My adventures with Marv's .m4a files!

[British]

[quote][i]Originally posted by obs[/i]
<br>Yep, that's why I just stick with MP3s. Compatible to all, while still sounding transparent to the original CD (that is, if you're not using Itunes to rip/encode [:)]).
[/quote]
ITunes doesn't include the artist name when it writes out the ripped-from-cd filenames. That's a pet peeve for me since it has propagated to a LOT of mp3s you see on Soulseek, etc. I just prefer Artist - Song.mp3. So even if the tags are unfilled, you know who's singing it, and what song it is.

[2Nu]

^^^WTF? That was weird! British, I'm soo sorry about that[:I]^^^

[quote][i]Originally posted by British[/i]
<br>
ITunes doesn't include the artist name when it writes out the ripped-from-cd filenames. That's a pet peeve for me since it has propagated to a LOT of mp3s you see on Soulseek, etc. I just prefer Artist - Song.mp3. So even if the tags are unfilled, you know who's singing it, and what song it is.
[/quote]Man, thats a big iTunes peeve I have too![:(!]

What's with that anyway?

Seems like a minor setting tweak should be available during iTunes program install to allow one to set ID tagging defaults and avoid the problem altogether.

[|)]Go figure..

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"Talking With People That Agree With You Is Like Jogging In A Cul-de-sac" - Bill Moyers

[n/a5]

[quote][i]Originally posted by obs[/i]
<br>Yep, that's why I just stick with MP3s. Compatible to all, while still sounding transparent to the original CD (that is, if you're not using Itunes to rip/encode [:)]).
[/quote]

Can most people even discern the audio difference between .mp3 and other file formats? Provided you have ripped something to a haflway decent bit rate I am not sure anyone can tell the difference. I am not so space conscious given that 300 GB drives are now sale priced at below $100. Like Obs I would rather stick with .mp3 as it can be played everywhere especially in car CD players. I would give up a bit more space for versatility. My .mp3 filesthat I converted from Marv's .m4a files came out really good.

I just wish someone(computer and/or recording industry) would just use the best format and then make it universal and able to be played everywhere. Like BETA and VHS, Blue Ray and whatver the other format is.....all this serves is to force everyone to eventually have buy the other format...especially me since I always seem to pick the looser!

[2Nu]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Nero Lance[/i]
<br>
I just wish someone(computer and/or recording industry) would just use the best format and then make it universal and able to be played everywhere. Like BETA and VHS, Blue Ray and whatver the other format is.....all this serves is to force everyone to eventually have buy the other format...especially me since I always seem to pick the looser!
[/quote]Me too..
I hate when multiple competing technologies & software apps gets so pervasive that you have to be a tech guru just to make what should be a simple 'informed decision' about something as seemingly mundane as ripping music files.

I'm all for making choices, but enough of this already![:(!]

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"Talking With People That Agree With You Is Like Jogging In A Cul-de-sac" - Bill Moyers

[MARV]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Nero Lance[/i]
<br>I just wish someone(computer and/or recording industry) would just use the best format and then make it universal and able to be played everywhere.[/quote]

Well Apple's already running with the ball. Have you seen how many iPods are out in the field lately? Apple product placement has been turning up in film and television left and right also, since Steve Jobs' return in what was it, 1998? Lots of car manufacturers are making iPod interfaces available in their vehicles too.

As far as the file tagging goes: rip your compact discs with iTunes and all the tags will be filled out properly. All the time. It's completely automated. Who wants a long, cumbersome file name? [V] For that matter, you might as well include the album title as well because that's damned important too [xx(]

Artist-Album-Song.mp3 = *ridiculous*

Here's how I rip a CD:

1. I open the disc tray and place the disc in the tray.
2. I close the disc tray and walk away for say, 30 seconds.
3. I come back and the disc tray is again open, waiting for me to replace already ripped and properly tagged disc with another one.

