Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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using iTunes without losing control of your music/files

Are you like me in that you see some advantages to using iTunes for managing your music collection and synchronizing it with your various Apple devices, but are completely underwhelmed by its basic functionality?  If so, this entry may be able to help you.  If not, then… well… not.

I have a huge collection of music on disk (~300GB) that I maintain manually and am very anal about.  I like the way my files are organized, I like being able to reorganize and re-tag them whenever I want with my choice of 3rd party tools (Tag&Rename, The Godfather, Windows), and I have an extremely anal methodology for pre-processing and merging newly acquired files (files not acquired via iTunes)  to the “master” location.

However, despite my hands-on tendencies when it comes to controlling my digital music collection, there have been several times in the past when I’ve wished I had my entire library present in iTunes (all explain why a little better below).

For a while now I’ve wondered if there’s an “easy” way to have the best of both worlds.  To have my music “in” iTunes while not giving up my low-level control of the actual files.  To be able to work with my media through whatever means I desire and not have these things interfere with each other.

Turns out there was a solution, at least for me, although the “easy” part might be subjective (I’m willing to go to great lengths to manage my music the way I want to, you may be less so after reading this diatribe).  Through the following I’ll document my journey to playing nice with iTunes, and hopefully this might help some other anal music collector looking to do something similar.

Let’s start off by documenting my situation:

My intended goal:

Start using iTunes as the default “library manager” for all my music.

Why do I want to do this?:

There are several advantages, as I see it, to having iTunes manage my music.  All of these are based on the fact that I’m using Apple devices (iPod Classic & iPhone 3G) to actually listen to my music (the benefits of iTunes as a library manager kinda drop off if that’s not the case).  Some of the advantages:

  • When you manually manage music on your iPod sans iTunes, any metadata generated on the iPod is not tracked back into your master on-disk library.  If I have my library in iTunes, however,  using the “sync” option means metadata generated from listening habits on the device is now “backed up” into my iTunes library file and I won’t lose it should I upgrade to a new device (more on that below).
  • I also like that by taking advantage of the “sync” feature, I can “backup” things like smart playlists, which I currently have only on my iPod (since they make no sense in an iTunes that has no library, as mine now stands).
  • Again, using the sync feature means that any metadata changes I make to my files on disk are automatically carried over to the files on my iPod.  When you manually manage adding music to your iPod/iPhone, you lose this “connection” to your master on-disk library.
  • If I buy a new iPod, I can simply plug it in and re-synchronize my entire library with a click (including that oh-so-important-to-me track-level metadata I mentioned above).  When you’re manually managing music on the device, this is not an option.  So, if your iPod dies or gets lost, you have to rebuild the collection on it by dragging and dropping everything back.  Painful.  This is probably the single most important thing to me, as I’ve gone through it before.

Success criteria:

  1. I don’t want the physical structure of my files on disk to be modified in any way.  I don’t want anything renamed, reorganized, re-anything.  I want my file structure on disk to remain completely unchanged through this big iTunes import.
  2. I want to retain “manual” control of my files on disk.  This means having  the ability to rename, reorganize, re-tag, move, delete, etc. these files using applications/methods other than iTunes.  I want to be able to do this without messing up my iTunes library (creating “orphan” entries, out-of-sync pointers, etc.).
  3. In addition to the manual control I’d like to maintain in #2 above, I’d also like to be able to use iTunes to manage files if and when I feel like it.
  4. If, per #2 above, I’ve manually deleted, moved, or changes files using a 3rd party application or Windows (in other words, not using iTunes) I need iTunes to be “smart” enough to sync up with what’s now on-disk.  In other words, I want my iTunes library to always mirror my manually-controlled library on-disk.
  5. Since I don’t get my music from the iTunes store, I also need iTunes to be “smart” about watching my master folder on disk for newly-added files.  When it finds something new, I expect it to be added to the library.   Again, in other words, I want my iTunes library to always mirror my manually-controlled library on-disk.

I know, it may seem picky.  But that’s what I want.

