ipod or other portable device.

[mc ukrneal]

The whole thing can be maddening. Ripping a cd takes 5-10 minutes (depending on the speed of the CD/DVD player). Finding and downloading the artwork can be another few minutes. Some discs have all the wrong text and that can take 10-15 minutes. All for one lousy CD. Multiply that by your collection and you have a lot of wasted time just getting all the files into one place. And inexplicably, there will be some CDs that just NEVER work in some drives. It can drive one crazy, so I feel your pain.

I don't know if this will help (my situation is somewhat different from yours), but here is what I decided for myself in terms of the whole process:

1. Start with the program that works for you - this does not have to be the program that you use to work with the player (ipod or other) as you can import your library into other programs once they are downloaded. But, you need to make this decision at the beginning to make sure you choose compatible formats. So you could not choose, for example, to download/rip everything in FLAC and then use itunes. And even here, you can always download the library to a different program. Actually, when switching from program to program, it is not about downloading, but updating the library (which all the programs can do if you have the files in one place).

If you would like a list, I can make comments on those programs I have used (they include itunes, WMP, foobar, media monkey, winamp, and a few others). But you need to try them out yourself to see which ones you like. The biggest drawback to WMP is that it has a weak database for classical (and I spend more time entering in data than I probably should). I also dislike how it is hard to sometimes make small adjustments to the library. No program is perfect though (and none are ideal for classical) and they all have issues that make them more or less even in my eyes. 

1a. You may sometimes need to rip a disc to a different program and then add it 'manually' to the library. I sometimes have a disc that WMP won't read but EAC, winamp or something else will. If I have a lot of manual discs to add, I will sometimes delete the existing library and then have it update the whole library again. This just means it reforms it as it was before with all the added discs. Or, it is like when you get a new computer and you need to re-establish the new library there.

2. Choose a format that you will use. I ultimately chose mp3 320kbts for the main collection. I have slowly been re-ripping some things to FLAC to see if I want to switch, but I am using a different program for that (media player doesn't accept FLAC I think), but mostly so as not to mix the formats. #1 and #2 need to go together. I am thinking of making a FLAC backup anyway even if I won't use it much just to have a 'perfect' backup of everything.

3. Buy two external drives. One becomes the drive where you keep all your music. The other becomes the backup and is only used to update your backup. This is a pure copy of the other hard drive. I use portable drives because I travel. If you have too many discs to fit on one drive (and you have more discs than I have), you may need to think about how that would work. The advantage of having external drives is you never have to worry about losing the data if the computer dies. mp3 320kbts will take up about 175mb per disc (plus/minus). So one TB could accomodate roughly 5000 discs. Using FLAC, I think you would need to cut that number roughly in half.

4. Decide on a portable player (which also goes along with #1 and #2). I rarely need one, so I just use an old one I have. I don't know what I would get if I got a new one, but probably not an ipod. Sorry I cannot be more help here. 

5. Stay calm. I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent coaxing my computer to do something that should be simple, but takes a lot of work.

6. Tagging/editing. I didn't make a decision on this at the beginning, which is a real problem for me. I have gone through and tried to unfiy the approach, but I would do it differently if I could start from scratch. My biggest problem was trying to use one system for different types of music. I have since realized that one system just does not work. So my contributing artist column is always messier than it should be. Need to think about how the tagging will look for opera, choral, orchestral, chamber, soloist with orchestra/group, and soloists alone. Anyway, this is something better planned out at the beginning as much as possible instead of having to go through and manually change things later. Here is where some other programs are a bit stronger than WMP, but they are all cumbersome in different ways.

7. Ripping. It is easier to make text changes before you rip than after, a lesson I have had to repeat several times.  If I have a choice of ripping with the right text but the wrong disc cover or vice versa, I will rip to reduce the text editing. I think it is usually faster to find the photo and copy it than to edit the text. Besides, you can always scan in the covers if you have a scanner.

Anyway, I started trying to give you some insight into how I look at it, and I find I've practically written a novel! Maybe this will help identify the issues and priorities for you. And maybe someone else will have a new suggestion that I didn;t know about. 