<a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetaceans/index.cfm">I dig whales.</a>

[Frau_Blucher]

In all seriousness, I admit to hating m4a's too. Sound is distinctly better at the same bitrates, but my biggest peeve is that iTunes itself doesn't allow you to burn m4a's to the "MP3 Disk" format, which puts out a nice XML file of all the songs so their full tabular tag info pops right up in any application or player that supports it. This is a GREAT way of cataloging and backing up your music! Instead, it forces you to burn m4a's as naked data disks, whose tags you can't see until you open the song. That's just lame.

Oops, not "LAME" the nice mp3 encoder, for which there is a plug-in to iTunes if you don't like its native encoders. And yeah, on the DVD side, this whole Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD sucks ass. It's only going to kill adoption.

[n/a5]

[quote][i]Originally posted by marvymarv[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by Nero Lance[/i]
<br>I just wish someone(computer and/or recording industry) would just use the best format and then make it universal and able to be played everywhere.[/quote]

Well Apple's already running with the ball. Have you seen how many iPods are out in the field lately? Apple product placement has been turning up in film and television left and right also, since Steve Jobs' return in what was it, 1998? Lots of car manufacturers are making iPod interfaces available in their vehicles too.

As far as the file tagging goes: rip your compact discs with iTunes and all the tags will be filled out properly. All the time. Who wants a long, cumbersome file name? [V] For that matter, you might as well include the album title as well because that's damned important too [xx(]

Artist-Album-Song.mp3 = *ridiculous*

<a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetaceans/index.cfm">I dig whales.</a>
[/quote]

Does iTunes still tag songs you rip/download? Does it still automatically overtake every video/audio function?

[MARV]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Nero Lance[/i]
<br>Does iTunes still tag songs you rip/download? Does it still automatically overtake every video/audio function?[/quote]

iTunes does it's job exceptionally well. It can't redo the job that others have done half assed. So if you have a file that's already tagged (however poorly), iTunes leaves it as is. And no, it does'nt automatically overtake all audio or video functions if you don't want it to. The program is highly flexible allowing the user to very easily tailor it to his or her own specific needs.

<a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetaceans/index.cfm">I dig whales.</a>

[SwampThing]

[quote]Artist-Album-Song.mp3 = *ridiculous*[/quote]
I have to agree with Marvy.

My preference is ...

Artist (Folder)
|
+---Album (Folder)
|
+---01 Song Title.mp3 (File)

This works best with my in-dash MP3 player and my portable MP3 disc player.

On the hub I often see people put everything into a single folder with really long file names. I guess this works well if you only collect singles.

The big let down on the hub is when someone does use the Artist/Album/Song folder naming method only too find one or two songs in the album folder [:(]

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[British]

My MP3 setup is rough, but logical, and often better done than others I've seen on soulseek.

Each artist gets their own folder.
All MP3s by artist go inside said folder.
Filename format: artist - song.mp3.


For artists i only have 1 or 2 tracks of, they go in to the _misc folder(underscore to show up first on the folder list). I'm up to _misc3 now.

If I get ~4+ tracks or so by an artist, they get promoted to a subfolder on _misc. If I get even more, it gets moved from _misc to its own folder on the main tree.

Exceptions to this rule are: 1. top 40 tracks(goes in "top 40 folder"). 2. heavy metal(goes in 'butt rock' folder)l.

And the great thing about this is the massive syncronization I ahve to do every so often to my linux server for the shoutcast station.

In ITunes I try to tag it to a MINIMUM of Artist + song. If I have the info, I'll stuff in the album. Most often I don't have the year. I'll try to make an educated assumption as to the genre. I've seen some WAY off genre taggings for artists. no, Adam Ant isn't folk music.

What's great about ITunes tagging is you can select multiple tracks and you can set them all to a specific artist, genre, etc. Obviously not useful for songs.