Resolution:

So, was I able to meet all these criteria above and successfully “merge” my music-management process with an iTunes-managed library?  I sure was.  For those interested, I’ll walk through the criteria and let you know how I achieved each one to my own satisfaction:

  1. iTunes actually plays pretty nicely here, allowing you to uncheck the “Keep iTunes music folder organized” and “Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library” options under Preferences|Advanced (see image below).
    For me, I needed to uncheck both of these (the former to satisfy my criteria #1, the latter to satisfy my criteria #2).  Criteria met.
  2. Unfortunately, when you use iTunes to manage your music – iTunes assumes it’s the lone player in this game.  You can go modify files on-disk to your heart’s content, but none of these changes will be reflected in iTunes unless you re-add the modified files to your library.  This is the main problem I have with iTunes, it refuses to acknowledge you might do things to your music outside of iTunes… I did, however, manage to meet this criteria, for the how – see “the panacea” statement below.
  3. This one is easy if I can meet 2, 4, and 5.  All I need is for iTunes and my manual processes not to step on each other.  This is more a requirement of my manual process than of iTunes.
  4. Again unfortunately, Apple expects that if you’re adding or deleting music, you’re doing it via iTunes.  It makes no accommodations for music file management via other means.  For how I solved this, see “the panacea” below.
  5. Again again unfortunately, Apple refuses to accept the fact that people might get their music from anywhere other than the iTunes store, and iTunes is incapable of monitoring folders in this way.  Fortunately, there are some 3rd party applications that can do this for you –  See “the panacea” below.

The panacea: How I met criteria 2-5:

So, how’d I do it?  Believe it or not, there are a couple free pieces of software out there on the great wide internet that can accomplish these things for you (and me).  iTunes Library Updater and iTunes Folder Watch.  Both of them do essentially the same thing, but I’ll tell you below why I chose the former of the two  as my solution.

First up, what do these applications do?  Simply, they allow me to force iTunes to monitor a folder or multiple folders on disk for changes, and synchronize my iTunes library to the folder(s) (without modifying the files themselves on disk).  While this is exactly what I want, there is one major difference between the way each operates.

While both applications keep track of newly added or removed files in your watched folder(s), only iTunes Library Updater includes the ability to monitor track-level metadata (ID3 tag) changes as a synchronization criteria.  For instance, if you’ve used a 3rd-party application (Tag&Rename, etc.) to change some tag data or add album artwork to your MP3s on disk, iTLU will notice this, and update the files for you in iTunes.  iTunes Folder Watch does not include this level of functionality.  So, if you change ID3 information outside of iTunes, you have to acutally play or “get info” on the updated files in your iTunes library to get a refreshed version of the tag information.

For this reason, I consider iTunes Library Updater the better solution, and will continue explaining my “panacea” in the context of using it rather than iTunes Folder Watch.

To make this whole thing work, you simply configure iTLU with the folders you want to be automatically monitored and mirrored into your iTunes library (along with several handy advanced criteria regarding the actual sync process) and hit “go.”  And, since iTLU comes with a command-line interface, the whole process can be scripted into a batch file that you can add to your Windows Scheduled Tasks (I won’t write detailed instructions for this, as someone’s already done a great job over here).  It’s in this way that I have my iTunes library automatically synchronized to my master on-disk library every night while I sleep.

Before you move along here, I would be remiss if I didn’t note the fact that the iTunes Library Updater application is no longer being actively developed.  In fact, it hasn’t been updated since something like iTunes version 6.  So, the fact that it continues to work with the current version of iTunes (versions 8.x as of writing) is pretty much gravy.  Bottom line, future changes to iTunes could completely break iTunes Library Updater at any time. This is a risk I am taking.

My thoughts are that if and when this day comes, I will simply have to switch to iTunes Folder Watch, wait for Apple to implement in iTunes, break down and code something myself, or give up on iTunes for good.

OK, but what’s the process?:

Wow, you actually read this far?  I’m shocked you’re still with me.  If you’re way down here, you probably have a good idea how I did my whole migration, but just to make it simple I’ll sum it up in some easy-to-follow steps for you:

  1. Download and install iTunes Library Updater.
  2. Configure iTLU to point to the music folders you desire it to mirror into your iTunes library, and check whichever options you want.
  3. Save your configuration as an iTLU “profile” to ease repeated future use.
  4. Hit “Start” in iTLU and crack a beer as the application imports everything into your iTunes library.
  5. Make a batch file that invokes iTLU using the profile you saved in step 3 above (using the console version’s /p switch), and add this batch file to your Windows Scheduled Tasks as often as you’d like (I do it every single night).
  6. Continue enjoying your Godlike control over your digital music files while simultaneously taking advantage of the benefits that having your collection in an iTunes library brings.

