Ipod shuffle but no itunes

[Kanda]

It's easier for you Dub, someone that knows what they are doing and how they want it done.

That I guess isn't the case with the majority of users that have flocked to iTunes.

 

[han]

no, it's shit

you don't need media player either. You need folders.

That's it. The easiest and clearest way of organising mp3s.

Software is entirely unnecessary.

 

[Dubversion]

It's easier for you Dub, someone that knows what they are doing and how they want it done.

you're kidding right? i'm pc-illiterate. But when you download an album or rip it from CD it ends up in a folder. You then put THAT folder somewhere else if you want to, or leave it where it is. You then drop any of THOSE folders onto the player.

job done. If you can plug an mp3 player in, you can do that. I find ITunes LESS intuitive than folders.

 

[tarannau]

Erm. My music's in folders. Artist followed by album. itunes does it for me.

It's only those people with fractured, poorly labelled collections who've anything to worry about in the first place...

 

[Dubversion]

what toss. If you have it in folders, WHY DO YOU NEED A FUCKING INTERFACE?

 

[jayeola]

Directories seem to be the sanest option to me. A gui would allow one to d&d to one's content.

 

[tarannau]

you're kidding right? i'm pc-illiterate. But when you download an album or rip it from CD it ends up in a folder. You then put THAT folder somewhere else if you want to, or leave it where it is. You then drop any of THOSE folders onto the player.

job done. If you can plug an mp3 player in, you can do that. I find ITunes LESS intuitive than folders.

That's exactly what itunes does. You put the CD in and it saves a copy of the music, in a folder with track names, neatly filed under your given directory.

Itunes, at the same time, imports the track name into your litunes library and allows you to subdivide your library how you like. The master folders remain unaffected in your directory. You can also burn a cd quickly from itunes, sort by genre, play wirelessly to a set of speakers across the room...and a whole host of other features.

I don't get what's so different about it?

 

[Dubversion]

because it's a wholly uneccessary interference through an unpleasant interface

 

[tarannau]

what toss. If you have it in folders, WHY DO YOU NEED A FUCKING INTERFACE?

Becuase you want to sort quickly by genre, your rating or by number of times played. Or browse by sleeve art, or make another quick burn cd.

Or play to one or two sets more speakers, to easily manage mp3 interaction with massive libraries. We could go on here. But why not go for the bells and whistles as well as your plain old folders.

FWIW I can play my music directly from the folders too. I don't even have to use itunes.

 

[Crispy]

When I had all my music in folders, I got an ID3 tagger to go through them and put the right tags on. When all that music went into itunes, all that data was kept hold of. With Genre, Artist and Album across the top of itunes, I am never more than 2 or 3 keystrokes away from any particular artist/album.

I just don't see what organisational benefit folders give you. Yeah it's nice knowing where everything is - just like with a nicely ordered bookshelf. But this is madness in a computer - let it do the sorting for you! In real time! at your bidding!

my mum can use itunes and she didn't read help or have me tell her. that's the first software ever that's been that easy for her to use. and yet me, mr power user, can customise it to hell and back with smart and dumb playlists.

The only bad thing about it is it's unresponsive on older computers.

 

[Kanda]

The only bad thing about it is it's unresponsive on older users.

Like Dub?

 

[tarannau]

So what you're saying Crispy, basically, is that old Dubversion here is getting his knickers in a right old twist unnecessarily.

 

[Sunray]

Becuase you want to sort quickly by genre, your rating or by number of times played. Or browse by sleeve art, or make another quick burn cd.

Or play to one or two sets more speakers, to easily manage mp3 interaction with massive libraries. We could go on here. But why not go for the bells and whistles as well as your plain old folders.

FWIW I can play my music directly from the folders too. I don't even have to use itunes.

That assumes that you have the genre properly defined in the id3 tag. If like my collection, you have people defining Mogwai as Rock, Indie, Post Rock, mellow rock and loads of other such nonsense, you can watch on as a search for death metal brings up eek a mouse.

Now Vista is upon us, with its instant (and by instant I mean results change every key press instant) searching by the ID3 tags, folders become even more compelling.

 

[Crispy]

Like Dub?

boom tish

Smart oflders are teh win, though.

I can go "hmm, I'd like to listen to pre-80's soul music that I haven't listened to in the last month" and in 10 seconds, I am.

Or how about "Music that I got recently but haven't listened to yet, limited to 650MB so I can burn a CD"

Or "Play me my most played music, but not any reggae, which I don't fancy right now"

Do that with yer folders.

 

[Crispy]

That assumes that you have the genre properly defined in the id3 tag. If like my collection, you have people defining Mogwai as Rock, Indie, Post Rock, mellow rock and loads of other such nonsense, you can watch on as a search for death metal brings up eek a mouse.

Now Vista is upon us, with its instant searching by the ID3 tags, folders become even more compelling.

1. type M-O-G into the Artist list, mogwai pops up
2. Select all tracks
3. Alt-Enter for properties
4. Type P-O-S into the genre field, "Post-Rock" comes up, hit enter.

Not too hard. Just as much bother as filing stuff away in folders, maybe - but much more useful down the road.

With instant searching by ID3, folders become even more useless.

 

[Sunray]

1. type M-O-G into the Artist list, mogwai pops up
2. Select all tracks
3. Alt-Enter for properties
4. Type P-O-S into the genre field, "Post-Rock" comes up, hit enter.

Not too hard. Just as much bother as filing stuff away in folders, maybe - but much more useful down the road.

With instant searching by ID3, folders become even more useless.

No, NO. How much time have you spend getting all the ID3 tags correct? I tried and went back to lazing about doing nothing its a lot more fun.

 

[jæd]

No, NO. How much time have you spend getting all the ID3 tags correct? I tried and went back to lazing about doing nothing its a lot more fun.

TBH I don't think I've ever spent time entering info into ID3 tags. That's what your CD ripper should be doing...

 

[Crispy]

Not that long. I dl from good sources, and correct the odd few errors as I import.
Yes, if you have a massive mishmash library, then it doesn't help.
But that's your fault

 

[Dask]

When I had all my music in folders, I got an ID3 tagger to go through them and put the right tags on. When all that music went into itunes, all that data was kept hold of. With Genre, Artist and Album across the top of itunes, I am never more than 2 or 3 keystrokes away from any particular artist/album.

I just don't see what organisational benefit folders give you. Yeah it's nice knowing where everything is - just like with a nicely ordered bookshelf. But this is madness in a computer - let it do the sorting for you! In real time! at your bidding!

my mum can use itunes and she didn't read help or have me tell her. that's the first software ever that's been that easy for her to use. and yet me, mr power user, can customise it to hell and back with smart and dumb playlists.

The only bad thing about it is it's unresponsive on older computers.

Totally agree with you there.

Having all your music in a folder structure is only really useful if your sharing stuff on Soulseek IMO, I'd much rather iTunes dealt with all that. ID3 tags all the way.

The search facility is 10 times faster than using XP to search for specific file names.

Each to their own though.

I find it amusing when people constantly moan about iTunes when in actual fact there is nothing really wrong with it, people just need to know how to set it up properly to suit their needs.