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

Well Neal I already found out that removing music from your ipod without a computer is impossible, internet sites all full with them. I cleaned out my library of the numbers I did not want to have, synced it, and they were still in my ipod and not in my itunes library.
I really appreciate  your input, but frankly it is too much work to get it all done, and I rather listen to my music than spending so much time on something that should be so easy. Apple and his fun/fanboys can ****** themse;lves, I am done with ipod, and in the bin it goes.

[Opus106]

With all due respect, Harry, if you would only tell us what you have attempted so far (and what you're trying to do) in more precise terms (minus the 'throwing it in the bin' bit ), I'm sure you will be able to get more help.

[Mirror Image]

I personally like my Apple iPods. Their program, iTunes, is incredibly easy to use.

[karlhenning]

No, he's gone over to the Evil Empire! It's . . . Darth Mirror! ; )

[Mirror Image]

No, he's gone over to the Evil Empire! It's . . . Darth Mirror! ; )

"If only you knew the power of the Dark Side!"

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

With all due respect, Harry, if you would only tell us what you have attempted so far (and what you're trying to do) in more precise terms (minus the 'throwing it in the bin' bit ), I'm sure you will be able to get more help.

I explained already what I did my friend, and it did not work for me. I simply want to put music on my ipod. That's all. And the bin bit is a serious thing with me, everybody that knows me , knows that. I went to search on internet about my problems, and a avalanche of the same frustrations rolled over me, and no one said that itunes was easy to use.

[bigshot]

Itunes has a button at the bottom that allows you to import the whole cd at once. Otherwise, it will only import the tracks(s) you have highlighted.

You have to learn the software with any device.

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

My attempts so far:

1) Downloading music, 2 cd's, so far worked,  2 others failed, ipod refused to download numbers with only tracks with no name, the other was completely selected, and dragged into my ipod, and yet there was only one number, which I cannot remove anymore.
2) No art work could be found, on any of the CD's I put on my ipod, while it is freely available on internet.
3) unable to remove numbers from ipod, wiped them out of my library, and they are gone, but not from my ipod, which seems to be impossible.
4) Unable to download apps with the ipod itself, must go into itunes again, which tells me my computer is not authorized, when I do this he says your computer is already authorized Error 1004 I think.
Etc, etc, etc

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

Itunes has a button at the bottom that allows you to import the whole cd at once. Otherwise, it will only import the tracks(s) you have highlighted.

You have to learn the software with any device.

I have imported the complete cd!!!

Now can anybody tell me how to wiped music from my ipod through my ipod, or why this music is still on my ipod when i wiped it from itunes??

[Opus106]

My attempts so far:

1) Downloading music, 2 cd's, so far worked,  2 others failed, ipod refused to download numbers with only tracks with no name, the other was completely selected, and dragged into my ipod, and yet there was only one number, which I cannot remove anymore.

2) No art work could be found, on any of the CD's I put on my ipod, while it is freely available on internet.

Did you rip/import the CDs, Harry? If you have downloaded the files from an e-shop like the iTunes store or eClassical, album art and some sort of metadata, or tags (info. like track name, artist, album name etc.), should be available automatically.

If you had ripped them instead -- from CD to hard-disk -- and if your ripping program could not find the necessary information about the music, then you have add it manually.

In on the other hand, perfectly tagged albums are not displaying the album covers, then I'd suggest removing those albums from your iPod (see below) and then adding it again. I've had this happen to me a couple of times when mine was fairly new, but it hasn't ever since.

it would come along with the 
3) unable to remove numbers from ipod, wiped them out of my library, and they are gone, but not from my ipod, which seems to be impossible.

See further down.

4) Unable to download apps with the ipod itself, must go into itunes again, which tells me my computer is not authorized, when I do this he says your computer is already authorized Error 1004 I think.
Etc, etc, etc

Can't help you with that. I don't have the touchy thing with apps and stuff.

