iTunes 11 and Classical Music

[unknown]

http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/

Kirk

[Emtebee]

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk

Dang, that's disappointing. Now it is worse than useless. Staying with 10 until I am forced to upgrade with my next new Mac.

Michael

[RVG]

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk

Foobar 2000 with the right collection of plugins (including iPod support
and convert/play Flac) has become my default music manager and player on
Windows.

[r***@gmail.com]

I've never used iTunes to manage my electronic music library. Too limited. I only used iTunes to moved selected music from my hard drive to an iPod. I hardly ever use an iPod any longer (too small/limited disk space).

This is highly predictable anyway. The purpose of iTunes is to facilitate/encourage/lock-in using Apple as the retail source for music (buying music, videos, books, and apps through the iTunes store. Using iTunes to manage all electonic media, such as ripped classical music, or music purchased from other retailers, is only a side-benefit.

For me, AssetUPnP is my means of managing and listening (with FooBar2000 and BubbleUPnP running on Android devices) to my vast and ever growing electronic music library. I essentially have my own personal cloud. And my commitment to using my own cloud versus placing my music with a cloud service like ones form Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Amazon is hereby all the more bold and steadfast. Imagine if your music was stored on Apple's cloud, and this move left you up a creek with no way to use an alternative. Pretty scary. Abot the only remote cloud service I would consider is Microsoft's Azure, which is a programmer's cloud and not a cloud application.

[Dufus]

Post by r***@gmail.com
Abot the only remote cloud service I would consider is Microsoft's Azure, which is a programmer's cloud and not a cloud application.

How about Jungle Disk ? Thanks,

Dufus

[Steve de Mena]

Post by Dufus

Post by r***@gmail.com
Abot the only remote cloud service I would consider is Microsoft's Azure, which is a programmer's cloud and not a cloud application.

How about Jungle Disk ? Thanks,
Dufus

Not sure why one would want a "programmer's cloud" versus a "cloud
application" [sic] unless you were some sort of propeller head trying
to make something as complex as possible.

Steve

[r***@gmail.com]

Post by Steve de Mena

Post by Dufus

Post by r***@gmail.com
Abot the only remote cloud service I would consider is Microsoft's Azure, which is a programmer's cloud and not a cloud application.

How about Jungle Disk ? Thanks,
Dufus

Not sure why one would want a "programmer's cloud" versus a "cloud
application" [sic] unless you were some sort of propeller head trying
to make something as complex as possible.
Steve

I would consider the Azure platform since I could essentially move the entire system I run from my home to the Azure cloud service (one of the Azure services allows the user to create a virtual PC, be it Windows, Linux, Mac, etc). I would run the same software I run from a PC/Server in my home, but instead from a private Azure virtual machine.

[Steve de Mena]

Post by r***@gmail.com
I've never used iTunes to manage my electronic music library. Too limited. I only used iTunes to moved selected music from my hard drive to an iPod. I hardly ever use an iPod any longer (too small/limited disk space).
This is highly predictable anyway. The purpose of iTunes is to facilitate/encourage/lock-in using Apple as the retail source for music (buying music, videos, books, and apps through the iTunes store. Using iTunes to manage all electonic media, such as ripped classical music, or music purchased from other retailers, is only a side-benefit.
For me, AssetUPnP is my means of managing and listening (with FooBar2000 and BubbleUPnP running on Android devices) to my vast and ever growing electronic music library. I essentially have my own personal cloud. And my commitment to using my own cloud versus placing my music with a cloud service like ones form Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Amazon is hereby all the more bold and steadfast. Imagine if your music was stored on Apple's cloud, and this move left you up a creek with no way to use an alternative.

I would assume that if one "cloud" (i.e. Apple's were to cease
operation or change terms to your dissatisfaction) you could pull
everything down (or use your downloaded backup copy) and move it to an
alternative.

What exactly do you mean by you have your own "personal cloud"?

Does iTunes facilitate, encourage or lock-in users into the iTunes
store? You list all 3 but it can't do all of those.

What software application, on Windows and/or OS X, do you consider
better at managing an extremely large CD collection (5-10,000 or more)
than iTunes?

Steve

[r***@gmail.com]

Post by Steve de Mena
What exactly do you mean by you have your own "personal cloud"?

When away from my home I can access the PC I put the music on, whether it be via WiFi or 4G/4G-LTE. I do not copy/move the music to a cloud sedrvice, like iCloud or Amazon, and access it from there.

Post by Steve de Mena
Does iTunes facilitate, encourage or lock-in users into the iTunes
store? You list all 3 but it can't do all of those.

I do not speak from the perspective of the user but Apple. You could say facilitate and encourage are essentially the same. The encouragement is achieved through facilitation (make it easy, convenient). From their perspective a lock-in status is achieved when their offering becomes so convenient/easy/prevalent/wide-spread that a user doesn't even consider alternatives, and/or doing so requires more efort than the user prefers to expend.

Post by Steve de Mena
What software application, on Windows and/or OS X, do you consider
better at managing an extremely large CD collection (5-10,000 or more)
than iTunes?

