iTunes music library management Question

[Baphomat007]

I've been burning my CD library to hard drive (WD 3 terabyte drive with duplicate back-up drive) and using iTunes to catalogue and organize the track names and cover art etc. I'm playing back with a Wavelength Cosecant V3 and using Pure Music to route the songs (all AIFF format) to analog preamp etc. I've noticed that sometimes iTunes breaks some of the discs out into several albums rather than keeping everything under the same Album folder. Does anyone know how to prevent this from happening? Also noticed that sometimes iTunes captures the wrong album art. Does anyone know how to add my own (the correct cover) art to the file. (Using a Mac Mini as my computer) Minor problems but if I'm going to all this trouble it might as well be right....right?

 

[ted_b]

But concerning the albums being split up, if they are compilation albums then highlight the whole album (all songs), right click "get info" and make sure "compilation" is checked in the sort category. I also add "Various Artists" to the Album-Artist category, but you can do whatever.

 

[Baphomat007]

Thanks. I'm still new to the computer/iTunes and still finding my way around. If it's not too much trouble could you spell out where to find and enable that type of download. Right now iTunes prompts me to burn the disc automatically when I insert a new one and automatically searchs for cover art...

 

[darascal]

Google Seek-a-Cover, you can find most stuff, or Wikipedia. Other's have their favorite site. Highlight all songs in the album & bring up Info. Drag the artwork & drop on the Artwork box.

 

Rascal

 

[Paul R]

Hi Conrad -

 

Fixing the album art is similar to the process Ted gave you for fixing the broken apart albums. You simply mark all the tracks in an album, then right click and select "Get Info."

 

 

After an alert or two, asking you if you really want to edit multiple tracks, you will be presented with a tabbed dialog box.

 

 

 

You can drag and drop artwork onto the Art placeholder, Copy and Paste artwork in, or select the Artwork tab and load artwork from files. If you select the "Get Info" selection for one track at a time, you can even have multiple artworks associated with the album, or different artwork for each track.

 

By the way, this embeds the artwork into the file itself, meaning you stand less chance of loosing it.

 

I've attached a few screen shots to help you out. One of setting the compilation flag as well. That usually puts broken albums back together.

 

The compilation flag does not always work with iTunes under Windows for some reason, and the dialog boxes look a little bit different, but not much.

 

 

-Paul

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Conrad - Once in awhile iTunes will split the same album into several albums even though it's the same artist and not a compilation. In this case you can select all the tracks from the album, right-click, select Get Info, then enter the name of the artist in the Album Artist space. This should combine all the tracks into one album.

 

On this same Get Info screen is where you can simply drag the correct album art into the Artwork box. If you find the artwork on the Internet just save it to your desktop then drag it over to the Artwork box, or simply drag the artwork from the Internet page right into the Artwork box.

 

 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

You beat me to the punch Paul :~)

 

[Baphomat007]

Hey Thanks Everyone for all the helpful intructions. Sure is easier when you know what you're doing. I've worked with PCs for so long it takes some getting used to...

 

[mwheelerk]

The best source for album art is www.albumartexchange.com. The art here is typically of higher quality than that available through iTunes Get Album Artwork (although that is improving) or google images.

 

The easiest way I have found to add artwork is to have your library set with Column Browser at the top (go to View>Column Browser>Top. Now highlight any title under Album and type the first letter of the album title you wish to add artwork to. Scroll to find your album and highlight that album title. Select File>Get Info>Yes. Now drag the album artwork you want to add into the artwork box in the lower right hand corner of the window select OK>Yes (you are answering a question regarding changing artwork for multiple items). This way you do not have to go through the hassle of highlighting all the songs in an album and it will embed the artwork file with the music file something iTunes Get Album Artwork does not do.

 

With regards to the split albums I usually find when this happens to me that the Artist and Album Artist fields (use the same Get Info function as above) will read differently. For example under artist it may read ‘Tom Jones’ but under Album Artist it might read ‘Tom Jones/Bill Smith’ or ‘Tom Jones featuring Bill Smith’. In this case what I usually do is change the tag for the song or songs that this Album Artist listing is associated with to read simply ‘Tom Jones’ to match the others and then within the Song Title tag line I add ‘featuring Bill Smith’. Once I do that the album will become ‘whole’ again.

 

[new_media]

You can also create a smart playlist consisting just of albums without cover art ("has artwork is false"). Click on this playlist and switch to "Grid" view.

 

You can then just right-click on each album's icon, select "Get Info," and drag the cover art in as instructed above.

 

[mwheelerk]

This is another very direct way of adding artwork without highlighting all the songs and if you do not need to add any additional tags (information) other than artwork it may be the simplest. For my needs I am usually adding or changing additional information so the method I described I use most but I do use the Grid View if all I am dealing with is artwork.