Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ

Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ, Second Edition

Find answers to all your questions about iTunes, including iTunes Match!

Join iTunes expert Kirk McElhearn as he helps you think like an iTunes power user so you can get the most out of your audio, video, and book collections in iTunes 10. You'll also learn the best ways to transfer media to your iPad, iPhone, or iPod.

In this question-and-answer format title, Kirk helps you appreciate and understand the process of bringing media into iTunes, tagging it, adding album artwork, and organizing it into playlists. Once you've become an import specialist and tagging genius, you can enjoy your music, movies, audiobooks, and ebooks, and more without hassles when it's time to find a particular item or when you want to do something special like sync a select subset of music to your iPod, create a party playlist, identify music you haven't heard in a while, listen to the chapters in an audiobook in the proper order, or get the most out of iTunes in the Cloud features, including iTunes Match.

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Questions answered include:

How can I use iTunes Match to share music with my family?
How can I create a separate, smaller iTunes library for use with iTunes Match?
How can I put an audiobook into my iTunes Match setup?
How do I control sound quality when I import (rip) a music CD?
What should I consider before I rip an audiobook CD?
How do I turn on Genius?
Where are good places to shop for digital music besides the iTunes Store?
Which tags should I consider adding?
How do I add lyrics to my tracks?
How can I locate music that I haven't listened to in a while?
What special things can I do with smart playlists?
What AppleScripts can I use to extend iTunes?
How do I share my iTunes library over a network?
What can I print with iTunes?
What's the best way to deal with my huge music library?

Book Info

173 pages
Version 2.0
Published Jan 10, 2012
3.7 MB download
ISBN: 9781615423996
Free sample with Table of Contents, Intro, Quick Start, and section starts.

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About the Author

Kirk McElhearn is a freelance writer, specializing in Macs, iPods, iTunes, digital music, and more. In addition to having written or co-written a dozen books, he is a Senior Contributor to Macworld magazine and he contributes to several other Web sites and magazines. He reviews classical CDs for MusicWeb and audiobooks for Audiofile, and he is a translator from French to English.

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Read Me First
Introduction
iTunes Quick Start
Play
Rip
Buy
Tag
View
Organize
Sync
Cloud
Share
Burn
Print
Back Up
Bonus: Extend iTunes with AppleScripts
Learn More
About This Book

Read Me First

This book shows you what iTunes can do for you, how to bend it to your will, and how to take advantage of its powerful organizational features. This book has a special focus on audio and video, and it covers all aspects of organizing and tagging files, viewing content in iTunes, and creating playlists to sync to an iOS device. If you want to become an iTunes power user, this book is for you. This book was written by Kirk McElhearn, edited by Tonya Engst, and published by TidBITS Publishing Inc.

Introduction

In January 2001, Apple introduced iTunes, which the company then described as, “the world’s best and easiest to use ‘jukebox’ software that lets users create and manage their own music library on their Mac.” This first version of iTunes offered limited features: it could play CDs; it could rip CDs in MP3 format only; it allowed users to “organize” and browse their music collections; it could burn CDs; and it could sync music files to MP3 players from Rio and Creative Labs.

This first version of iTunes was only available for Mac OS 9, but later that year, when Apple released the first iPod, a Mac OS X version was released. It wasn’t until October 2003 that Apple let loose a Windows version of the program, ensuring that non-Mac users could buy iPods and purchase music from the iTunes Store, opened earlier that year.

iTunes has come a long way since then. From being a limited MP3 ripping and organizing program, iTunes has become a media center that organizes music files (in several formats), videos, audiobooks, podcasts, and, with the advent of the iPhone and iPad, apps, ringtones, alert tones, and ebooks. Over time, iTunes added playlists, the Genius feature, enhanced organizational tools, Ping, and more. The iTunes Store became a vast digital marketplace selling music, movies, and TV shows, offering video rentals and podcast subscriptions, housing the hugely successful App Store, and, with the arrival of the iPad in 2010, selling ebooks as well.