The combination of AssetUPnP, a fairly robust tag editor (I use Mp3Tag), and a controller to accesst the music through the AssetUPnP DLNA library (its a database running on SqlLite).

Post by Steve de Mena
Steve

[Steve de Mena]

Post by r***@gmail.com

Post by Steve de Mena
What software application, on Windows and/or OS X, do you consider
better at managing an extremely large CD collection (5-10,000 or more)
than iTunes?

The combination of AssetUPnP, a fairly robust tag editor (I use Mp3Tag), and a controller to accesst the music through the AssetUPnP DLNA library (its a database running on SqlLite).

Thanks, I'll check this out. I see its from the same folks who make
the CD ripper I use (dbPoweramp)

Steve

[Steve de Mena]

Post by Steve de Mena

Post by r***@gmail.com

Post by Steve de Mena
What software application, on Windows and/or OS X, do you consider
better at managing an extremely large CD collection (5-10,000 or more)
than iTunes?

The combination of AssetUPnP, a fairly robust tag editor (I use
Mp3Tag), and a controller to accesst the music through the AssetUPnP
DLNA library (its a database running on SqlLite).

Thanks, I'll check this out. I see its from the same folks who make
the CD ripper I use (dbPoweramp)
Steve

I installed AssetUPnP on my Windows 8 machine. It is scanning, I
guess. I can't see how I can tell its progress or when it is done
scanning. I tried a couple of players (Kinsky, Asset Control) on the
WIndows machine but they seem to want to play to a DNA device
somewhere else, I just want to play it from the local computer. On my
Mac I found "MediaCloudMac" and it connected and it showing me a
partial library but no search capabilities and minimal tag info, not
even what kind of file its playing (MP3, lossless, etc). I need to be
able to search through the library (all tags) as I can do from iTunes.

Thanks

Steve

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Kirk McElhearn <kirkmc (at) mac (dot) com> appears to have caused the

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk

Yep. They done flipped us the bird again.

[Jon Bell]

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/

Ugh. I don't miss the Composers view because I put the composer in the
Artist field. But the loss of the Column Browser is bad news for me
because I use the Genre field to identify the actual album/disc by
label, catalog number and a few words of dscription. For me an iTunew
Album is usually a single work (symphony, concerto, etc.

I'd better stick with iTunes on my main Mac at home as long as I can,
and fiddle with 11 on my MacBook to see if I can still manage with it
somehow. If Apple updates the Apple TV interface correspondingly, I'm
doomed, because that's what I use for most of my listening now.

[Kip Williams]

Post by Jon Bell

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/

Ugh. I don't miss the Composers view because I put the composer in the
Artist field. But the loss of the Column Browser is bad news for me
because I use the Genre field to identify the actual album/disc by
label, catalog number and a few words of dscription. For me an iTunew
Album is usually a single work (symphony, concerto, etc.
I'd better stick with iTunes on my main Mac at home as long as I can,
and fiddle with 11 on my MacBook to see if I can still manage with it
somehow. If Apple updates the Apple TV interface correspondingly, I'm
doomed, because that's what I use for most of my listening now.

I went along with the upgrade and regretted it for some minor
inconveniences and two major hassles — the hassles were the loss of
information on filesizes, which I needed so I could keep taking out
things to make room for stuff I was adding.

I uninstalled 11, and took advice found online about changing "iTunes
Library.itl" to "iTunes Library.old" and reinstalled 10 from the Apple
website, but that led to a rash of new problems, the worst of which was
that my iPod claimed to have nothing on it whatsoever even though it was
almost completely full.

So I gave up and installed 11 again. I had an appointment at the Genius
Bar, which I made when nothing worked, and got them to tell me how to
find the file info. Turning the Status Bar on (with the View menu) got
me filesizes of any files I selected within iTunes (and if I selected
several, it told me the total size, which was what I wanted), and I
learned that hovering the mouse over the areas of the bar representing
memory use on the iPod, it would show how much memory was left. (Some
people also say that they didn't know you could turn the sidebar on, so
I'll pass that along as well.)


Kip W

[Steve de Mena]

Post by Jon Bell

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/

Ugh. I don't miss the Composers view because I put the composer in the
Artist field. But the loss of the Column Browser is bad news for me
because I use the Genre field to identify the actual album/disc by
label, catalog number and a few words of dscription. For me an iTunew
Album is usually a single work (symphony, concerto, etc.

Somehow I have managed to rip and catalog 10,000 some CDs using the
radical concept of putting the composer in the composer field,
artist(s) in the artist field, Genre in the genre field, and Album
(title/summary/catalog #) in the Album field.

Multi-track work titles in the "Group" field.

Steve

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Post by Steve de Mena

Post by Jon Bell

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/

Ugh. I don't miss the Composers view because I put the composer in the
Artist field. But the loss of the Column Browser is bad news for me
because I use the Genre field to identify the actual album/disc by
label, catalog number and a few words of dscription. For me an iTunew
Album is usually a single work (symphony, concerto, etc.