I believe if there's no tag whatsoever on the mp3, it just takes the ilename and stuffs it into the "song" tag. I just edit that over and I'm done.

pet peeves are soundtracks, etc, where Cdex will tag all artists with "various artists", which is too vague.

99% of the time I see a yousendit track posted here, I will do a save as of the mp3 and do artist-song as shown on the original post. Then I'm done.

[British]

Another tip:

Anyone see multiple instances of the same artist in your Itunes/ipod artist list? Multi-select them all in the "artists" menu, and then it should show only the tracks below. Select all the tracks and consolidate them to ONE artist name. That way no misspelled artists show up as an additional aritst.

This cuts down on clickwheel mileage when you are looking for a specific track on your Ipod.

[MARV]

[quote][i]Originally posted by SwampThing[/i]
<br>[quote]Artist-Album-Song.mp3 = *ridiculous*[/quote]
I have to agree with Marvy.

My preference is ...

Artist (Folder)
|
+---Album (Folder)
|
+---01 Song Title.mp3 (File)[/quote]

Right, that's the way it should be done. And iTunes organizes your music this way - again, if you set the preferences that way, which I believe is the default setting anyway. Going through folders of nothing but long file names is just dizzying. It takes way too long and honestly, I just move on to the next user's file-list almost as soon as I see that sort of thing. Another good thing about iTunes is that when you make any music-file ID changes in the program, it changes the file itself on your hard drive. For example, if you change the album title of a song, iTunes puts the file in the respective folder on your desktop for you. Or if there's a typo in the artist's name it changes the file name itself after you change how it appears in the iTunes library. Music management has never been easier.

<a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/cetaceans/index.cfm">I dig whales.</a>

[Frau_Blucher]

A most heinous organizing offense is not labeling a comp or soundtrack as a comp. Then the files get scattered all over the place by artist rather than kept together by the comp album name. This doesn't apply to greatest hits comps which shouldn't be labeled a comp so they can indeed be filed appropriately under the artist. Just sayin'. [:I]

[SwampThing]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Blir[/i]
<br>A most heinous organizing offense is not labeling a comp or soundtrack as a comp. Then the files get scattered all over the place by artist rather than kept together by the comp album name. This doesn't apply to greatest hits comps which shouldn't be labeled a comp so they can indeed be filed appropriately under the artist. Just sayin'. [:I]
[/quote] Agreed! iTunes can handle this as well!!!!

My best of breed setup

EAC (rip and tag)
Lame (encode)
iTunes (organize/play)
iCoverArt (find and embed cover art in MP3 and folder)

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[MikeP]

It's interesting how we're now talking about file organization. I probably drive y'all crazy (and then some) on the hub.[;)] See, I don't pay the whole Artist/Album folder structure any mind and instead favor of a minimal folder structure based on decade & genre. To paraphrase Radiohead: "Everything in its right time & place"! My filenames are strictly Artist - Song.mp3 and the 'Monk' in me spells artists in a strict alphabetical sense (i.e., lastname, firstname) like you would see in Joel Whitburn's Billboard references. I'm probably going to write a script to parse my "iTunes Music Library.xml" file to add Group tags based on the Decade/Genre folder structure I've already laid down, that way the folder organization becomes selectable in iTunes as well.

In retrospect, I wish I would have started putting complete albums in their own folder under the appropriate decade/genre folder, but I started down this path a long time ago. I have no desire to keep compilations in their own folder. Everything is sorted out in iTunes so this doesn't phase me, but I know it drives you hub seekers bonkers. Sorry, can't please everyone!

As for .M4A files, I've never encoded any and I don't plan to in the foreseeable future, but I have no problem with the sound quality; however, I wouldn't think to convert them to .MP3 ... that's much ado about nothing IMO.

All said, I think iTunes is a killer app that can slice and dice a massive music library, even if it's a bit of a resource hog in Windows. I still use my old faithful duo for encoding: Audiograbber + LAME. Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is great too, but I generally reserve it for making disc images of MFV titles.