iTunes clean-up/add-ons help

[REDVAN]

Hey all...

After my computer thread last week on faulty power supplies, etc, I "started fresh" with a bunch of new parts, and windows 7 (used to have xp).

I downloaded iTunes on the weekend, and I am going to re-organise all my music folders/downloads to import it in. Something I never got around to was fixing before is track name, artist, album, year, etc stuff. It really annoys me when "track 20" is playing on my iPod, and it's half decent, yet I have no idea what artist it is, or even title of the song (sometime they're not that easy to guess).

I know there are a few programs out there, and I know there is probably a thread on this already but I can't find it. I know the program that shows up in a google search gives only 100 songs free and then is 20 bucks. I'll pay it if it works well, but if anyone has any free options, let me know!

Also, what other add-ons do you guys have for iTunes? Keep in mind that we have 2 iPods, 1 iPhone, and my gf wants an iPhone, so generally iTunes is going to have to stay as my primary music program.

Thanks for your tips!

[Ducay]

I used TuneUp (the one you mentioned). Worked like a charm, I was quite amazed at the results to be honest.

IIRC, I used the free trial, and used another free trial later on down the road to finish up the clean up process.

I'd say its worth the $20 if its something that bothers you. (Having no album artwork + info).

[fredr123]

I just noticed Pollux is back up and running: http://polluxapp.com/index.php

Their service was free and, by all accounts, pretty good. Then Leo Laporte and Digg and everyone else found out about them. The increase in attention caused licensing problems and the whole thing came tumbling down.

Now it's free to try (tag 20 songs) or $10/year for unlimited use.

[fredr123]

I know Russic keeps his movie collection in tip top shape on his Apple TV. I imagine those anal tendencies carry over to his music too. I look forward to the explanation of his methods.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by fredr123

I know Russic keeps his movie collection in tip top shape on his Apple TV. I imagine those anal tendencies carry over to his music too. I look forward to the explanation of his methods.

Just because I photoshop my own album art for each live Matt Good recording I have does not mean I have anal tendencies.

You are correct though, as iTunes is my primary hub I like to keep things organized and accurate. If I were to download an album off the internet I can tell you that I'd more than likely just run Pollux (the app you recommended) to get everything in line. It tends to do a pretty bang up job ... whatever it misses can be manually configured. What's nice is that in some cases if you download an album and then run pollux on it it will pull the lyrics for you, which will display when you load the songs onto your ipod. Lyric grabbing has been hit and miss, but those can be tricky to find sometimes.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

to what extent does Pollux keep the file information updated?

I currently have all my music with title, artist, album, album year, track #/#, and album art updated.

Does it go beyond that?

[Berger_4_]

I use MPFreaker, but I'm on a Mac so I dunno if it works on a Windows system. It does an alright job...I might have to look into the other programs mentioned.

[chid]

Originally Posted by Berger_4_

I use MPFreaker, but I'm on a Mac so I dunno if it works on a Windows system. It does an alright job...I might have to look into the other programs mentioned.

What does MPFreaker organize? Title/Album/Artist/Date/Album Art??
I have usually just done it all manually (ultra time consuming - esp getting album artwork)

[REDVAN]

Originally Posted by chid

What does MPFreaker organize? Title/Album/Artist/Date/Album Art??
I have usually just done it all manually (ultra time consuming - esp getting album artwork)

I've done this before too, but I get so lazy! It's good for an album or two, but when you download 5 albums at once that don't import correctly then it sucks.

Right now I am re-loading all my downloads into iTunes, and so there are at least 1000 mis-named tracks. I can't do that manually...

[mykalberta]

Fr my vacation I have been thinking of upguaging from a shuffle to classic, thank you for this thread.

[Berger_4_]

Originally Posted by chid

What does MPFreaker organize? Title/Album/Artist/Date/Album Art??
I have usually just done it all manually (ultra time consuming - esp getting album artwork)

You load whatever music you want updated into it, and it will search for all of that stuff. It doesn't seem to be quite as reliable as Pollux or TuneUp though. Also, it costs 20 bucks unless you don't mind having a peg leg and saying arrgh a lot.

[Buzzard]

Does Pollux/TuneUp detect and delete duplicates?

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Berger_4_

You load whatever music you want updated into it, and it will search for all of that stuff. It doesn't seem to be quite as reliable as Pollux or TuneUp though. Also, it costs 20 bucks unless you don't mind having a peg leg and saying arrgh a lot.

Its funny for somethings I can do that, but software I just feel dirty.

[Titan]

weird. I thought I already replied here. anyways:

I used Tuneup and it works great to clean up your data. It can do 500 songs at a time and can do artwork as well. It does not do duplicates. for that I used idupe and even paid the $8 because it worked so well. It will identify potential duplicates and remove them, either from itunes or your system completely. It is Mac only though.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by fredr123

I just noticed Pollux is back up and running: http://polluxapp.com/index.php

Their service was free and, by all accounts, pretty good. Then Leo Laporte and Digg and everyone else found out about them. The increase in attention caused licensing problems and the whole thing came tumbling down.

Now it's free to try (tag 20 songs) or $10/year for unlimited use.

I just tried it on the first two albums in my library. It failed miserably. It changed the artist "A-Frames" to "The Frames", and changed the album tag for one song from A.C. Newman's "The Slow Wonder" to "Music From The O.C. Mix 4". These are albums I've ripped from my own CDs so there's no excuse for these errors.

I'll stick with mp3tag. I like its scripting ability anyway.

[Berger_4_]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

Its funny for somethings I can do that, but software I just feel dirty.

Meh, I don't feel bad about getting a hold of stuff that would run me 200 bucks in the store like Office or Photoshop. I guess I should pay for the smaller programs, but I'm cheap and lazy.

[fredr123]

Lifehacker just posted a guide for cleaning up your music's metadata: http://lifehacker.com/5511473/start-...ata-into-shape

[FlamingInfinity]

Just wondering if any of you guys use alternates to iTunes (Winamp, etc...?). It's such a RAM hog, and I'm trying foobar2000, but not really enjoying trying to install new themes, and figure out the interface.

Not to mention it's split up a hell of a lot of my albums into multiple junkets.

[Temporary_User]

I just tried both of them (pollox and tuneup), both worked alright on the mp3s I tested it on.
I decided to purchase pollox because it was only $10 compared to $30. That decision will probably suck a year from now, but I'm broke right now so.
I'll let you guys know how it works for all my music.

[Temporary_User]

Once all said and done, Pollux probably didn't work for 12% of my songs. (300 out of 2450)
Not too bad considering some of my music is not really "mainstream", but I've noticed some that you would definitely think it should have found.