Somehow I have managed to rip and catalog 10,000 some CDs using the
radical concept of putting the composer in the composer field, artist(s)
in the artist field, Genre in the genre field, and Album
(title/summary/catalog #) in the Album field.
Multi-track work titles in the "Group" field.

Amazingly, I do the same thing you do, but I still regret the loss of the
Column Browser, which I found convenient.

[wade]

Post by Matthew B. Tepper

Post by Steve de Mena

Post by Jon Bell

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/

Ugh. I don't miss the Composers view because I put the composer in the
Artist field. But the loss of the Column Browser is bad news for me
because I use the Genre field to identify the actual album/disc by
label, catalog number and a few words of dscription. For me an iTunew
Album is usually a single work (symphony, concerto, etc.

Somehow I have managed to rip and catalog 10,000 some CDs using the
radical concept of putting the composer in the composer field, artist(s)
in the artist field, Genre in the genre field, and Album
(title/summary/catalog #) in the Album field.
Multi-track work titles in the "Group" field.

Amazingly, I do the same thing you do, but I still regret the loss of the
Column Browser, which I found convenient.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!!
Read about "Proty" here: http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/proty.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employers.

given my experiences watching streaming Netflix movies, I dont think I would EVER rely on cloud storage as a primary storage and playback source. Too many consistently occurring freezes, lousy picture quality and signal drops.

[unknown]

Post by wade
given my experiences watching streaming Netflix movies, I dont think I
would EVER rely on cloud storage as a primary storage and playback
source. Too many consistently occurring freezes, lousy picture quality
and signal drops.

Totally different with music. You need much less bandwith, and files
are tiny compared to videos.

Kirk

[Kip Williams]

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Amazingly, I do the same thing you do, but I still regret the loss of the
Column Browser, which I found convenient.

To show the Column Browser, go to the VIEW menu and choose "Show Column
Browser" (or use command-B… control-B if you're in Windows, I'd
imagine). The same shortcut hides it.

Also under the VIEW menu, you can select "Column Browser" and choose
which columns to show and which to hide. Genre, Artists, Albums,
Composers, or Groupings, as well as Group Compilations and Use Album
Artists.

'Composers' wasn't selected on mine by default. It's selected now.

Also under VIEW, the status bar is useful to me, and the sidebar makes
the playlists show up on the side. And the View Options (cmd-J OR
ctrl-J) are useful and would take more time for me to explain that it
would for others to just get in there and fool with them.


Kip W

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Post by Kip Williams

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Amazingly, I do the same thing you do, but I still regret the loss of
the Column Browser, which I found convenient.

To show the Column Browser, go to the VIEW menu and choose "Show Column
Browser" (or use command-B… control-B if you're in Windows, I'd
imagine). The same shortcut hides it.

Nope, all that does is hide/unhide the menu, which is next to useless to me.

[Kip Williams]

Post by Matthew B. Tepper

Post by Kip Williams

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Amazingly, I do the same thing you do, but I still regret the loss of
the Column Browser, which I found convenient.

To show the Column Browser, go to the VIEW menu and choose "Show Column
Browser" (or use command-B… control-B if you're in Windows, I'd
imagine). The same shortcut hides it.

Nope, all that does is hide/unhide the menu, which is next to useless to me.

In the course of making a screenshot, I noted that there is some
justification for your comment in that getting the Column Browser is not
as simple as I indicated. It happened to be that simple the first time I
did it because I happened to be in the right place for it. Here's what I
just did.

I turned on the sidebar. I selected the Music Library. Once I was there,
the options for Column Browser that I described previously show up and
are available (in iTunes 11 on a MacBook Pro running OSX version 10.7.5).

And here's the screen shot which I hope lends some credence to my claim
that this is possible:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kipw/8263587416/in/photostream


Kip W

[Matthew B. Tepper]

Post by Kip Williams

Post by Matthew B. Tepper

Post by Kip Williams

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Amazingly, I do the same thing you do, but I still regret the loss of
the Column Browser, which I found convenient.

To show the Column Browser, go to the VIEW menu and choose "Show
Column Browser" (or use command-B… control-B if you're in Windows, I'd
imagine). The same shortcut hides it.

Nope, all that does is hide/unhide the menu, which is next to useless to me.

In the course of making a screenshot, I noted that there is some
justification for your comment in that getting the Column Browser is not
as simple as I indicated. It happened to be that simple the first time I
did it because I happened to be in the right place for it. Here's what I
just did.
I turned on the sidebar. I selected the Music Library. Once I was there,
the options for Column Browser that I described previously show up and
are available (in iTunes 11 on a MacBook Pro running OSX version 10.7.5).
And here's the screen shot which I hope lends some credence to my claim
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kipw/8263587416/in/photostream

Oh, I must have misconstrued the term "Column Browser." I meant the
ability to view albums grouped together as albums with all of the "songs"
(ugh!) listed, and the artwork and album title in a separate column on the
left. Whatever that was called, it's gone now, and I miss it.

[unknown]

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Oh, I must have misconstrued the term "Column Browser." I meant the
ability to view albums grouped together as albums with all of the "songs"
(ugh!) listed, and the artwork and album title in a separate column on the
left. Whatever that was called, it's gone now, and I miss it.

