iTunes Questions

[Moosbrugger]

When I'm viewing my library in "Song" mode -- i.e., I view song, album, artist, time, composer, genre, going across, and I highlight the Genre column, if I try to search by typing in the first letters of the genre I want, the search runs in the song column. That is, If I want to get to my "Punk" genre, and I type "PU", the search function lands on the song "Punch, drunk." Not the genre "punk".

 

Is there a way to fix this?

[Musicophile]

The search with the little window is unfortunately limited to a handful of fields, mainly Track name, artist, album artists I believe.

 

For any more sophisticated searches you need to use smart playlists, where you can search for any specific field.

 

Unfortunately, this is one of Itunes built-in limitations.

[Moosbrugger]

Thanks. I guess it's not a big deal.

 

Did you say earlier that you keep low-res versions of albums on your iTunes to synch to an iPod/iPhone? Do you have a way of labeling or storing them to keep them from cluttering up your library?

[Musicophile]

No I don't, Itunes automatically converts to AAC256 during synchronizing, so no need to keep copies.

[Moosbrugger]

Yes, of course. I've been keeping my iPod tracks at the original bit rate, and downsampling the hi-res files to get onto the iPod. I need a way to segregate those so I don't have to see them in my library.

 

Ok, one more question. Let's say I've got a classical piece with many movements -- say, something like Handel's Messiah. And each "song" is just the song of the movement, with no other identifier before it (i.e., "Messiah"). I assume there's no way to highlight a bunch of songs and "bulk" add a single word to the beginning of each name? Doing that would automatically erase all of the names?

[Musicophile]

Yes, of course. I've been keeping my iPod tracks at the original bit rate, and downsampling the hi-res files to get onto the iPod. I need a way to segregate those so I don't have to see them in my library.

 

Ok, one more question. Let's say I've got a classical piece with many movements -- say, something like Handel's Messiah. And each "song" is just the song of the movement, with no other identifier before it (i.e., "Messiah"). I assume there's no way to highlight a bunch of songs and "bulk" add a single word to the beginning of each name? Doing that would automatically erase all of the names?

Here you go:

 

Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes ♫ Append to Selected Tag v3.0

[Moosbrugger]

Wow. Thank you!

[Moosbrugger]

What's the best way to get videos off the iPhone? I thought they went automatically to the photostream, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

When I connect the phone to iTunes, I see how to add videos, but not how to get videos off.

while I'm on the subject, I created a photo album on my phone. but I can't figure out how to copy that album to my computer or ipad. all the photos are there (on the computer and ipad), but not the album.

[Moosbrugger]

Here you go:

 

Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes ♫ Append to Selected Tag v3.0

 

these are great. what is considered an appropriate donation?

[Moosbrugger]

Two issues:

 

1) I'm syncing a Classic iPod to iTunes. I make changes to metadata in my iTunes library, such as to composer, Album, etc. but when I sync with the iPod, for some, but not all, of the albums, the iPod's data is overwriting the iTunes library. I thought there was something to check so that iTunes library always wins, but I can't find that. It's very annoying and wasting a lot of my time.

 

2) My play count on the iPod is not synching to the library. Again, I thought there was a setting for this, but I can't find it. I think I found the problem. I'm manually loading the songs onto the iPod. It seems that when I do this, the play count does not sync. If I go back to auto load (i.e., downsample my files to 256), will the old list of play counts come over?

[new_media]

You can also batch edit tags with Tag (on a Mac) and they will be updated in iTunes.

[Moosbrugger]

Here's what happens.

 

I want to remove the composer tag from all albums that aren't classical. I went through and did batch delete for all of them. When I synced my iPod, it puts back the composer tag for about 5 or 6 albums. I looked for a setting that would suggest that these albums are set to over-write iTunes, but there doesn't seem to be one. No matter how many times I remove the composer tags for these albums, they get returned when I synch. They are all albums I bought from iTunes.over the course of years.

[wgscott]

Here's what happens.

 

I want to remove the composer tag from all albums that aren't classical.

 

Me too.

 

I gave all the Classical composers individual last-name-only entries. Everything non-classical has a single white space in the composer field. I did this within iTunes by the way, by just doing a batch-select and get info.

[GregWormald]

Yes, of course. I've been keeping my iPod tracks at the original bit rate, and downsampling the hi-res files to get onto the iPod. I need a way to segregate those so I don't have to see them in my library.

 

Just make a smart playlist that selects the higher bit rates.