Conclusion:

And, as for getting your music into iTunes, that’s it.  If you’re satisfied then I think you can stop reading now.  But, because I tend to write a lot… I actually have a few more points to make that, if you’ve come this far, you may be interested in reading.

If you’re done with me here, I appreciate you hanging in there.  If you’ve got comments or suggestions (particularly if you’ve got some super-simple “better way” than what I’ve outlined here), please don’t hesitate to drop a comment below and let me know.  Hope it helped, take care.

Some further notes (for the really anal):

First, a big postscript to all you other “manually manage” people out there.  I know you, you’re just like me.  As you read this, there are exactly zero files in your iTunes library.  You drag-and-drop everything you need right onto your iPod and only use iTunes as the facilitator for that.  But, if you’re an advanced listener like me, you might also have some on-iPod smart playlists defined that do super-fancy stuff with the tunes you’ve manually added to your beloved device.   And, one disadvantage of the “convert to iTunes” method I’ve outlined above is that you won’t be able to import any metadata that’s been generated on your device (through your regular listening) into your new iTunes-based library.

You may be thinking it would be nice to “retrieve” this data before bringing your on-disk collection into iTunes, so that you can continue to build data around your listening habits and drive your smart playlists.  And, you’re right, it totally would be nice to do this.  I, however, made a big concession on this point when doing my huge “gonna start using iTunes” decision.

See, I too, have always said that if I were to make the conversion to managing my entire library via iTunes I’d like to be able to preserve all the metadata I’ve accumulated listening to my manually-added tunes on the iPod (meaning I’d like to be able to keep things like “play count,” “skip count,” “last played,” etc.).   And, you actually can do this.  Yes – you totally can.  See, you can use a piece of software called CopyTrans to first grab all the music off your iPod and into iTunes.  As it does this, it will copy over your precious metadata too (it works, I tried it).

The only issue with this is the extra overhead it adds to the above process…  See if you’re a “manual manager” like me, once you’ve extracted the files (and their associated metadata) off your iPod and into iTunes (which also means they physically went somewhere on disk), you’re going to have duplicate copies of those files in your master collection.  And, since the metadata you want does not “live” inside the MP3 tag data itself, but rather in the iTunes library XML file – you’ll now need to somehow get rid of those metatdata-less dupes in your mater collection (in favor of the metadata-associated versions now living on-disk from the CopyTrans import).

Your head hurt yet?

To try and simplify the explanation, you now want to keep the iPod-extracted files and remove the duplicate files from your master collection.  This is a pain, especially if you have a 160GB iPod Classic like me.  Oh, it’s doable… it really is, and you could keep and carry-over all your on-iPod generated metadata… but it’s just too much work.  So, in my case, I just decided that my big conversion to iTunes would be accompanied by a loss of all my on-iPod metadata.  That simple.  Kinda crappy, but better, in my opinion, than the time-consuming multi-step alternative outlined above.

All part of the paradigm shift, I figure.

Second, I can’t help but assume that, if you’re reading this article and your digital music collection means this much to you that you may also be facing another problem I’ve worked through.  Specifically, now that you’ve got your entire collection into iTunes, how the heck do you manage what actually goes on your iPod and what doesn’t?  It’s the classic “my iPod is too small for my music” problem.  I’ll try and address that in a future entry, because it’s just too long to work through were it tacked on here.

That’s it!  Thanks for reading, take care!

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the sheets and pillow are calling

Hey there Tuesday people.

I’m off again today, taking the corporate sawmill shuttle across the state a ways to work over there for a couple days.  More of the “meet and greet” business, with a little effort thrown in to justify the whole thing.  So, an evening in a hotel and two days away from the fam… could be worse I suppose.