That was Album List view; it is indeed gone. It was the way I viewed my
music, and I greatly miss it.

Kirk

[Oscar]

Post by unknown

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Oh, I must have misconstrued the term "Column Browser." I meant the
ability to view albums grouped together as albums with all of the "songs"
(ugh!) listed, and the artwork and album title in a separate column on the
left. Whatever that was called, it's gone now, and I miss it.

That was Album List view; it is indeed gone. It was the way I viewed my
music, and I greatly miss it.

Moi trois.

[Steve de Mena]

Post by Oscar

Post by unknown

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Oh, I must have misconstrued the term "Column Browser." I meant the
ability to view albums grouped together as albums with all of the "songs"
(ugh!) listed, and the artwork and album title in a separate column on the
left. Whatever that was called, it's gone now, and I miss it.

That was Album List view; it is indeed gone. It was the way I viewed my
music, and I greatly miss it.

Moi trois.

Moi quatre.

[Kip Williams]

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Oh, I must have misconstrued the term "Column Browser." I meant the
ability to view albums grouped together as albums with all of the "songs"
(ugh!) listed, and the artwork and album title in a separate column on the
left. Whatever that was called, it's gone now, and I miss it.

Just to compare what you want with what they offer, what I have now
seems to be more horizontal. There's a row of album covers across the
top, of which one is selected. Coming down off of that (with an arrow
pointing to the album cover), the bottom two thirds of the window shows
the name of the album, with icons for "play," "shuffle," and "show
what's next," then a line with the album artist names, and then two
columns with the track number, track title, and timing for each. I have
the option to choose how it sorts. Presently it's "artist" (choices are
title, artist, genre, year, rating) first, then "title" (choices are
title, artist, year, rating).

This shows in the "albums" view when an album has been selected. If not,
then it defaults to showing more rows of albums. I just selected an
album with only one track, and it uses the additional space to show more
covers below the album information.

If I tell it to sort first by title, the second sort option greys out,
but it still separates the albums into albums by artist. A little more
flexibility would be welcome, but I'm not telling you anything new.




Kip W

[unknown]

Post by Kip Williams

Post by Matthew B. Tepper
Amazingly, I do the same thing you do, but I still regret the loss of the
Column Browser, which I found convenient.

To show the Column Browser, go to the VIEW menu and choose "Show Column
Browser" (or use command-B… control-B if you're in Windows, I'd
imagine). The same shortcut hides it.

It's only available in Songs view.

Kirk

[David Fox]

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk

If your music collection is relatively modest and mainstream and your
audio quality demands are not high, then iTunes is fine. I don't think
those qualifications apply to most of the readers of this forum. As
others have posted, iTunes is nice for syncing specific tracks to an
iPhone/iPod and/or possibly streaming specific tracks via Airtunes. It
is not a decent music library manager for any sort of classical music
collection. It never was intended to be so and it most likely never
will be so.

I use Logitech Media Server (LMS). to manage a library of approximately
120k FLAC files. LMS is a free download and runs on Windows, Mac, and
Linux. Although Logitech is discontinuing the Squeezebox product line
(Squeezebox Touch, Squeezebox Transporter, Squeezebox Radio, etc) there
are also free software players for all computer platforms, as well as
creative ways to use tiny plug computers (SheevaPlug, Raspberry Pi) to
create low-cost wireless streamers to standard stereo components -
stereo receivers, DAC's, radios, boomboxes, etc. There is a large and
robust user community around this platform and most of the key
components are free and/or open-sourced. I'm confident this will keep
the platform viable for the foreseeable future.

I just ordered a Raspberry Pi to fool around with. It's a $35 computer
on a credit-card sized board. You can switch out cheap SD memory cards
and change it into whatever sort of computer you want it to be. There's
already a customized OS for it called SqueezePlug which allows you to
run LMS and a player client without a monitor or a keyboard. Attach a
USB drive to the thing and you have a fairly inexpensive and powerful
music server and player.

http://www.raspberrypi.org

http://www.squeezeplug.de/

DF

[Steve de Mena]

Post by David Fox

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk

If your music collection is relatively modest and mainstream and your
audio quality demands are not high, then iTunes is fine. I don't think
those qualifications apply to most of the readers of this forum. As
others have posted,

I use it to manage a few hundred thousand lossless classical files.
What do you find lacking in iTunes audio quality?

With excellent tagging I can search and find any CD quickly.

My system (Mac Pro) is connected digitally to my receiver.

Steve

[David Fox]

Post by David Fox

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk

If your music collection is relatively modest and mainstream and your
audio quality demands are not high, then iTunes is fine. I don't think
those qualifications apply to most of the readers of this forum. As
others have posted,

I use it to manage a few hundred thousand lossless classical files. What
do you find lacking in iTunes audio quality?

I was referring to the entire iTunes ecosystem: iTunes the program
(which is actually many programs - music library, streamer, Apple
product manager), the iTunes store, etc. The iTunes store sells only
compressed files and its organization of classical recordings leaves
much to be desired. If music is bought elsewhere and imported
losslessly, the comment doesn't apply. Any system that streams lossless
files without error is as good any other. The DAC built into the
Airport Express is not very good, but you can always bypass this by
using a digital cable and an external DAC.