With iTunes 10.3, released in June 2011, Apple added the ability to re- download content from the iTunes Store, and automatically download purchased content to computers and iOS devices. iTunes 10.5, released in September 2011, introduced Wi-Fi syncing for iOS devices, and in November, iTunes 10.5.1 included iTunes Match, a service that lets you sync your music library to the “cloud” and access it, theoretically, from anywhere. In short, iTunes has become a digital bazaar and a cornucopian tool for managing digital content on computers, on iOS devices, and in the cloud.

This book is up-to-date for iTunes 10.5.2, covering iCloud and iTunes Match features as they relate to iTunes media, as well as the other new features released since the previous version of this book, which covered iTunes 10.0.1.

Over the years, iTunes has become complex and daunting to many users. While some basic functions, such as ripping CDs and creating playlists, are simple, the finer points of these features—such as which format and bit rate to use when ripping CDs, and how to create useful smart playlists—are arcane. iTunes has hundreds of discrete features, and understanding the subtleties of this program can be difficult.

I’ve long been a serious music fan, and over the years, I’ve amassed a library that is currently around the 80,000-track mark. I’m a big listener of classical music (more than half of my library), and one of my special loves is German art songs, or lieder (currently around 10,000 tracks), but I’m also a Deadhead (a fan of the Grateful Dead) and have hundreds of recordings of their live concerts. I like jazz, progressive rock, ambient music, vintage punk rock, Japanese shakuhachi music, and much more. I also regularly listen to audiobooks and podcasts, and I enjoy listening to audio recordings of Shakespeare’s plays.

I own four iPods (classic, nano, touch, and shuffle), an iPad, and an Apple TV. Over time, I have confronted the many hurdles that iTunes presents to using digital content on these devices. In addition, as a Senior Contributor to Macworld, I’ve written dozens of articles about using iTunes and iOS devices, notably for Macworld’s Playlist column, where I am a regular contributor. (I’ve included links to some of my articles to provide more information than will fit in this book.)

In this book, I present much of what I’ve learned over the years about iTunes. The wide range of music I listen to, and the variety of content in my iTunes library, has challenged me, at times, to discover the most practical and efficient and solutions to the problems of ripping, tagging, organizing, managing, and playing a large library of music.

There are several aspects of iTunes that I don’t deal with here. I don’t cover buying, organizing, or syncing apps for Apple’s iOS devices, as there are already several Take Control books on those subjects. I also don’t talk about the iTunes app or other apps used to listen to music on iOS devices. I do discuss syncing, but only to show you how to put media files—audio, video, and ebooks—on Apple’s iOS devices; I don’t cover how to sync other types of information, such as contacts, calendars, notes, photos, and so on.

If you’ve ever been frustrated while trying to wrangle your music, videos, podcasts, and audiobooks in iTunes, or if you’ve wondered how to get the most out of the program’s features, read on.

iTunes Quick Start

This Quick Start describes what you can learn in each chapter. You can go to the beginning of any chapter to view a list of that chapter’s specific topics. If you are reading in an ebook format, you can click any chapter title or topic listing to jump directly to the content.

Play music, videos, audiobooks, and podcasts:

Music is made for listening, and iTunes, while designed for more than just playing your tunes, does this task well. Whether you want to play CDs, or listen to music you’ve bought or ripped, iTunes gives you several ways of playing your music on your computer. You can also play it through other devices, connecting your computer to a stereo or streaming music to a device connected to one, and even control it remotely using an app on an iOS device. You can also watch videos in iTunes. Read Play.

Rip CDs and add media files to your iTunes library:

When you first launch iTunes, its library is empty. When you rip, or import, a music CD, you add music to your iTunes library. You can then listen to it on your computer or sync it to your iOS device. But you can add more than just music to your iTunes library: you can rip audiobooks from CDs, you can rip videos that you have created, or DVDs that you own, and you can add music that you already have in digital files. In this chapter, I’m going to discuss how you can start filling your iTunes library with content that you own. Read Rip.

Buy music, audiobooks, movies, and TV shows:

Ripping CDs is, for some people, so 20th century. While I still buy a lot of CDs, I also buy a lot of my music online, from the iTunes Store, Amazon, and others, including directly from many record labels. Since the iTunes Store is an integral part of the iTunes program, I’ll look at using the iTunes Store, as well as other vendors, to add music, videos, and more to your iTunes library. I’ll also look at Ping, Apple’s “music- oriented social network,” where you can tell your friends who use the iTunes Store about your favorite songs, albums and artists. Read Buy.