I’m just dreading the 4:45am rise-and-shine… which means I better get to typing here – I got music and Halloween for you today, not much to write home about.

Lately, I’ve been on this soul music tear – acquiring (through absolutely unquestionably legal channels) tons and tons of vintage 60s and 70s soul records to try and flesh out my collection. In the process, I’ve found some simply amazing stuff – the cream of which so far has got to be material by one O.V. Wright. Someone I’d never even heard of before, it’s hard to believe this guy isn’t held in the same esteem as classic performers like Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye. His voice is incredible, full of emotion, and his songwriting isn’t so serious that you can’t get a chuckle here and there. And the music, oh man the music. All the right horns and cymbal crashes in all the right places… this stuff makes you feel.

Anyway, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some seventy albums into my bender, I realized I’ve now got too much to appreciate before something new comes along – and I’d better come up for air and actually take in some of what I’ve grabbed. Soul is a relatively new area for me, so I’m excited to get educated. I know, you’re riveted right no.  I’ll continue to thrill you with the following, I’m sure…

I was thrilled today as I came up with a really neat concept to “soup up” the Halloween prop setup. Right now I’ve got live power (at 120V AC) running all around the place to power the props. I’ve long worried about this being unsafe, as a lot of my connections are simple wire-nut jobs and could conceivably be susceptible to shorts (and, less plausible but still a concern, human contact). Today I hit upon a way to move most of the dangerous high-voltage hookups under the safety of the front porch roof enclosure – and wire the props in the yard with low-voltage 12V power.

Additionally, I dreamed up a way to reduce the amount of clutter I have by triggering the coffin “popper” and ceiling “dropper” from the same motion sensor. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but to me it means a lot less wiring, a lot cleaner interface between the props, and some cool new features. For instance, both the dropper and the popper can have (timed) associated sounds and targeted lighting now, in addition to the always-on “ambient” soundtrack that was there last year.

What’s more, if everything goes right – in addition to springing down on you from its hiding place above with a blood-curdling scream and scary spotlighting, the ceiling dropper will now spray a burst of fog towards you as well. It’s probably hard to visualize, so I’ll just post a video when I get it working.

Ahem… I’m outta here.  With such an early start to tomorrow, the sheets and pillow are calling.

Before I go, I keep meaning to mention that Ben posted his pictures from our abbreviated John Muir Trail hike over at his site.  Check them out here.

Goodnight.

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Random and scattered today

It’s the end of Wednesday and I swear I’ve done a week’s worth of hard work in this first half.  Between making up for my vacation last week and trying to get a little ahead to take the edge off my vacation next week, I’m cramming…

Random and scattered today, be prepared.

Today, I got re-excited about our hike for a whole new reason.  Turns out Ben has a pilot buddy who owes him a favor and is likely going to be in town next Monday.  In recompense, he may be willing to ferry Anthony, Ben, and I to a small airstrip in the Sierras close to our trailhead.  This would be a in six-seater twin-engine job, flying from here down there in a fraction of the time it would take to drive, and, probably more importantly, salvaging my marriage by taking the burden of the eight-hour roundtrip drop-off from Sharaun and Keaton.  I can just imagine packing into a private plane, all geared out for our hike, loading our packs up and taking off into the mountain skies.  I mean, it’s like a whole super-bonus beginning to what stands to be an incredible adventure already.  And, while it’s not 100% confirmed at this point, I would say we’re trending positively (sorry for the sawmill-speak, laymen).  So rad.

Late last night the new New Kids on the new New Kids on the Block album leaked, and today I downloaded it for Sharaun.  Oh man was she happy.  What?  Oh, you didn’t know the New Kids on the Block were back together?  Yeah, they are.  All their songs sound like the last Akon or Chris Brown song you heard on the radio, right down the the thinly veiled sexual lyics and robotic pitch-shifting voice effects ala Cher’s Believe.  But, my wife, whom I love to death, loves this band to death… and has spent ungodly amounts of dosh on concert tickets for their upcoming shows (where, in the apparent fulfillment of one of her lifetime dreams, she’ll actually be going to “meet and greet” the band).  Anyway, we listened to the album most of the evening – it was even our dinnertime soundtrack.  And, let me tell you guys… it’s bad.  Real, real bad.