With excellent tagging I can search and find any CD quickly.

LMS (and other library systems) use external relational database engines
(e.g. SQLite or MySQL) which offer much richer querying capabilities
than iTunes and are also extendable by third-party developers. I make
use of special plugins that allow me to query by individual work. I can
also do things like list all of a conductor's recordings of a given work
by year, or ensemble, or by any other field I maintain. The querying in
iTunes is more like that of a large flat file or spreadsheet than it is
of a true database program. Is there any way to perform queries beyond
"sort by field" or "search for text string within selected field(s)"?

Also, my information may not be current but doesn't (or didn't) iTunes
have an upper limit on total tracks? It think it was 64k at one time.
These other database solutions offer scale, not just in total size but
in performance.

So, my original comment stands. If you have a large classical
collection, there are far better music library solutions than iTunes.
If you want to use iTunes for other tasks - syncing to Apple
peripherals, streaming in an Apple ecosystem - it will get the job done.
iTunes is severely wanting as a music library solution for classical
music compared to its competition.

DF

[Steve de Mena]

Post by David Fox

Post by David Fox

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk

If your music collection is relatively modest and mainstream and your
audio quality demands are not high, then iTunes is fine. I don't think
those qualifications apply to most of the readers of this forum. As
others have posted,

I use it to manage a few hundred thousand lossless classical files. What
do you find lacking in iTunes audio quality?

I was referring to the entire iTunes ecosystem: iTunes the program
(which is actually many programs - music library, streamer, Apple
product manager), the iTunes store, etc. The iTunes store sells only
compressed files and its organization of classical recordings leaves
much to be desired. If music is bought elsewhere and imported
losslessly, the comment doesn't apply. Any system that streams
lossless files without error is as good any other. The DAC built into
the Airport Express is not very good, but you can always bypass this
by using a digital cable and an external DAC.

With excellent tagging I can search and find any CD quickly.

LMS (and other library systems) use external relational database
engines (e.g. SQLite or MySQL) which offer much richer querying
capabilities than iTunes and are also extendable by third-party
developers. I make use of special plugins that allow me to query by
individual work. I can also do things like list all of a conductor's
recordings of a given work by year, or ensemble, or by any other field
I maintain. The querying in iTunes is more like that of a large flat
file or spreadsheet than it is of a true database program. Is there
any way to perform queries beyond "sort by field" or "search for text
string within selected field(s)"?

Those are nice features but I can type in a search that will result in
2-3 screens so even if I could pick fields and do a more restrictive
search that would probably take longer than visually scanning 2-3
screens and finding works recorded in a certain work by a certain
conductor. (I'd probably just search by conductor and click on the
"Year" tab... I use Year to be year of recording, not issue).

I will download LMS and check it out. It will play directly to the
system I am running it on without requiring other software? I have a
Pro Tools HD I/O system ($6,500) and don't need any better I/O
capabilities, nor do I need to migrate to wireless. I just want this
better system to manage classical music (searching, scalable without
performance hit at higher track counts, etc.)

Post by David Fox
Also, my information may not be current but doesn't (or didn't) iTunes
have an upper limit on total tracks? It think it was 64k at one time.
These other database solutions offer scale, not just in total size but
in performance.

I'm at 395,000 tracks. Is it slow? Yes.

Post by David Fox
So, my original comment stands. If you have a large classical
collection, there are far better music library solutions than iTunes.
If you want to use iTunes for other tasks - syncing to Apple
peripherals, streaming in an Apple ecosystem - it will get the job done.
iTunes is severely wanting as a music library solution for classical
music compared to its competition.

I really can't agree that iTunes is "severely wanting" as a music
library solution. One can rip losslessly for audio quality identical
to the CDs.

I do have some scripts that allow me to import the iTunes XML file
into Microsoft SQL Server, this allows me to have an abridged (not all
fields) database of my iTunes collection on my iPhone for me to
consult when buying used CDs.

Post by David Fox
DF

Steve

[Oscar]

Post by Steve de Mena
I do have some scripts that allow me to import the iTunes XML file
into Microsoft SQL Server, this allows me to have an abridged (not all
fields) database of my iTunes collection on my iPhone for me to
consult when buying used CDs.

That is cool. :thumbsup:

[Steve de Mena]

Post by Steve de Mena
I do have some scripts that allow me to import the iTunes XML file
into Microsoft SQL Server, this allows me to have an abridged (not all
fields) database of my iTunes collection on my iPhone for me to
consult when buying used CDs.

The iPhone app is "CSV Touch". Once in SQL I have a query I run and
then I export that query to a tab delimited file. There's a certain
minimum version of SQL Server that will export to tab delimited
(versus comma delimited). Then I have to pull it into Excel and
remove duplicate "Album" entries so I have 1 entry per album. (I use
"Album" as a unique key for a CD or CD set).

Then I have to upload that to a site and read it into CSV via a
one-time HTTP or FTP command. CSV Touch has some sort of size limit so
I limit it to 1 entry per CD/set. So I can't search individual tracks
from my iPhone.

