i-tunes fXXcks it up...Grrr

Hi Geoff, what a pain. Yes iTunes only partially implemented wav, ie the most basic subset possible, i guess probably because MS has got fully behind WAV. This petulant behaviour of these giant companies becomes a pain in the backside sometimes. 

Any way.. The good thing is ... Or bad thing as you have restored.... You don't need to have your WAV files in seperate folders. As long as they are not modified all the tagging remains, and of course a upnp server like Assett or media monkey will read the tags and create the upnp database even if all the files are one big flat folder. Having seperate folder helps admin or housekeeping but is not necessary.

In the early days I had a similar issue with iTunes... I leave it well alone now and leave it for my children..

Simon

Simon

All true, but...

I actually prefer to use sub folders and even sub-sub folders by music type such as Classical, Jazz, Pop and R&B for example. I use 'Folders & Filenames' browsing a lot in Asset. I like to find my way around my music on a whim without searching with a specific artist in mind but just a musical mood as a start.

Geoff

I dont use itunes because its shite, and i don't use wavs because the issues with them are shite too.

Geof, fair enough. If using asset you can of course list all the albums and select on a whim which one to play from Nstream. But by using folders you can save space by storing the album art only once in the folder rather storing in each file so I can understand the advantage of doing that. ( and storing art in the WAV file itself is a non standard thing to do and is only supported by limited software as opposed to regular metadata).  

For me the problem comes when a needed or enforced utility disguises a full-blown program.

Years ago I used Windows Media Player to play the odd stored file. This I mainly invoked by double clicking on a file and I used none of its more advanced features.

I had a little Creative stick player - had to make MP3 copies of tracks I wanted to hear.

Made a mistake and bought a Sony player (no research, impulse buy) - soon discovered it needed its own software and ------ another bloody format.

Bought a cheap NAS for backup and started ripping my CDs - neurotically as WAVs.

Bought an iPod and had to install itunes - wrestled with the basics and got it 'working enough' after making a special folder of Apple lossless copies of my WAVs . Went through these re-tagging and acquiring album art. Transferred some of these tracks to my iPad and was fairly satisfied that the Apple system worked well enough.

Except I now have multiple copies of tracks in different locations and formats.

A few months ago itunes offered an update - which I accepted. The immediate result was a complete loss of organisation, artwork and tags.

I've also deduced a hint of how itunes organises itself but I don't want to have to learn a whole new program.

For me itunes is a necessary utility - forced on me by my own choice of the iPad and, as it runs so dog slow on my ancient XP desktop, not my music player of choice.

I now have various unsynced music folders, a Sony portable I gave up on, an iPad full of music that I enjoy (randomly) through my main system and a distinct preference for the simplicity of just playing CDs.

I have created many rods for my own back and gone down many blind alleys but - if you don't channel your whole world through iThis and iThat - iTunes can be a pain in the arse.

Too many utilities dress themselves up as programs - I've got Photoshop and Quark to take up quite enough of my time.

Simon

Since I am using a Linn KDS I don't have any truck with n-steam 

With the Linn friendly control points ( quite a few to choose from) you just need to pick an album under 'Folders & Filenames', hit play and the Linn creates its own 'playlist' and 'pulls' the music off the server. I don't need the control point open once the album starts playing and I can even pause the Linn go to bed and it will resume playing all by itself when I hit play the next day. No control point or computer needed to do that which is nice for keeping RFI etc to a minimum.

My DIY DAC is the one that needs an SPDIF or USB input and that sits in the bedroom, normally running off an SBT but for USB experiments a PC/Mac hence the i-tunes thing.

Geoff

Adam

I suspect a lot of us can describe a similar journey with different steps but similar frustrations and side turns.

We pick a road using the best of intentions at the time but the further down that road we get the harder it is to reverse out, if it is even possible.

The first thing that turned me off i-tunes way back was when they asked for CC details before I was allowed to do anything with the program even though I did not want to buy anything, Why should I have my CC details floating around more than necessary on the web.

That was quite some time ago. Of course wanting to load up an i-pod, which was purchased to run Control point software, with mp3, persuaded me to give in and use i-tunes in a limited fashion. The start of a rocky road.

Ah well as you say Photo management software is a whole other level to deal with.

Geoff

I'm hoping that you'll come up with the killer music application that makes iTunes a thing of the past.

Yes I found that a pain ... 

Yes it was a pain but in the end it wasn't because I use the same Appleid and cc details to buy apps for iPad, iPhone and Mac so it all comes together nicely. It does seem that Apple paid some attention to this especially with younger users wanting to buy music etc and parents not willing to let their kids loose with their credit card so they produced the various gift cards for this. I just get my grandson an iTunes or App store gift card (they are interchangeable).

If I was starting again in the Apple world I would use the gift cards rather than CC. Come to think of it I wonder if you can remove the CC method of payment from an Appleid and switch to gift cards... You can get them all over the place now.

***Update***

Just found this page on how to remove you CC from iTunes etc. http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_5652...ormation-itunes.html

Wouldn't take much to better it and be more user friendly and universally applicable.

All kidding aside - how have people found Media Monkey to be for a music organizer?

Can't wait. Why don't you and Garyi team up, going by the anti iTunes sentiments on here you could make shed loads of money.

