I think my iTunes library is getting too big to manage

I'm not really convinced that I need more than 5,000 songs.

But you brought up a good point: I can't get all my shit on my iPod.

Android OTM.

No genre distinctions cause 1) Life's too short and 2) I'm sure I could never come up with genre distinctions that I'd be happy with

I've got about half my CD collection listed here, if you're looking for rare stuff:

http://ttc.gnarf.org/listuserext.pl?username=peregrinate

39 Genres --> 158 Artists --> 708 Albums --> 8790 Songs --> 25.9 Days --> 35.14 GB

I have just under 3000 songs, only 8.5 days of music, but 560 "Artists".

Actually, the 158 artists include a few that are essentially the same people - Radiohead/Jonny Greenwood/Thom Yorke... Sonic Youth/Ciccone Youth/Thurston Moore... Eno/Brian Eno/Brian Eno + David Byrne... Aphex Twin/AFX... - including a couple more that I am probably forgetting, so basically, you could cut the number down to 145 or so, I'd bet.

I did that about a year ago and it was great for archiving everything I had at the time, but since then I've gotten into a number of subgenres that are universes of their own (Italian Prog, Early Moog ish, etc.) and my library has quickly regained and since outgrown its former size.

I did that about a year ago and it was great for archiving everything I had at the time, but since then I've gotten into a number of subgenres that are universes of their own (Italian Prog, Early Moog ish, etc.) and my library has quickly regained and since outgrown its former size.

959GB of mp3/AACs here. 223 DVD-Rs of stuff.
-- Elvis Telecom (quartzcit...), November 4th, 2006.

Predictably, I really really like this idea that I had completely not considered.

-- Elvis Telecom (quartzcit...), Saturday 1:58 AM. (Chris Barrus) (later)

chills. wow.

I figure in this day and age, I can delete pretty much anything I want and find it again later. Sometimes I get the urge to hear Sarah McLachlan, but I don't really need "Building A Mystery" on my hard drive all the time.

Make that 228 DVD-Rs. I held off for a bit until I got the new laptop (faster burning now!)

i want to free up space on my hard drive by moving tracks to an external drive. can i keep those songs in the itunes library, and thus on the ipod, by switching to manual update of the library?

if so then just move the location of the library:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748

I also like the library-building aspect of it all, and especially in social situations, like road trips or weddings, it's fun when people make requests -- like "Oh shit, do you have 'Humpty Dance' on there?" -- and I'm able to comply.

Jed, thanks for the article link -- just what I was looking for.

(after tonight's record store trip...)
39 Genres --> 158 Artists --> 708 Albums --> 8790 Songs --> 25.9 Days --> 35.14 GB

-- Stephen Bush (Stephen B.), Thursday, November 2, 2006 11:52 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

so it turns out i've expanded a good amount in the last year:

44 Genres / 202 Artists / 1035 Albums / 13,241 Songs / 38.9 Days / 52.50 GB

OK ITUNES QWERSTION FOR U ALL

i've got my itunes library on an external HD; i run itunes on a laptop.

for taking stuff mobile (like to play pretend-dj at parties etc) i'd like to not have to drag the external along. (i'd like something a little better than my ipod for it, too. party shuffle is what i'm after).

i have playlists of stuff that would be good to play out; is there any easy way to set up a second library on the laptop's local drive made up of those playlists? or am i kidding myself

mac o pc?

mac

i've found some shit about having multiple libraries on mac, that's helpful : http://www.allthingsmarked.com/2006/09/13/howto-manage-multiple-libraries-in-itunes-7/

what i'm trying to avoid is pulling off every track i want "portable" from the external, putting them on the reg'lar HD, opening them one at a time, etc... bleh

just put them all in a playlist then select all then drag them into a folder on yr local drive

o rly that would've worked?? hah, i came up with a more kludgy process that worked

1. export that playlist as xml
2. quit itunes
3. back up the itunes library db and xml files (put 'em somewhere else)
4. start itunes holding down option
5. choose 'create new library' called MOBILE
7. itunes opens up empty >> set library from the external back to internal with 'automatically copy' set ON
8. import xml playlist: all files copied back

this can get you most of the way there -

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts07.php?page=2#syncplaylistfilestofolder

whoa hot shit tracer, thx

I highly recommend Media Monkey to those of you maintaining large music libraries. Great tagging functions, album art is a snap, and it syncs to most (I think) mp3 players. The only drawback is no video compatibility.

They're finishing the beta testing of version 3.0. Download it here:

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15384&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

i only have 6433 songs, and i still feel that it's too big to manage.

(most of these are individual tracks)

i am starting feel like i may never have control of my music.

i have resisted classifying by genre for YEARS, because i don't like pigeonholing anything. but editing all these g8d#$#mn ID3 tags is like pigeonholing taken to the extreme.

is my only way out to make playlists?

oh and i would use media monkey but i have a mac.

as far as i can tell, the best ID3 editor for mac is mediarage, is that right? but tbh i may just give up on ID3, as i have perhaps yawnsomely chronicled over the last couple of weeks

I'm not sure what people mean by too large too manage - I assumed this thread was about the fact that iTunes moves really slowly once you fill it up (I've got about 13000 songs). I tag the tracks using iEatBrainz (which doesn't set genre tags) and i set iTunes to name the files in line with ID3 tags. for the last few months i've been manually selecting swathes of files and using iTunes "write ID3 tags" function just to be totally sure. i'm not sure what's so hard to manage?

i need to check out mediarage. I tried jaikoz but it's crap

Tracer, I was under the impression you spurned iTunes and that your preference was for using Finder and Cog, or some similarly recherché approach?

that mediamonkey shout-out just saved me many hours of bullshit from iTunes, which will add up exponentially in the future, thanks!

How old is your iTunes Library? Just realised that mine just hit 10 years old last month.

http://i.imgur.com/kH5vM.png

How many computers have you had in that time? Transferring my music from HD to new comp always redates my stuff.