It's all kind of a PITA so I just update it 2-3 times a year.

Steve

[unknown]

Post by Steve de Mena
The iPhone app is "CSV Touch". Once in SQL I have a query I run and
then I export that query to a tab delimited file. There's a certain
minimum version of SQL Server that will export to tab delimited (versus
comma delimited). Then I have to pull it into Excel and remove
duplicate "Album" entries so I have 1 entry per album. (I use "Album"
as a unique key for a CD or CD set).
Then I have to upload that to a site and read it into CSV via a
one-time HTTP or FTP command. CSV Touch has some sort of size limit so
I limit it to 1 entry per CD/set. So I can't search individual tracks
from my iPhone.
It's all kind of a PITA so I just update it 2-3 times a year.

What about just printing out a PDF of a list of your albums from iTunes?

Kirk

[Gerard]

Post by unknown

Post by Steve de Mena
The iPhone app is "CSV Touch". Once in SQL I have a query I run and
then I export that query to a tab delimited file. There's a certain
minimum version of SQL Server that will export to tab delimited
(versus comma delimited). Then I have to pull it into Excel and
remove duplicate "Album" entries so I have 1 entry per album. (I
use "Album" as a unique key for a CD or CD set).
Then I have to upload that to a site and read it into CSV via a
one-time HTTP or FTP command. CSV Touch has some sort of size limit
so I limit it to 1 entry per CD/set. So I can't search individual
tracks from my iPhone.
It's all kind of a PITA so I just update it 2-3 times a year.

What about just printing out a PDF of a list of your albums from iTunes?
Kirk

I presume that a version (of a list) on paper is not what is wished here.

[unknown]

Post by Gerard

Post by unknown
What about just printing out a PDF of a list of your albums from iTunes?
Kirk

I presume that a version (of a list) on paper is not what is wished here.

PDF - not paper. You put it on a phone or tablet.

Kirk

[Gerard]

On 2012-12-13 11:50:14 +0000, "Gerard"

Post by Gerard

Post by unknown
What about just printing out a PDF of a list of your albums from iTunes?
Kirk

I presume that a version (of a list) on paper is not what is wished here.

PDF - not paper. You put it on a phone or tablet.
Kirk

How works 'printing out' without paper?

BTW is there any advantage with having a PDF file over any other type of text
file?

[unknown]

Post by Gerard

Post by unknown

Post by Gerard

Post by unknown
What about just printing out a PDF of a list of your albums from iTunes?
Kirk

I presume that a version (of a list) on paper is not what is wished here.

PDF - not paper. You put it on a phone or tablet.
Kirk

How works 'printing out' without paper?
BTW is there any advantage with having a PDF file over any other type of text
file?

You use the Print command to create a PDF.

It's the easiest way to have iTunes make a list without having to go
through other software.

Kirk

[Gerard]

On 2012-12-13 16:35:18 +0000, "Gerard"

Post by Gerard

Post by unknown

Post by Gerard

Post by unknown
What about just printing out a PDF of a list of your albums from iTunes?
Kirk

I presume that a version (of a list) on paper is not what is wished here.

PDF - not paper. You put it on a phone or tablet.
Kirk

How works 'printing out' without paper?
BTW is there any advantage with having a PDF file over any other
type of text file?

You use the Print command to create a PDF.
It's the easiest way to have iTunes make a list without having to go
through other software.
Kirk

But you really need other software to read a PDF.
Imo it does not make sense to use that format.

[unknown]

Post by Gerard
But you really need other software to read a PDF.
Imo it does not make sense to use that format.

Phones or tablets have apps that can read PDFs.

Whatever.

Kirk

[Gerard]

On 2012-12-13 18:14:29 +0000, "Gerard"

Post by Gerard
But you really need other software to read a PDF.
Imo it does not make sense to use that format.

Phones or tablets have apps that can read PDFs.
Whatever.
Kirk

Could be. But it does not make sense to use that format. PDF for what purpose?

[Steve de Mena]

On 2012-12-13 18:14:29 +0000, "Gerard"

Post by Gerard
But you really need other software to read a PDF.
Imo it does not make sense to use that format.

Phones or tablets have apps that can read PDFs.
Whatever.
Kirk

And hopefully your newsreader has filters to weed out Gerard's "posts".

Steve

[dr.narcolepsy]

Post by unknown

Post by Gerard

Post by Gerard
But you really need other software to read a PDF.

Imo it does not make sense to use that format.

Phones or tablets have apps that can read PDFs.

It's hard to imagine that anyone's got an iPhone or an iPad without PDF
reading capability, even if it wasn't intentionally added. As in, you'd
almost have to be trying hard to prevent PDF reading from being installed
or invoked in order not to have it.

Some iTunes / playback system commentary -

I miss the "no art / no pictures" Genre > Artist > Album > Title view in
iTunes. I mostly use iTunes to manage apps on my various iDevices and also
to manage the music on those same devices. I guess I'll look for a free
alternative for loading / managing the music.