Now can anybody tell me how to wiped music from my ipod through my ipod

Break it into tiny pieces; or take it close to a very, very powerful electromagnet. Just kidding. I don't think you can delete tracks directly from your iPod. At least I can't from my Classic. You'll have to rely on a music manager like iTunes to do that for you and that's the recommended way.

or why this music is still on my ipod when i wiped it from itunes? ?

This will happen only when you...

1. Set your iPod to automatically sync with the iTunes library
2. You delete your iTunes library
3. Then connect your iPod to sync with your library

In the case of manual syncing, to get rid of the files from your iPod, you'll have to connected the device, then go to the 'Pod's menu within iTunes and remove whatever files you don't want.

[Mirror Image]

I have imported the complete cd!!!

Now can anybody tell me how to wiped music from my ipod through my ipod, or why this music is still on my ipod when i wiped it from itunes??

Oh man, I really wish I was able to talk to you in person, Harry it would be so much easier then trying to explain to how to do something. But I will give this a shot:

If you want to delete music from your iPod, you must go through iTunes. Go into iTunes, let the iPod sync, and on the left-side you will see a little icon of your iPod with whatever name you gave that iPod. Under the name of your iPod, it says "Music," left click on this and you will see a list of all the contents on your iPod. Here is where you can delete items from your iPod. When selecting certain recordings, go to that recording and hold down the CTRL button on your keyboard and left click with your mouse on the track you want to delete (it will become highlighted), continue holding down the CTRL button and click the next track you want to delete, when you're done selecting, go to the highlighted track and right click on your mouse, and you will see "Delete" from the menu, simply click this and it will delete all the tracks you had selected. If you want to deselect something, hold down the CTRL button, and use the mouse's pointer and left click it. If you want to delete music from iTunes itself, then simply highlight all of the tracks in the library and delete them.

Hope this helps...

[bigshot]

In a nutshell, the way to think about it is... Get itunes the way you want it to be and then sync your ipod. It will be exactly the same.

You need a guru. Do you have anyfriends with ipods?

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

My friends are wiser as I am, they have no such devices to begin with! 
Yesterday evening I have tried every possible means available to get the music on the ipod that I wanted there.
Two operetta's I tried to get on the device, ipod only saw as tracks, he did not recognize both recordings from 1948 and 1954.
I could not get these tracks on my ipod. Selected them in my library, dragged them to my ipod, but nothing happened.
When at last I took a new recording Suppe's "Fatinitza" the first disc went swell, all tracks in the right sequence on the ipod, when I inserted the second disc he imported all tracks with names, but alas again no album covers,"only the discs with pop music he finds all the time" when I selected the whole disc and put it on my ipod he only took the musical numbers, but the dialog was not there, and for some inexplicable reason one of the tracks was on a totally different place as where it should be. so after 5 days of agonizing I decided to stop the whole exercise and rest in the knowledge that ipod is somehow not the device for me to handle. I managed to find out how to remove numbers on the ipod, thanks to a manual from Apple, but hey this is not easy at all. To much hassle with this device, and not so easy as some say. I have no personal Guru to help me on site with it, so although I am not giving up easily I must say ipod defeated me, by the sheer stupidity of the system. I switched the power off, and may it rot in my drawer.

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

Oh man, I really wish I was able to talk to you in person, Harry it would be so much easier then trying to explain to how to do something. But I will give this a shot:

If you want to delete music from your iPod, you must go through iTunes. Go into iTunes, let the iPod sync, and on the left-side you will see a little icon of your iPod with whatever name you gave that iPod. Under the name of your iPod, it says "Music," left click on this and you will see a list of all the contents on your iPod. Here is where you can delete items from your iPod. When selecting certain recordings, go to that recording and hold down the CTRL button on your keyboard and left click with your mouse on the track you want to delete (it will become highlighted), continue holding down the CTRL button and click the next track you want to delete, when you're done selecting, go to the highlighted track and right click on your mouse, and you will see "Delete" from the menu, simply click this and it will delete all the tracks you had selected. If you want to deselect something, hold down the CTRL button, and use the mouse's pointer and left click it. If you want to delete music from iTunes itself, then simply highlight all of the tracks in the library and delete them.

Hope this helps...

It helped, thank you, this is also a way.