Today Keaton and I had a teaparty with three of her dolls, Finny, Claudia, and Hannah.  Although, instead of tea we had coffee… and we doctored it with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg (her idea, I promise).  We had “biscuits” with our tea, which were actually tiny pieces of plastic fruit (go figure).  Sometimes I like to play the big brother role and do things like pretend to spill coffee or “accidentally” knock over one of the babies… maybe you think that’s mean but I enjoy seeing how she reacts to things.  Sometimes her reponses to situations floor me, she’s so mature seeming in some ways (well, for a two and a half year old… or whatever).  Parts of my insides cry when I think how fast she got here though… so I want to enjoy as many teaparties as I can, while I can.

Goodnight people.

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Don’t old guys like music anymore?

Tonight the JMT hike crew got together at my place to make some final arrangements and do our food shopping.  Several hundred dollars and tens of pounds of pack-weight later we were back at the house splitting things four ways.  The hike nears… the hike nears.

I actually don’t have much to write tonight… but I wanted to share something I thought was funny.  By way of introduction, if you’ve read this blog for a while you likely know I’m a music nut.  And, I find a lot of new tunes “online.”  In the course of this process, I occasionally visit one specialized (completely legal and blessed by the RIAA and whatnot) website in particular and, on this website they occasionally run random polls on the frontpage.  The other day, the poll asked, simply, “How old are you?”  Check out the results:

Looks like I’m sqaurely in the minority, huh?  Me and a bunch of college kids.  In some way, that makes me feel a little “tuned in,” and in another way not.  Either way… it makes me feel old.  Don’t old guys like music anymore these days?

Goodnight.

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don’t snore daddy

8:30 or so on this week-starting Monday, and work came at me like an avalanche today.  Who knew a week of work sandwiched in between two weeks of vacation would be stressful?  Everything to catch up on, everything to make up time on and get done early.  Ugh.

Sharaun and Keaton are out again, and I’m using every ounce of my internet prowess to once again play gumshoe in search of an old breakbeat mix I had on tape back in highschool.  I’ve written about the mix before here on the blog, and I’ve been searching for it now for something like ten years.  I feel like I made some more progress in recalling some tracks which were featured on it, but try as I might, I can’t seem to find mention of a “common” southern US DJ set featuring them all… I’ll never give up!

OK then.  Another entry about Keaton today… seems to be a theme of late.

Sharaun went to the gym early this morning, somewhere around 5:30am.  She does it a couple times a week when she can, since Keaton’s sleeping and I’m home with her doing the same.  She usually gets back to find me about ready to head out to work and Keaton still down.  This morning though, sometime after she left I stirred in bed to a noise in our room.  Chalking it up to the cat getting into something, I hunkered back down into my fetal position.  Right after that though, I jumped as a sleepy little voice said, “Hi Daddy.  I waked up.”  Opening my eyes, Keaton was there, staring up at me.

Noticing that not much morning light was trying to push its way through the cracks in the blinds, I grabbed the iPhone to see what time it was.  At the same time I reached out and tussled Keaton’s hair with my other hand.  6:03am.  She was standing there with her hair all mooshed and tangly and clutching her babydoll (it was Claudia, I have seriously come to know them by name).  I told her, my voice crackly with the first words of the day, “Keaton, it’s too early to wake up baby.  You have to go back to bed.”  And then, “Do you want to go back to your room and climb back into your big girl bed, or do you want to sleep her with Daddy?”

“I want to sleep with Daddy,” she replied.  “OK,” I said, scooping her and Claudia up alongside me and covering them with the comforter.  I had some doubts I’d get any more sleep, as bringing Keaton into bed with us has never worked in the past.  She ends up wanting to play more than she wants to sleep, and, eventually, she’ll actually ask to go to her crib to get some real sleep if she gets tired enough – she’s never slept a whole night with us in the bed.  But, she actually settled right down and I started to drift off.