Tag media files so you can organize and find them later:

Tagging media files is the most important thing you can do to take control of your iTunes library. You could just add all your music to your iTunes library, and play it at random, but without correct tags, you’d never find what you want, and you wouldn’t be able to make unique smart playlists. To correctly organize your music, tagging is essential. I’ll show you the different tags you can change, how to change them for single and multiple items, and how to streamline tagging so you can easily organize your library. Read Tag.

View your media library in iTunes:

You’ve ripped and bought music and videos, and you’ve tagged your files. Now you need to arrange them so you can find them easily, especially if you want to do anything more than play songs by album or at random. I’ll show you various ways to arrange iTunes to display your media files, so that you can more easily access your ever-growing media library and find the music you want to listen to. Read View.

Organize your iTunes library, create playlists, and understand how iTunes manages your files:

You’ve filled your iTunes library with all sorts of digital content, and your iTunes window is displaying them in the best way for you. Now you need to organize your content. iTunes does a lot of this for you, based on the tags your files contain, but you can do much more. In this chapter, I’ll show you how to make playlists. I’ll look at smart playlists, which take advantage of your tags to find just what you want to listen to. And I’ll talk about how iTunes organizes your files so you can find them on your computer if you ever need to. Read Organize.

Choose what to sync to your iOS device and find the best way to sync for your situation:

If you have an iOS device, iTunes is the tool you’ll use to put most of your media files on it, along with apps and other information. In many ways, how you set up your media library in iTunes reflects the way these files become accessible on your portable device. I’ll show you how to sync your favorite media files to your iOS device exactly the way you want to, by USB and by Wi-Fi. Read Sync.

Work with iTunes in the cloud:

iCloud and iTunes Match give you new ways of accessing your content. You can have new iTunes Store purchases download automatically to your computer or iOS device, re-download purchases you made from the iTunes Store, and, if you subscribe to the $25-a-year iTunes Match, you can put your entire music library in the cloud, so you can access it on other computers and on iOS devices. I’ll tell you how to set up iTunes Match, how to organize your library for the cloud, and how to work with this feature on your computers and iOS devices. Read Cloud.

Share your iTunes library across your home network:

iTunes is not only designed to be used on its own, but also to be part of a broader network of computers in a home or office. You can share your iTunes library on a local network, and other users can load your library over the network and play your music, watch videos, and listen to podcasts in your iTunes library. With Home Sharing, iTunes also offers an easy way for you to transfer media files from one computer to another at home. If you buy some new music, or rip a new CD, others in your family can copy it to their libraries easily. Read Share.

Burn music and MP3 CDs:

You can use iTunes to burn CDs, thus copying your audio files to disc. But CDs are slowly going the way of the floppy disk, and fewer people use them for music these days. You may still want to burn CDs, however, to use in a car that doesn’t have a way for you to connect an iOS device, or in a portable boom-box type device. Read Burn.

Print CD inserts and song listings:

Printing from iTunes is probably not the first thing you’d want to do with the program. But this feature can be useful: if you burn CDs, you can use iTunes to print inserts with album covers and song lists. You can also print out lists of music in your iTunes library, by album or as a list of albums, to have a hard-copy list of your collection. Read Print.

Back up your media files:

No matter how you get content into your iTunes library—whether you rip your own CDs and DVDs or buy music and videos from the iTunes Store or from other vendors—this content is as ephemeral as all digital files. If you don’t back it up regularly, there’s a chance that you’ll lose it. Backing up media files is as important as backing up all the other files you have on your computer. Read Back Up.

Extend iTunes with AppleScripts:

iTunes does a lot; some people may say it does too much. Many of the program’s features are easy to tame, but there are times you may want to go even further. If you use a Mac, then you can take advantage of AppleScripts to extend iTunes. This chapter gives you a taste of what these scripts can do for you, and tells you about some of my favorite AppleScripts. Read Bonus: Extend iTunes with AppleScripts.

