Put This Where I Want" and that will move all the songs in the selected playlist to where ever you want..

I don't like how iTunes controls it for me, and I also don't like how it associates meta data. I already have my music organized by Artist and album at the folder level, because it takes three seconds to create that folder when I rip the music. VLC just reads it from the folder level, and it plays all my formats.

I agree that it would be nice if iTunes had more display options without requiring smart playlists. For example, I would like to be able to show my full library alphabetical by artist, within the artist, group the albums chronologically, and within the albums, group the songs by track number.

I would also like to see iTunes utilize hard links (or other means to an end) so I can have the same data pointed to from multiple artists. For example, I would like to be able to list Riding With The King as an Eric Clapton album and as a B.B. King album. It would also make life easier with hip hop albums. I've found workarounds for the latter, since I am most concerned about associating the track with the primary artist.

Out of curiosity, have you tried changing the behavior of the arrows that (by default) link to a track's location in the iTunes Music Store? With an option-click, they will bring up the appropriate tracks in your library. For example, if I link on the arrow listed in the album column for a hip-hop song with a featured artist (e.g Eminem and Dr. Dre), it will show all of the tracks from that album, regardless of artist. The behavior of a click versus an option-click can be reversed in the Terminal, although I don't have the command handy.

I wouldn't mind seeing iTunes support FLAC, but supporting Ogg Vorbis is a lawsuit waiting to happen, since it is claimed to not really be FOSS. FLAC files can be converted to Apple Lossless without any quality degradation, so that's not a big deal to me. While I don't use DRMed files, I do like VBR AAC better than MP3, since it has slightly better quality at a given bit rate, although it's doubtful most people would notice the difference.

Overall, while iTunes certainly has its shortcomings and room for improvement, it is the best music management software I've tried yet, and quite possibly the best app that I've yet used in OS X. In my experience, only a small percentage of complaints about the app are warranted. Most unwanted behaviors can be changed via preferences.

Yeah I am hard to please when it comes to music. I still buy and own vinyl records. I use itunes to sync my ipod but that is about it. I still don't know why it dupes songs copied from my network share....:confused:

Anecdotal here, but I thought it might be worth chipping in: I recently had an assortment of problems which essentially ended up meaning I had to trash my library and re-import the lot off my NAS (nfs) and, yup, I ended up with a load of dupes in some instances. No idea why.

My usual method of importing stuff is to (with copying turned off) have the files on my local Mac, import them from there, then consolidate library to move everything to the NAS, and this has never caused me any trouble really. Although getting itunes to play nice with my NAS has generally been a pain in the proverbial.

Since you phrased it like that, it makes me wonder:

Does it have anything to do with how OS X treats move and copy differently (regarding which is done by default if no modifier keys are used) depending on whether the source and destination locations exist on the same volume or not?

I don't understand how you can be having metadata issues if you are importing your tunes from vinyl.

Yup my problem as well, and it doesn't do it to any particular album but it seems that the randomness is duplicated in the sense that when I copy certain albums they are more likely to dupe over others. No idea why.

Hello,

Wonder if anyone can give me the solution...

After an iTunes updated, I tried to import the previous Library files. However the message that comes up reads: 'The file "iTunes Library 2008-07-01" cannot be imported because it does not appear to be a valid exported file'. Clicking on the file in question does not open it either. What is going on?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you!

iTunes + DougScripts + GimmeSomeTune = Warm shimmering genius.

Hate iTunes?!?
 

I dont get what everyones problem is... I've been using iTunes for almost 4 years now and I still LOVE it. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who is getting into macs.