I use foobar2000 as my music player (i have multiple drobo units to hold my
music library) and use MonkeyMote on the iPad as a real nice remote control
(and *it* still gives me the Genre > Artist > Album > Title view!). It
works great. I'm poor, so my music is just played straight from my laptop
to a pair of m-audio av40s. Someday(!), I'll get a good quality amp / dac
and better (but still necessarily small) speakers. I'm always curious about
hearing what other people, also on a limited budget, have found to be
acceptable solutions.

And, for all I know, foobar2000 has plugins to manage iDevices - or can
even do it without plugins.

Oh - the one frustration with my MonkeyMote / foobar2000 setup is that it
seems like I'm having to download and install plugin updates every few
weeks. It just stops working if I don't keep up with the updates! At least
they're small and easy to install, it's just a bit of a pain to work into
my schedule.

[O]

Post by Gerard

On 2012-12-13 11:50:14 +0000, "Gerard"

Post by Gerard

Post by unknown
What about just printing out a PDF of a list of your albums from iTunes?
Kirk

I presume that a version (of a list) on paper is not what is wished here.

PDF - not paper. You put it on a phone or tablet.
Kirk

How works 'printing out' without paper?

Generally, the PDF technology intercepts commands normally sent to a
printer and creates a PDF file from those commands which will duplicate
what would have been sent to the printer, and readable through Adobe
reader and other PDF readers. On most computers, you issue a print
command, and select the option to save the print as a PDF file.

Post by Gerard
BTW is there any advantage with having a PDF file over any other type of text
file?

Yes, it allows formatting and layout, which standard text files don't
have, and is also readable by a whole lot of applications on a whole
lot of platforms, even more so than a Microsoft Word document.

-Owen

[Matthew B. Tepper]

I do have some scripts that allow me to import the iTunes XML file into
Microsoft SQL Server, this allows me to have an abridged (not all
fields) database of my iTunes collection on my iPhone for me to consult
when buying used CDs.

The iPhone app is "CSV Touch". Once in SQL I have a query I run and then
I export that query to a tab delimited file. There's a certain minimum
version of SQL Server that will export to tab delimited (versus comma
delimited). Then I have to pull it into Excel and remove duplicate
"Album" entries so I have 1 entry per album. (I use "Album" as a unique
key for a CD or CD set).
Then I have to upload that to a site and read it into CSV via a one-time
HTTP or FTP command. CSV Touch has some sort of size limit so I limit it
to 1 entry per CD/set. So I can't search individual tracks from my
iPhone.
It's all kind of a PITA so I just update it 2-3 times a year.

I also use CSV Touch on my iPhone. I bought several other database apps
before this one: HanDBase, IDB Datamaster Pro, and Tap Forms Organizer.
One of these, I think IDB Datamaster Pro, did nothing more useful than show
me a cartoon drawing of a penguin whenever I started it. What I REALLY
wanted was something which worked on the iPhone the way that MobileDB had
worked on my old Palms, simply displaying one individual record at a time
from an imported .csv file. That turned out to be CSV Touch, but I had to
kiss those other software frogs (and a penguin) before finding it.

[Steve de Mena]

Post by David Fox

Post by Steve de Mena
With excellent tagging I can search and find any CD quickly.

LMS (and other library systems) use external relational database
engines (e.g. SQLite or MySQL) which offer much richer querying
capabilities than iTunes and are also extendable by third-party
developers.

I have two Synology DS series NASs with backup copies of my music
database. I see "Logitech Media Server 7.7.2-006" is available as a
package to load and run on the NAS. I installed it, pointed it to my
music folder and it's rescanning. I imagine it might take a day or so
to fully scan. Will it import all ID3 tag fields it finds in the files?

OK, so how do I listen to this music from my Mac? And I guess I have
lost the ability to sync music to my iPods and iPhones?

Steve

[unknown]

Post by Steve de Mena

Post by David Fox
If your music collection is relatively modest and mainstream and your
audio quality demands are not high, then iTunes is fine. I don't think
those qualifications apply to most of the readers of this forum. As
others have posted,

I use it to manage a few hundred thousand lossless classical files.
What do you find lacking in iTunes audio quality?

Agreed. There is no difference in the audio quality of iTunes or any
other player. I've tried some of thoes audiophile players, and they
make no difference at all, other than adding reverb or EQ.

Kirk

[dr.narcolepsy]

Post by David Fox
I use Logitech Media Server (LMS). to manage a library of approximately
120k FLAC files. LMS is a free download and runs on Windows, Mac, and
Linux. Although Logitech is discontinuing the Squeezebox product line

David - is Logitech getting out of that market, entirely, or are they just
changing/evolving their product line? If they're still going to serve the
same market that the squeezebox products served, do you know the name(s) of
the new stuff? Thanks.

[David Fox]

Post by dr.narcolepsy

Post by David Fox
I use Logitech Media Server (LMS). to manage a library of approximately
120k FLAC files. LMS is a free download and runs on Windows, Mac, and
Linux. Although Logitech is discontinuing the Squeezebox product line

David - is Logitech getting out of that market, entirely, or are they just
changing/evolving their product line? If they're still going to serve the
same market that the squeezebox products served, do you know the name(s) of
the new stuff? Thanks.

