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iPod Ipod Classic 160 GB Sorting out a huge music lib!

J

jackfrost123

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 11, 2008
485
0
Hey guys I just got me a classic 160GB and maybe in hindsight I should have waited. Being a macrumors daily regular I fail to see how I didn't check the buyer's guide to wait a couple of months but in any case I really, really like my ipod.

That said I am now faced with the onerous task of arranging my library of (literary) millions of songs and spoken word recordings, a small portion of which is going into my ipod of course. So, I thought I 'd ask the forum how they've handled similar tasks. First of all (if it doesn't violate forum rules) could anyone suggest an online community specifically for the ipod+itunes crowd?

One of my preliminary queries is how do I separate spoken word from music I don't want the doors fading into my guided meditation tapes and then themselves fading into iggy pop, somehow it doesn't stick and so I want them separately. But how? How does itunes identify podcasts and add them in the podcast category in the ipod? When I change the genre to podcast (cause one idea would be to brand all spoken word as podcasts) it keeps them in music and doesn't take them to podcasts folder on ipod/itunes. Have you guys managed a work around this issue?
 
I'm not 100% sure that I know completely what you're talking about, so bear with me. OK, the iPod Classic UI lets you choose how to seperate stuff you play back. I think I mainly used albums and playlists. If you do this, The Doors won't blend in with other stuff.

I really don't think you're going to have any problems because you can very narrowly define what gets played back on a Classic. You can choose selected podcasts, specific albums, specific artists, etc.

You sound like a new iPod owner, and I think you're making it harder than it really is. The iPhone/iPod Touch interface is miles ahead of the Classic and Nano, but those are still pretty darn good. My best advice is to just play around with it and see how it works. I really don't think you're going to have any of the problems you're talking about.
 
For me, using iTunes, smart playlists are the key to managing large libraries, especially when combined with using the Comments field.
 
Hey guys thanks for your replies, I appreciate it! Yes I am a new owner and yes I am going to be using smart playlists as it seems to me too the best ways to sort things out. HOWEVER that doesn't solve the audiobooks/spoken word and music separation I am after or the query about how podcasts get labeled podcasts and categorized as such if not for the genre field. If I choose the doors by album of course it won't blend with the rest, but I don't want to have my music play on track after track and bump upon a spoken word track too!:apple:
 
If you are on a mac, use this to make your spoken word tracks appear as an "audiobook" in iTunes. That's what I've done in the past with similar issues like you're describing. Then you can simply choose not to have your audiobooks be placed on the iPod. And I will also throw my hat in towards the suggestion of smart playlists. I have a somewhat large music library myself and in preparation for my soon-to-be-purchased iPod touch, I've spent a lot of time organizing everything perfectly. Enjoy!
 
Hey newappleboy! Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I am not on a mac but xp windoze/ubuntu at the moment. But as I undertand in order for this fix to work my mp3s should be turned into aacs first. So is there a separate category for audiobooks in itunes? Because I WOULD like my spoken word tracks on my ipod, just not in the music folder, do you have any ideas about the podcast issue I mentioned?
 
Podcasts are not placed in that section just because the genre is set as a podcast - they have a completely different file extension. I'm not at my computer right now, so I don't have that offhand. You can't simply change the genre of music to show "podcast" and have it actually be moved to that category.

Here is just one way you can convert existing tracks to audiobooks though. I did something similar, though I can't remember exactly where I found my steps. It's as simple as going to google and searching for "convert mp3 to audiobook" or something along those lines.
 
Hey thanks for the link, I 'll give it a read! Yeah it doesn't work that way with podcasts, but as far as extentions go all my podcasts are in mp3, the way I downloaded them (not off itunes originaly), I dunno if itunes converts them in some way.
 
jackfrost123 said:
Hey thanks for the link, I 'll give it a read! Yeah it doesn't work that way with podcasts, but as far as extentions go all my podcasts are in mp3, the way I downloaded them (not off itunes originaly), I dunno if itunes converts them in some way.
Click to expand...

If you download a podcast in iTunes it does so in a different format. Even audio I believe, but I won't testify to that until I get home and check. Maybe someone else will chime in who has access to a Mac sooner than me.
 
I'm not sure I understand the issue? Do your tracks of spoken material have the genre "Books and Spoken"? Mine do. So when you set your smart playlists, if you want music, set it as "genre is not 'books and spoken'" I'm not sure why you'd need to change the format of all your files. Or, if it doesn't have the genre info, instead of manually entering it, make a (not smart) playlist called "spoken," for example, that you put all your spoken work into. Then when you make your music smart playlists, include "playlist is not 'spoken.'" When you make your spoken playlists, then it would start with "playlist is 'spoken.'" Not sure this is what you're after, but like Blue Velvet says, you can do a lot with smart playlists, and they're pretty much a requirement with your library's size.
 
hey jplan, thanks for the reply buddy. It's very helpful, that's the way I am thinking of doing it. BUT I was initially looking for something more along the lines of separating the two (music and spoken word) in two categorie on my ipod, as is with podcasts and music. Two separate categories that don't involve playlists. That's why I wanted to know what attribute of podcasts (which are mp3 files most of the time) itunes uses to set them apart and put them under podcasts category. Not the least because I own quite a lot of podcasts, some of which itunes categorizes correctly as podcasts and lists them there, but others it doesn't and it's such a bummer.
 
As Blue Velvet said first, as far as your sort of use on the iPod is concerned it just involves plugging away setting the correct Genres and other differentiating track details in iTunes - or if you're on Windows, a couple (out of others) which are way better.
 
hey thanks for the reply, that still doesn't answer my query but thanks for taking the time. Like I said I want a. to figure out a few basics about podcasts categorizing, and b. to have a separate category for spoken words. I am switching to mac asap so I was looking into getting accustomed to itunes instead. But I have already used your two suggestions in the past, I don't know why you say they are way better, I found them to be all (itunes included) very similar with itunes edging them ahead, but I haven't used either in a year or so, so I am not aware if any updates made them better. :apple:
 
You haven't tried doing any major tag pruning yet using iTunes, have you? :p I'd say get the tags cleaned up using either of those two before you move to Apple. Even if you have no luck with the set-as-podcast route, it will mean you'll be better able to categorise as others in the thread have recommended.
 
Good advice, I 've already downloaded the other two like you suggested, I was planning to use windows media player instead, but will combine that too, one can only do it in very small chunks at a time, that's how I sorta did it the last time around, but of course then my lib was much smaller.

I WILL LEAVE THE ORIGINAL QUERY OPEN FOR WHOEVER KNOWS A WAY AROUND IT.
 
One of the best ways I found to help me organize my music was to create smart playlists that helped determine what had been tagged and setup the way I wanted, and what hadn't. All I did was simply utilize a field I didn't normally use (Grouping for instance) and placed a unique identifier in there. I'd go through dozens of CDs a day and when I was setting up the artist and number of discs and so forth, I'd also add "complete" to the grouping field. Then I had a smart playlist with the criteria of Grouping is not equal to Complete. Everything I still needed to work on was there and my view wasn't cluttered with the objects I'd already sorted. Made it much easier. I just sifted my way through little by little and now my library is almost flawless. :cool:
 
great idea, I used to add and then remove them to itunes, add some, fix them, remove them, add some more.

Btw, while we are at it, what about setting custom fields in files, would itunes go along with that? I know mp3's tags at the moment allow that. I was thinking along the lines of setting an add date for the time I bought/first listened to the song which could be very helpful to use, for me at least, as I associate music with periods of my life, but that of course would have to be independent of date added in itunes. Otherwise I was thinking the comments field for that, but it'll be hard to use.
 
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