What's New in the Second Edition

Changes between the first and second editions of this ebook are aimed at discussing new features added after iTunes version 10.0.1 through 10.5.2. Altogether, this update includes about 30 pages of new content. Here are the highlights of what’s been updated:

A new chapter describes Apple’s new iTunes in the Cloud features, which are part of iCloud. There are three elements: automatic downloads of new purchases; the ability to download previous purchases from the iTunes Store; and iTunes Match, which lets you put your iTunes music library in the cloud. See Cloud.
A new tip, Choosing a Sync Method, discusses the Wi-Fi syncing feature that Apple added in iTunes 10.5.
In What Interesting Things Can I Do with Smart Playlists? I’ve added a bullet item to the end about conditions for creating smart playlists matching an iTunes Match status or location.
The last two bullet items in How Do I Make My iTunes Music Sound Better? offer new tips for using high-end audio to improve sound quality from iTunes.
In Where Else Can I Buy Music Online?, I’ve significantly downgraded my recommendation for the eMusic online music-subscription service and added more information about additional online music dealers.
A new topic discusses Where Can I Stream Music From?.
What’s the Best Way to Back Up Media Files? is updated to note that Apple removed the backup feature from iTunes with the release of iTunes 10.4.
Sprinkled throughout the ebook are additional tips and information that I have gleaned since the first edition was released, in part thanks to questions and feedback from readers like you.
Because the Take Control series has begun producing EPUBs in-house, the EPUB version of this edition has an improved layout and looks more like a Take Control ebook.

What Was New in Version 1.1

Changes between the 1.0 and 1.1 versions of this ebook are aimed at making the text accurate for iTunes version 10.0.1, which shipped shortly after version 1.0 of the ebook was published. Here are the highlights of what’s been updated.

I deleted “How Do I Find Recommendations in the iTunes Store?” because Apple removed the Genius sidebar, which offered real-time recommendations based on music you were playing or that you had selected in your iTunes library.
I updated How Can I Discover New Music That My Friends Like? to describe using Ping in iTunes 10.0.1, and especially the Ping sidebar that replaces the Genius sidebar. The topic also now links to an AppleScript that you can use to hide the new Ping buttons in iTunes 10.0.1.
This version of the ebook also includes a link to a TidBITS article about the wide world of iTunes library sharing. See Can You Tell Me More about iTunes Library Sharing?

iTunes 10.6 Offers New On-The-Fly Conversion Options

March 14, 2012 --

Apple recently released iTunes 10.6. The new version adds compatibility with the soon-to-be-shipping new iPad, as well as the new Apple TV. In addition to these compatibility changes, one new feature will interest some iTunes users.

As you may know, when you sync to an iOS device, you can have iTunes automatically convert your music files to a lower bit rate, so you can save space on the portable device. Previously, the only choice you had was 128 kbps. But iTunes 10.6 offers three choices: 128, 192, and 256 kbps (as shown in the screenshot below). You can access this option on the Summary pane after you select your iPod in the iTunes source list.

This change will certainly please those who have iTunes libraries with music in lossless format, but who don't want to downsample their music to 128 kbps. The three options available are sufficient for all users; if you want more than 256 kbps, then you’ll just sync lossless files.

Note that this conversion can take a long time, so the first sync may take hours–especially if your iOS device has a lot of storage–but subsequent syncs, if you’ve updated only a small amount of your library, will be much quicker.

—Kirk McElhearn

How to Consolidate iTunes Libraries

March 12, 2012 --

Reader Mike M. wrote in to ask,

Over the years, I have four or five iTunes libraries running around on various drives. Is there a way to consolidate all of them to ONE library, wherein I have all my tunes, but no dupes? I'm guessing there may be a way I can spend two weeks doing it by hand, but...well, you know....thanks in advance!

Kirk wrote back to say:

You’ve got a confusing situation. I’d recommend looking at Dupin: http://dougscripts.com/apps/dupinapp.php. It’s an app designed to weed out duplicates. If you were simply to add all the music from each library to one main library, then use Dupin, you should be able to clean things out. Dupin will certainly save you a lot of time. Now, if you also want to bring in playlists from each library, have a look at this Macworld article, which shows how to export and import playlists: http://www.macworld.com/article/165775/. This will be a fastidious task, but if you simply want the music, use Dupin and it should be relatively painless.

—Tonya Engst

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