 

Greg

[Moosbrugger]

Me too.

 

I gave all the Classical composers individual last-name-only entries. Everything non-classical has a single white space in the composer field. I did this within iTunes by the way, by just doing a batch-select and get info.

 

I like the "space" idea. I was just leaving the Composer field blank. But I've noticed more changes in iTunes. I changed all my composer tags to last name, first name. For a bunch, they were changed to first, last. Or changed to what seems to be the "official" composer tag -- like adding the birth date of the composer. I wonder if this is an iTunes Match issue? Somehow match (which I've turned off on my computer) is re-setting the tag?

[wgscott]

I've never had any tag I have changed revert or change to something else automatically.

 

I have no idea why this would be happening to you.

 

If you want to ensure nothing gets changed, you can set write permissions so that the files cannot be changed (until you reset the permissions). I have a blog post on that. But it shouldn't be necessary for this.

 

You can compress music on the fly to put it on an iPod. There is no reason to maintain a second, degraded copy in your iTunes library.

[Moosbrugger]

it happened again -- but I realized it's not an iPod sync issue. A few days ago, I went through and put a space in all the composer tags for non-classical. This morning I noticed that about 10 albums had the composer tags put back in - although I haven't connected my iPod. I wonder if this is an iTunes Match issue? Although I've got it turned off. Since these are all albums I purchased off itunes, maybe there's a setting to automatically download material from iTunes? (Although that wouldn't explain why some but not all of the albums are pulling information.)

[Audio_ELF]

it happened again -- but I realized it's not an iPod sync issue. A few days ago, I went through and put a space in all the composer tags for non-classical. This morning I noticed that about 10 albums had the composer tags put back in. I wonder if this is an iTunes Match issue? Although I've got it turned off. Since these are all albums I purchased off itunes, maybe there's a setting to automatically download material from iTunes? (Although that wouldn't explain why some but not all of the albums are pulling information.)

Are you on a Mac?

 

If so, may be worth checking the permissions for your music files are set correctly.

 

Eloise

[wgscott]

I set my permissions "incorrectly" and this doesn't happen. I have never tried using iTunes match. This sounds evil.

[Moosbrugger]

Where are these permission? In iTunes? Or System Preferences? (Yes, I'm on a Mac.)

[new_media]

The only problem I have ever had with iTunes Match "reverting" is with cover art.

 

I don't know if they ever fixed that bug, but there were a few albums that I tried to update the cover art 5 or 6 times and every time I ran iTunes Match they would revert back to the original.

 

I don't recall it ever happening with other tags.

[wgscott]

Where are these permission? In iTunes? Or System Preferences? (Yes, I'm on a Mac.)

 

I do it manually.

 

cf: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f7-disk-storage-music-library-storage/does-anyone-write-protect-their-audio-files-19438/

[Moosbrugger]

FYI -- I just received this reply on the Apple help forum. Seems like this is a known issue:

 

Yes, others are seeing this. Something in purchased media (I am pretty sure this has only happened with purchased media) is periodically checking back with the iTunes Store and resetting the tags in the iTunes library file but not in the actual media files (metadata are stored in both). I haven't seen a truly systematic diagnosis of the issue (I use an old iTunes and have no iTunes account so I can't test anything myself). There are temporary workarounds but tags will still revert after a time. 2014 discussion about edited tags for Store purchases reverting to originals - https://discussions.apple.com/message/26077896 - edited tags are still present in the media file but revert to the originals in the iTunes library file. Workaround is to refresh tags so media file tags are re-read and used in library file.https://discussions.apple.com/message/26193185 Send feedback to Apple about this so they know it is an issue they need to investigate:Apple - iTunes - Feedback Don't expect an immediate solution but maybe the next time they update the software it may be resolved.

[Moosbrugger]

So, I downloaded the Linn Music 24-Bits of Christmas, and iTunes had it sorted in my library in the proper order from the "album," with the artist listed as "Linn Music." I then added the various track artists as the "Album Artist," and now iTunes sorts the album alphabetically by Album Artist, instead of the "1 of 25," "2 of 25," etc. of the album.

 

Anyone know how I get it back to the "proper" order?

[new_media]

You have to put the individual artists in the Artist box and "Linn Music" in the Album Artist box.

 

iTunes reads "Artist" as the artist for each individual track and "Album Artist" as the artist for the entire album. Otherwise if you had two albums with identical titles from different artists, the tracks would get jumbled together.