iTunes vs the Music app

[gastropod]

You can add any genres you want. Just type in the name

IIRC, adding your own genres was an iTunes innovation. I do that extensively*, and use groupings and the other fields including ratings** in what some might consider inappropriate ways. It misses the point though. By the time I fix genres, move some data in various fields around, and check to see if any of the other data is wrong as it so often is, I’ve wasted a lot of time. If I were a good typist (and liked typing), I could do it all from scratch in the same time. If it were well structured and correct metadata instead of ‘anyone can contribute with no adult oversight’, there’d be no need for each individual to do all of that work fixing each album. If a mere million people spend only 20 seconds each fixing any one album, that’s 5555 person-hours. If they enjoy it, that’s fine. If it raises their blood pressure, not so much.

• At least I used to; it seemed kind of pointless after awhile. I have a lot of hobbies and data entry is not one of them. I still do some, mostly setting genres, but less and less with time.

** another of my pet peeves - there’s no easy way to rate a piece as opposed to the performance of that piece.

[Shamino (David C.)]

@jajvj1

Look at David C.'s screenshot for Beethoven’s 1st Symphony. Where it says “title”, there are up & down arrows after the word title; it is a pop-up menu. You can change “title” to “work name”. A new set of fields appear for movement information.

Thanks for that reminder. I remember seeing those fields years ago, but I never touched them because I wasn’t sure how this would cause my classical albums to sort/group with everything else.

I just switched those fields over for my Beethoven and it seems to work well. When viewing in Song view, the “Title” column becomes a composite string: Work Name: Movement. Name.

Applying it to the track I used in my example, it now is:

• Work Name: Symphony no. 1
• Movement: 1 of 4
• Title: Adagio molto - Allegro con brio

And when in Song view, I see the string “Symphony no. 1: I. Adagio molto - Allegro con brio”, which is almost exactly what I had created for myself (but using Roman numerals for the movement number).

Placing the conductor in the Artist field messes up how I want everything sorted, but I could still put “Ludwig van Beethoven” in the Album Artist field, which seems to do the trick.

When in a view that shows albums (Artists, Albums, Composers), tracks with movement information together with the composer and artist shown and both the composer and artist are shown with the work, not the track:

But note the last track (Overture from “Fidelio”). It isn’t stored in work/movement format because this particular track is not a multi-movement recording. As such, it doesn’t show the composer - Music is treating it like a pop track.

To fix that, there is the “Show composer in all views” checkbox. This makes that field appear even if the track isn’t storing movement data, which is quite appropriate for most classical works:

It looks great on my Mac. I’ll have to sync it to my iPod and see how it presents itself over there. If it looks good, I’ll go ahead and do the same for my other classical albums. If not, it’s back to what I was doing.

[NiklasB]

On the iPad I am using right now it works fine. It is also an album that is available in HiRes audio so the sound quality is excellent.

[tommy (Tommy Weir)]

The amount of time I used to spend organizing my iTunes Library… I can’t go back there. I have a huge amount of music and films on our server, available to us all but… we just stream now in this family. Songs and albums we know of course but also grateful for the independent curation which brings a steady stream of new music into the house.

[MMTalker]

This is the reason why radio DJs, MTV, etc. very rarely played full albums; classical music being the exception. And it’s why record stores quickly became extinct.

Apple introduced “Complete My Album” in the early days of iTunes. You do have to jump through a few hoops on iPhones and iPads, but it’s still there.

[chengengaun (Eng Aun Cheng)]

Hopefully the classical music discovery and listening experience will start to improve soon.

Apple Buys Classical Music Service Primephonic

Originally published at: Apple Buys Classical Music Service Primephonic - TidBITS Apple has bought Primephonic, a classical music service. Apple will be shutting Primephonic down soon but promises to create a new app just for classical music fans.

[dougeddy (G. Douglas Eddy)]

Excellent explanation and very helpful. Thank you David!

I use the excellent Fission app to adjust my music to my personal sorting. I stopped using iTunes when it would “lose” or delete CD imports from my collection, especially when it started messing up careful changes I made to those. I also keep all my music transfers on a separate backup disc clean and untouched by Apple before I install them in Music - that way if something happens I can reinstall them in my format.

[mark4 (mc38)]

@dougeddy

I stopped using iTunes when it would “lose” or delete CD imports from my collection

While I’ve extolled the virtues of iTunes on this thread, that doesn’t mean it didn’t/doesn’t have significant problems itself. I’m in a long term project to carefully restore my libraries because at some point, iTunes started balking at importing complete selections from CDs, with no indication of why. I’d just try to play an album and find that it had only 3 of 12 tracks, for example. So as I restore, I go one by one, checking proper file transfer of each track. Time consuming, yes–but I also add album art as necessary using Meta to bypass iTune’s storage method (Meta attaches tag info directly to the individual file), and can add composers, etc. and other info that may not be on the CD.

The iTunes to iTunes library transfer is very convenient, but files can be “lost” that would not be if a different transfer method were used. And good backups are essential!

[jk2gs]

Yes, Audacity has many uses and I’ve also used it for reel to reel tapes but not as much now as I’m working on some records. It can open many formats, even some that iTunes should open such as AIFF files made on a System 9 computer from way back.