[springrite]

I am staying in the stone age.

In fact, I am buying a new portable CD player next week to replace (or rather as backup unit to) my current one which is about 15 years old but still works fine.

As much trouble as you ar having with new technology, you are way ahead of me, Uncle Harry!

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

I am staying in the stone age.

In fact, I am buying a new portable CD player next week to replace (or rather as backup unit to) my current one which is about 15 years old but still works fine.

As much trouble as you ar having with new technology, you are way ahead of me, Uncle Harry!

For a change I downloaded one of those operetta's on my HTC smartphone, went swimingly, its on it without any problems, in the right sequence, and I got the info too! Apple, Bah, Humbug!

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

So what is needed here is a Apple Guru . My first Question would be if I import a box with 2 cd's, in this case "Fatinitza, the first CD loads wonderfully easy and is on my ipod, the second cd imported and all (ACC) only shows up 3 tracks of that second CD, and a fourth somewhere down between a other recording, the other tracks do not appear.

[mc ukrneal]

So what is needed here is a Apple Guru . My first Question would be if I import a box with 2 cd's, in this case "Fatinitza, the first CD loads wonderfully easy and is on my ipod, the second cd imported and all (ACC) only shows up 3 tracks of that second CD, and a fourth somewhere down between a other recording, the other tracks do not appear.

Sets are an issue if you don't pay attention to the information (and it is so easy to forget). I usually rename the album title with the disc # in the title. So I would rename the first disc 'Fatinitza Disc 1' and the second 'Fatinitza Disc 2' (my convention is Composer: Piece, soloist or conductor, Disc # (if needed) - so in this case Suppe: Fatinitza Praxmarer Disc 1). Alternatively, itunes lets you group them as disc x of y, so here you would have 1 of 2 or 2 of 2. But I like to put this right into the title so that I can find things easier. You may need to play around a little at first (you can find the choice when you click on Get Info). Do note that itunes sometimes groups things in strange ways becuase of non-identical track information (referring here to the artist or other fields). You may need to manually fix this, and this may be why you have odd groupings (at least, that is when I have issues).

Do you have an Apple store somewhere nearby? You could always go there and explain the problem - they should be able to show you step by step. Maybe you could call if not? The best gurus are teenagers who grew up with this stuff. They know it backwards and forwards.

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

Sets are an issue if you don't pay attention to the information (and it is so easy to forget). I usually rename the album title with the disc # in the title. So I would rename the first disc 'Fatinitza Disc 1' and the second 'Fatinitza Disc 2' (my convention is Composer: Piece, soloist or conductor, Disc # (if needed) - so in this case Suppe: Fatinitza Praxmarer Disc 1). Alternatively, itunes lets you group them as disc x of y, so here you would have 1 of 2 or 2 of 2. But I like to put this right into the title so that I can find things easier. You may need to play around a little at first (you can find the choice when you click on Get Info). Do note that itunes sometimes groups things in strange ways becuase of non-identical track information (referring here to the artist or other fields). You may need to manually fix this, and this may be why you have odd groupings (at least, that is when I have issues).

Do you have an Apple store somewhere nearby? You could always go there and explain the problem - they should be able to show you step by step. Maybe you could call if not? The best gurus are teenagers who grew up with this stuff. They know it backwards and forwards.

I understand now what you are explaining, and it simple means that it is a hard and difficult labour to get music on a ipod. The time escapes me for doing all this, I needed a device that will simple upload what I give him, without building all kind of safe guards in to prevent the problems I have now. The non identical track info makes rather a havoc of the list of music, when I tried to put in Grafin Maritza, with Anneliese Rothenberger, the tracks where all over the places, and all soloists identified as composers, and every individual singer tracked separately. If I have to fix that Neal!!!
I wanted a carefree mp3 player, and I clearly made the wrong decision, so I have to sit on the blisters, and use it as a cheap way of getting mobile on internet, but as a music player it is not for me. I would love to know if all the other MP3 players makes such trouble as the Apple?
I am very grateful for your thoughtful advice Neal, it did not go unnoticed by me. Thank you for your patience.