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iTunes is driving me mad, please help!
racingmars
13-10-2007
hi all,

i have just joined the iPod users & i am having trouble with iTunes.

i have 4 CD's by the same artist in my hard-drive already (i copied them to my old mp3 player).

i used the itunes option 'add folder to library' to copy them across to the itunes file.

when itunes does this it reorganises and splits the cd's and creates two new cd folders with one song in each.

i have used the advanced options to allow itunes to organise files, and i have also deleted them, unchecked this option and tried again. both options result in the same result.

please help me out on this before compelty lose my rag!

kelly30
13-10-2007
ive just got a ipod wheres the itunes library lol i havent got a clue
supercool
13-10-2007
Are the files tagged correctly? iTunes won't be able to organise them properly if they aren't.
racingmars
14-10-2007
Originally Posted by supercool:
“Are the files tagged correctly? iTunes won't be able to organise them properly if they aren't.”

not going to lie, not sure what you mean.

the files were originally downloaded, and self organised following the download. what is happening is i have 5 album folders, all by the same artist with a directory named with the artists title.
when i use itunes to add the folders to the itunes library it picks out two songs and sets them up in different folders with a different artists name. despite this, when you look at the song file itself, it still says the orignal artist. as such i am lost as to what to do.

please help,

cheers

TheSoulBrother
14-10-2007
Originally Posted by racingmars:
“not going to lie, not sure what you mean.

the files were originally downloaded, and self organised following the download. what is happening is i have 5 album folders, all by the same artist with a directory named with the artists title.
when i use itunes to add the folders to the itunes library it picks out two songs and sets them up in different folders with a different artists name. despite this, when you look at the song file itself, it still says the orignal artist. as such i am lost as to what to do.

please help,

cheers

”

Your files are probably not tagged properly. Tags are extra information about a song that are hidden inside it. The name of the file is not a tag so it would not make a difference if you called it 'The Queens late night bath.mp3' when adding it to iTunes. The kind of info you can tag on a music track are things like Artist, Album, Year, Genre, Composer, track number, BPM etc.

Here is what you need to do in iTunes.

- If all of the songs are by the same artist, highlight all of the songs (click one, then while holding ctrl, click the next and so on).

- When all are highlighted, right click and press Get Info. This will bring up the details for the tracks.

- In the Artist section, type in the name of the artist. Press OK.

Now all of those tracks should belong to the same artist. So all you need to do is sort the albums out.

- Select all the songs that belong to Album 1. Right click and press Get Info. Enter the Album name in the album field. Press OK.

- Do the same for the other 4 albums.

After this is done, you should notice that there should be one folder for the artist in iTunes Music, and in that folder, separate folders for each album made by that artist.

Make sure you have browser mode in iTunes. Click View > Show Browser. This makes it easier to see that your Artists/albums are tagged correctly. Some people might have the following as 3 separate artist entries:

R Kelly
R. Kelly
R.Kelly

This means that R Kelly tracks in their collection are not all tagged with an identical Artist name. Notice the subtle differences. As iTunes works as a database, the artist name would need to be the same so you would select all those R Kelly files, right click, Get Info, and put in one common Artist name.

And thats basically how iTunes works. Quite simple and brilliant when you get your head around it and forget about file names and folder names....just let iTunes do the hardwork for you.
racingmars
14-10-2007
fantastic, thanks for this i will give it a go now!

fingers crossed!

racingmars
14-10-2007
ok, partly successful!

iTunes is registering the tracks in the right album lists, however, on the hard drive itself they are still on the original locations.

how do i correct this?

cheers

joe
racingmars
14-10-2007
scratch that!

thesoulbrother, you are a star! thanks so much!

just rechecked the allow iTunes to sort in the preferences menu and hey ho, sorted!

thanks again, swearing at PC over for now.

TheSoulBrother
14-10-2007
Originally Posted by racingmars:
“scratch that!

thesoulbrother, you are a star! thanks so much!

just rechecked the allow iTunes to sort in the preferences menu and hey ho, sorted!

thanks again, swearing at PC over for now.

”

Yep, you need to enable the 'Let iTunes organise my library' option. If you also select the 'Copy to iTunes library' option, you do the following when adding new music:

- Add the music to the library
- Clean up the tags (Artist/Album is sufficient)
- Delete the original files as they have been copied to iTunes


This is the setup I have and it works great.

Once you are comfortable with that, then start to play around with the tags. Once you have all Artist/Genre/Album/Year information filled in for example and rate your tracks, you can start to create interesting Smart Playlists.
moisie
14-10-2007
Often times when you download mp3's from the web the tags have extra spaces in them at the end of words so although they look like they're labelled the same iTunes (or another player) will sort them differently.
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