[jk2gs]

@mark4

Time consuming, yes–but I also add album art as necessary using Meta to bypass iTune’s storage method (Meta attaches tag info directly to the individual file), and can add composers, etc. and other info that may not be on the CD.

iTunes does attach the metadata to the file such as album art etc. so unless Meta does something else, it isn’t needed in that regard.

[mark4 (mc38)]

@jk2gs

Tunes does attach the metadata to the file such as album art etc. so unless Meta does something else, it isn’t needed in that regard.

Not if iTunes is air-gapped and unable to connect to the internet (as I’ve said previously my setups were), and no art has yet been attached to the recordings. With no ability to find and download art, iTunes will present only generic icons. This depends, of course, on the source of the recordings–which can vary widely.

Meta allows editing all tag categories quickly and easily. So does Doug’s script “Multi Item Edit,” with a different interface. I use both.

And as a follow-on, I’ll point out that iTunes (infrequently) would/will download the wrong album art.

[Shamino (David C.)]

@Shamino

It looks great on my Mac. I’ll have to sync it to my iPod and see how it presents itself over there. If it looks good, I’ll go ahead and do the same for my other classical albums. If not, it’s back to what I was doing.

It comes across well on the iPod as well:

I still occasionally see listings in an album where my “grouping” text (which I use for sub-genre keywords) appears where the title/work text should appear:

But that is an old problem that has nothing to do with the issue at hand - it happens to some of my pop tracks as well as some of the classical ones. And the data that appears on the playing-track is correct despite this:

(If anyone knows why this happens - to only some of my songs, not to the overwhelming majority, and only on the iPod not in iTunes or Music - please feel free to suggest an option in a new discussion thread.)

Thanks, @jajvj1 for the tip.

[jzw (Jolin)]

@mark4

I’ll point out that iTunes (infrequently) would/will download the wrong album art.

iTunes Artwork Finder is extremely useful when trying to get high quality artwork for music (and programmers and films, etc.). He also provides the related Apple Music Artwork Finder.

Failing that, I usually turn to Discogs. The artwork tends not to be particularly high resolution, but there is often a good selection, especially for albums with multiple versions.

[ddmiller (Doug Miller)]

@Shamino

I still occasionally see listings in an album where my “grouping” text (which I use for sub-genre keywords) appears where the title/work text should appear:

…

(If anyone knows why this happens - to only some of my songs, not to the overwhelming majority, and only on the iPod not in iTunes or Music - please feel free to suggest an option in a new discussion thread.)

I wish I had an answer, but at this time last year I was having the same issue, and the only way to solve the issue was to delete the tracks and reimport the CDs. A long time I ago I was using the group field for smart playlists, but I noticed this issue later on my iPhone and iPad. I am both an iTunes Match and Apple Music subscriber, and I always wondered if one of those services was somehow involved.

[mark4 (mc38)]

@jzw

I usually turn to Discogs

Discogs is a great site, crammed with info–I haven’t been able to stump it yet, no matter how obscure the album or song. Also a great clearinghouse for used media (particularly LPs).

While I usually have success finding art with a DuckDuckGo search, other places to look include AllMusic.com and…Amazon!

[jk2gs]

I understand about not connecting to the internet but once you acquire the art which usually is through the internet somehow, then it will attach to the files if added properly in iTunes as I’ve said previously when this discussion occurred in another thread. I only rip my own CD’s or digitize records and I only use the Gracenote database for metadata and correct as needed. I locate the art myself using Google or scan if the cover is not available or poor quality. But if you embed it properly, then it will carryover to other situations like a phone or to use in a car environment. iTunes does fine for most metadata in my experience.

[jk2gs]

If you’re using these sites for the art, then what is the issue with the album art since you’re not letting iTunes acquire it, correct?

[jk2gs]

@MMTalker

This is the reason why radio DJs, MTV, etc. very rarely played full albums; classical music being the exception. And it’s why record stores quickly became extinct.

I’m not sure that’s true as listeners generally want variety and don’t want to hear a whole album on the radio. Maybe when FM started to take off in the 60’s and 70’s as it was more experimental then.

[mark4 (mc38)]

@jk2gs

I only use the Gracenote database for metadata

Via iTunes, over the internet? The Gracenote site doesn’t appear to have a direct end-user accessible database.

[jeff1 (Jeff Hecht)]

@Shamino

As for audiobooks (language courses, etc.), Music is the wrong app altogether. You should be able to add them to the Books app’s library, if you want to use it, but it gives you minimal ability to customize metadata. But I would strongly recommend using a third-party app for this purpose.

I tried adding audiobooks to Books and to Music, and Audible wound not authorize those that I had purchased. Books will not open public domain audiobooks I downloaded from Librivox. Music will only one chapter at a time from my Librivox audiobooks. I believe this is all the result of “upgrading” from Mojave to Big Sur. I haven’t been listening to audiobooks recently, but this also affects voice recordings I have made during interviews. I wonder if the problem is that I have never bought music from Apple. I haven’t looked into this much, so maybe I’m missing something, but right now I have a bad feeling about it.