Sometime later, I was roused as by a tiny hand settling over my mouth and Keaton saying, “Don’t snore Daddy.”  I chuckled, and didn’t move her hand as I tried to get back to sleep.  Over the next fifty minutes or so, she put her hand over my mouth (and one time a little bit over my nose too) and implored me not to snore twice more.  I thought it was the cutest thing, and secretly hoped Sharaun would come home and see us asleep there, Keaton cuddled into my armpit with her hand over my mouth – and sneak a picture so I could see what we looked like.

But, by the time Sharaun got home my alarm had gone off and I’d gone back to take a shower while leaving Keaton to watch a new Backyardigans with some juice and graham crackers (a Dad-style pre-breakfast snack, I suppose).  Owell.

G’nite.

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size doesn’t matter

Monday and I did nothing  — it was great.

Well, not nothing.  I finished fixing the sprinklers in the backyard (requiring another trip to the Home Depot) and put up the speakers stands I’d had down since we painted in here.  I also went out and picked up an ice cream cake for Sharaun’s birthday (which is today).

I got Keaton her own card to give her Mom, and we locked ourselves up in the bedroom with a box of crayons so she could decorate it and make it personal.  Was another low-key vacation day (it’s how her folks tend to “vacate,” and I can’t say I have anything in the world against it), and a low-key birthday for Sharaun too.  Enjoyable.

Friday, as I was about to leave work, a buddy sent me a mail about a new free application for the iPhone that he thought I might dig.  Called Simplify Media, it’s a program that you run on your “main” PC at home (or wherever) and on your iPhone.  The part that stays resident on your home machine talks to your home-based or main music collection and streams it to your iPhone.  That may sound trivial, but what it actually means is something else altogether: Size doesn’t matter.  I mean, guys… with this free application, I can seamlessly access and listen to my entire ~250GB music collection from my iPhone – even though it “lives” on a machine in our closet at home.

Anywhere I have internet, I have my entire music collection in my pocket.  All this time, I’ve been waiting for a bigger capacity iPod… and I never thought that all I really needed was connectivity.  Brilliant.  What’s even cooler?  You can share your library, let other people access it.  So, if you’ve got an iPhone, you’ve also got my ~250GB of music.  Honestly, this is just the beginning of the eventual… a future when you’ll have access to any piece of music, anytime, anywhere…

Folks around here seem to have the sniffles… Keaton and Sharaun’s mom both, and now I’ve got that telling tickle at the back of my throat that says something’s up with my sinuses.  Hoping this quasi-vacation doesn’t get stolen away by a cold.  Wish it with me folks: Let me not be sick; let me not be sick; let me not be sick.

That’s it, that’s all I’ve got.  I offer my apologies.

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I dunno about you, but I loved that

Closing in on 7pm Sunday and I’m about to sit Keaton down a for a late dinner (it’s OK, we shared some chips and guacamole after we woke from our naps a little earlier).

Today was an extremely lazy day, with the entirety of our post church activities being an Olympics-in-the-background nap. I broke down last week and hired an acquaintance who does landscaping to send a crew out and fix-up the slope above the retaining wall, adding some circular stone planters and new greenery – so they toiled out there under the sun while I napped inside… which made me feel a bit guilty. I mean, it’s not like I’m some rich landowner or anything… so sleeping while I pay folks to do labor that’s rightfully mine is kinda much even for me. But, the yard looks nice – and just in time for Sharaun’s parents to get into town next weekend.

Moving on…

Remember a loooong time ago when I wrote about Keaton’s “first song?” And then, a few times after that, I’ve written about how she has been able to sing along with it now for a while. In fact, she sings a lot now, and the number of songs she remembers the words to constantly impresses me. Tonight, after we all got done eating dinner, she started serenading Sharaun and I and we decided to get it on tape. After one unaccompanied run-through, I put the real song on the computer nearby and asked her to sing along with Paul. I liked it so much I wanted to share. Here, then, is Keaton singing along with the Beatles (well, Paul, at least – it was the turbulent White Album era) to the song I Will:

[flv:https://blog.pharaohweb.com/video/I_Will.flv 320 240]

I dunno about you, but I loved that.

Well then… I suppose it’s time to give up the bloggin’ for tonight. Monday tomorrow and, since I’m taking some time off next week while the parents-in-law are here – it’s a happy Monday (I just get excited the week before I know I get to vacate).

Goodnight folks, love you all.