I find it to be perfectly fine and user friendly. I don't ask it to do crazy stuff and I don't have other programmes mess with the database. It's usually the same with most things. Looking at some of the other threads, even the mighty Naim systems get in a mess if you try to mix and match other software with them.

Don't get your panties in a wad Spart - I said I was kidding.  JFC...

I jsut don't get the cult-like following of Apple - it's just a company that makes products.  If you like them, then by all means buy them and use them.  I bought them, have used them (without other software "messing with" their database)...and I found that I disliked their strong tendency to try and channel everything I do into iThis and iThat - while charging significantly more than other companies' products that do the same thing. 

My 16 YO niece wants an iPhone 5...not for any compelling reason, but because it's the "cool" phone to have among her peer group. I find my money too hard to come by to let a corporation overcharge me for a product I have found to be less than what I wanted.  (I have an iPod and the iPhone 3GS)  Had I never given them a chance, then perhaps I could be accused of some kind of agenda or prejudice, but I just found them unsatisfactory for the money, base don my own user experience.

Im not kidding, itunes is a bag of nails, its 100% primary purpose to SELL YOU CONTENT. Everything else is an aside.

I have an ipad and iphone, and have managed not to go near itunes yet.

I only use macs, it narks me that itunes is now 'required' by osx and connot be deleted.

I used to like itunes back in the day, but xld and xbmc makes far more sense to me.

Apostasy!  Infidel!  Off with your head!

Agree. For me though, it works just fine as a ripper, database/music manager and player (with XLD and BitPerfect). We do buy a tiny bit of content from iTunes, but the vast majority of music comes from CDs and, increasingly other (legal!) download sources.

*

DrMark and garyi I use all the bits of software you have mentioned plus others, like Bit Perfect and find them all useful in some way or the other to achieve what I want.

However, I was making a serious point. The guy who produces Bit Perfect demonstrates that instead of saying something is "Shite..." and the only aim is to "channel you into into iThis and iThat" you can make some money and produce a nice bit of software that overcomes one of the failings of iTunes. Other examples are Amarra and Pure Music. The key thing is that they don't mess about with the organisation of the music files. They play the music differently to the iTunes audio engine and some people find them more satisfactory.

Wouldn't that mess up my home sharing ... I think you lose your Apple ID after a while. 

I like iTunes and find iTunes/Bit Perfect on a Mac Mini to work very well in to the Naim DAC. 

However I would be interested to hear the player Gary has written 

I wrote my own player, but nobody liked it 

It ran from a Terminal window and all you had do was type in the track you wanted to play

$> afplay /Volumes/Music\ Disk/iTunes\ Music/Music/Focus/In\ And\ Out\ Of\ Focus/05\ House\ Of\ The\ King.m4a 

No clunky user interface, it just works ... try it on your Mac and you'll be amazed: it is the only player that significantly outperforms iTunes, Pure Music, Amarra and all those other players - bit perfect replay every time as long as you Audio Midi set up properly. 

You can also afinfo and afconvert ... making it easy to transcode to AIFF before you play 

I can't understand why people don't like it. 

Mr Sparticus you are presumably trying to make a point regarding people having an opinion and thats fine.

Please allow me tell you where I am with Apple, a little history if you will:

Mac 512 ke

Mac se30

Mac plus

Mac LX

Mac Performa

Mac bondi Blue

iMac white slot in CD

iMac lampshade 15 in with speakers

Powermac twin Silver Door

Powermac G5

iMac white intel 20 inch

iMac silver 24 inch

iMac 27in quad core i7

Mac 23 inch screen

Mac 15 inch screen

Ipod shuffle

Ipod 40gig

Ipod touch

iBook white plastic

Macbook Pro

two Extremes

Airport Express

iPad 2

iPhone 3gs

Mac mini G4

Mac mini intel core duo

Mac mini intel Core 2 

These things have come and gone and I have loved them all. I have used and do use a myriad of apple software daily including aperture, mail, safari etc.

iTunes is not amongst the better of apples softwares

Gary - if you never used a "Lisa", then you're just a piker!

My friend had one when he worked for Apple in Cupertino, and, boy did we think it was hot s**t!  In fact he was there the day the earthquake came during the World Series and all the ceiling tiles came tumbling down...luckily that was all.

Guido, not sure but if you had another method of payment i.e.. an amount of redeemed gift voucher money I don't see how you would use your Apple ID. I know of several people including my grandson that use vouchers. However they don't use home sharing.

I get your drift about your player.

BTW you use a Super Nova 6 optical lead. Do you know of any dealer that will let me try one in place of my Opti Chord. Sale or return or just a loan?

Garyi, nice list of Apple kit. I don't have a problem with opinions it's just the black and white statements.

Well i toned it down for you, but hopefully people can read between the lines that in my opinion itunes is a bit shite

Please excuse my cutting your post, Geoff.

I have been told by a Naim dealer that WAV files do not support tagging.  The work around (I was told) was Naim ripping software creates a secondary MP3 type file to which are added the tags. This file is invisible, except to the Naim software which somehow associates the MP3 tags with the WAV rips.  If this is correct, it would explain why iTunes believed the WAV files were bare of tags and saw them as "unknown".  Question is, if this is true, why didn't iTunes organise the MP3's as well? 

Btw, Geoff I really am sorry this has happened and hope you are able to recover the situation.

Richard