They've put out a new line that focuses more on streaming services
(Pandora, Spotify, etc) more so than streaming collections. There will
still be a proprietary server to run that utilizes much of the code from
LMS but many of the collection-oriented features have been eliminated or
dumbed down. Their new hardware will not be compatible with LMS, nor
will their old hardware be compatible with their new server. I believe
the name of the new product line is Logitech UE.

While I admit bias based on being a happy LMS customer, I think this is
a bad move though I can understand why they did it. Apple and Sonos
have dominated the new streaming home audio market. Sonos wisely
configured their system to run off of iTunes/Airtunes. Since so many
people already have their music collections on iTunes, this created a
prohibitive advantage with a vast majority of potential customers.
Sonos also figured out that many of their customers were more interested
in streaming services - Pandora, Spotify, podcasts, Internet Radio -
than they are purchasing and warehousing music. LMS handles these as
well but requires the use of LMS running on something.

So while I understand Logitech throwing in the towel with LMS, I don't
understand why their new solution still requires a proprietary server.
They've done nothing to counter the major advantage Sonos had over them
with LMS. Oh well. As long as LMS remains supported by the user
community and third-party client solutions are available, I'll be fine
with what I have.

DF

[David Fox]

Post by David Fox

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk

If your music collection is relatively modest and mainstream and your
audio quality demands are not high, then iTunes is fine. I don't think
those qualifications apply to most of the readers of this forum. As
others have posted, iTunes is nice for syncing specific tracks to an
iPhone/iPod and/or possibly streaming specific tracks via Airtunes. It
is not a decent music library manager for any sort of classical music
collection. It never was intended to be so and it most likely never will be so.
I use Logitech Media Server (LMS). to manage a library of approximately
120k FLAC files. LMS is a free download and runs on Windows, Mac, and
Linux. Although Logitech is discontinuing the Squeezebox product line
(Squeezebox Touch, Squeezebox Transporter, Squeezebox Radio, etc) there
are also free software players for all computer platforms, as well as
creative ways to use tiny plug computers (SheevaPlug, Raspberry Pi) to
create low-cost wireless streamers to standard stereo components - stereo
receivers, DAC's, radios, boomboxes, etc. There is a large and robust
user community around this platform and most of the key components are
free and/or open-sourced. I'm confident this will keep the platform
viable for the foreseeable future.
I just ordered a Raspberry Pi to fool around with. It's a $35 computer on
a credit-card sized board. You can switch out cheap SD memory cards and
change it into whatever sort of computer you want it to be. There's
already a customized OS for it called SqueezePlug which allows you to run
LMS and a player client without a monitor or a keyboard. Attach a USB
drive to the thing and you have a fairly inexpensive and powerful music server and player.
http://www.raspberrypi.org
http://www.squeezeplug.de/
DF

I got the Raspberry Pi in the mail on Thursday. I got the Squeezeplug
version of the operating system working fairly quickly but I've had zero
success getting it to play nicely with a USB DAC (HRT Music Streamer II).
I've been having fits tweaking ALSA settings to no effect. Reading various
online forums, it appears that the ALSA drivers and/or the USB drivers have
some issues that need to be ironed out. Given the youth of the product and
the vibrancy of the community, I have little doubt that these issues will
be solved at some point. Next I'm going to try to run LMS on the thing off
of a backup drive. That shouldn't be affected by these issues.

DF

DF

[operafan]

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk
--
Kirkville --http://www.mcelhearn.com
Writings about more than just Macs
Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ:http://www.mcelhearn.com/itunes

This article is ill-informed. You can turn on the composer column and
album column when you select "Songs." You can also turn the column
browser back on. I don't see this edition of iTunes as **worse** than
the last version. It's just not an improvement when it comes to
classical music.

[Steve de Mena]

Post by operafan

Post by unknown
http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/
Kirk
--
Kirkville --http://www.mcelhearn.com
Writings about more than just Macs
Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ:http://www.mcelhearn.com/itunes

This article is ill-informed. You can turn on the composer column and
album column when you select "Songs."

I'm pretty sure Kirk is aware of that.

Post by operafan
You can also turn the column
browser back on.

I'm pretty sure Kirk is aware of that too. Isn't that the screenshot
in the article?

Post by operafan
I don't see this edition of iTunes as **worse** than
the last version. It's just not an improvement when it comes to
classical music.

Steve

[unknown]

Post by Steve de Mena

Post by operafan
You can also turn the column
browser back on.

I'm pretty sure Kirk is aware of that too. Isn't that the screenshot
in the article?
"It’s still available, but only in one view: Songs."

Kirk

[Matthew B. Tepper]

operafan <***@gmail.com> appears to have caused the following
letters to be typed in news:a306b0f2-d29f-432d-8c7c-fcfe5b4e2869

I don't see this edition of iTunes as **worse** than the last version. It's
just not an improvement when it comes to classical music.

Since I have completely lost the view that I used almost exclusively, I most
definitely see this version as worse than the previous one.