[BigFatDuck]

ok i know this seems pretty basic, but the help file just gives me a headache to look at and try to find what information i'm looking for (too much vague info).

i'm just wondering what steps people follow to import their cd's into iTunes. i ask this because i have just been pressing the plus sign (to create new playlist) and typing in the name of the cd, inserting the music cd, and dragging that icon into the new playlist i've made. this works and all.... but it leaves every one of my songs in the library without artist, album, or song name identification..... just a whole bunch of track 1, 2, etc. there has to be a better way to do this... will someone please tell me how??

another thing, does itunes actually make more than one copy of every song imported? i saw a reference to it making duplicate files in another folder for some reason... and i don't want to be taking up double the space for my music collection.

oh, and one more question: can i convert the .wav files into mp3 to save space on my computer? or do i have to import them as mp3 to begin with (which wasn't working for me when i tried at first). i swear these programs perform their basic functions easily (as advertised) but trying to do anything more advanced or trying to figure out where the files are being stored and how many times, etc. is proving to be quite frustrating for me. :

[BigFatDuck]

i should add that i'm dragging the audio cd icon from itunes into the playlist i've created, thus importing the cd into the playlist. then i have all my music organized into a different playlist for each cd.... but this leaves all the music in the library unorganized.

[Nobody]

The way I add to my iTunes is this.
1. Open my internet connection
2. Insert the CD
3. (My iTunes opens automatically because I have it programmed to do that in the CD/DVD Prefs under System Prefs (using Jag) when the iTunes app opens, I go to Advanced and go to Get CD Track Names.
4. When the names come up on the screen I go to File and then to New Play List, then I type the title of the CD.
5. Then I go to the top right side and click on Burn CD

That is all there is to it. I hope you enjoy iTurns as much as I do. I put soft music in and listen to it while I use my computer.

Ron

[Nobody]

I put the disc in the drive, then wait for the computer to access CDDB so it gets all the song names.

Then I just click in import button. Everything is imported with name, artist, album, and often genre and year.

If I want a playlist of the album, that's also simple. I type cmd-N to create a new playlist. Then click the first song on the album and cmd-click the last song on the album (which will grab all of the songs on the album). I then drag those units, as a group, to the playlist.

Viola, done. Sounds much easier than what you're doing.

[Nobody]

Something else occured to me, as well.

There's really almost no reason to make a playlist for each album, because you can use iTune's browse feature to listen to songs by album.

[Nobody]

I would make sure in the itunes preferences you allow itunes to automatically acces the internet to get the song and artist info.

Then you can simply drag the CD image in the "itunes source column" over to the library and let go, it will import the entire CD into the library unless you de-select any of the songs.

I would not bother making a playlist for albums or artists since you can easily browse by artist and then album using the browse button ( left / top ).

use the playlists to organize your favorites, fav rock, fav jazz, acoustic fav's etc.

As a further step I created a folder for importing separate from my main music folder, after recording I go to my import folder and manually transfer the songs to the main music folder, this eliminates duplicates and accidentally overwriting earlier recordings. ( you have to set this in the preferences to put all new recording in a separate folder ) This is important if you have thousands of songs in your library.

[BigFatDuck]

Ok, I realize I had to go to preferences and click "connect to internet when needed" to get song names. I'm just wondering where in preferences I would set up a seperate folder for importing.

[BigFatDuck]

One more question I forgot to ask... in preferences there is an option that says, "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library" I have this box checked, but I'm not sure what this means... Is it making two copies of every song?? Also, in the "advanced" menu it says Consolidate Library... What exactly does that do?

[Nobody]

to create a separate import folder - Itunes prefs > advanced > itunes folder location > change

If you do this I would uncheck the keep itunes folder organized and uncheck copy files to music folder since you will be doing these things manually.

[Nobody]

Yes it is possible to create 2 copies, depending how your itunes is set up, for example setting up the separate import folder could create this - that's why I uncheck these options.

You may not want a separate folder for importing if you are starting out with a few songs, I have almost 4,000 songs in my library so I like to make sure I don't loose any hard to find songs or create dupplicates that waste disk space.

"consolidate library" will copy all songs not stored in the main music folder to the main music folder, it will create duplicates, again I prefer to move these manually

[ 10-14-2002: Message edited by: maczan1205 ]

[BigFatDuck]

I already have over 1,000 songs in my library. At the bottom of the iTunes window it says my library is 40.24 GB. I just want to make sure I haven't already got duplicates. If I haven't changed any of the settings, is the iTunes music folder the only place where these files are stored?

[Nobody]

Something does not make sense 40 gig / 1000 songs means 400 meg per song. MP3's are ussually 6 - 10 meg not 400 meg

Are you sure it was 40 gig?

[Nobody]

If you've only used iTunes to grab those songs, then your songs are most likely only in the Library folder.

You can always perform a Find to look for files with .mp3 in their names, and that should give you a rough check to see if there are files from other places.

You can also check out an app like MP3 Rage, from Chaotic Software. You can drag your drive's icon onto the Dashboard in MP3 Rage, and do a search for all MP3s - look for duplicates, catalog it (in text form, with the fields you want), re-tag items, etc. It's a really cool program, and you can try it out for 15 or 30 days - I can't remember which - without restriction. If you've got a lot of MP3s, it's worth the $25.

Rick

[Nobody]

It's got to be 4GB - I've got 2,500 songs on my PowerBook, which takes up roughly 8GB, and 4,200 on my iPod, which is almost full at 20GB.