Ipod help needed

turbodog

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Got a 20g ipod for Christmas and am having some frustration. Previously I have an archos hard drive mp3 player (before ipod was even made..... old). It worked fine, and I have become very uused to it.

The archos operated off the directory structure, THEN it would read the id3 tag to get the song name/artist/etc.

The ipod runs everything off the id3 tags it looks like. A good portion of my songs have messed up id3 tags, so the ipod is splitting up albums into 2-3 pieces because the id3 tags are different.

Is there any way to make the ipod work in "directory" mode?

Help.
 

Luminocity

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Turbodog, first of all, congrats on your new toy and welcome to the club!

The iPod (and iTunes) is driven by its own internal database, which is in turn populated via the id3 tags. If you use iTunes to load your iPod, you can also use iTunes to clean up those tags. Just import your music into iTunes, clean up the id3 tags, and then load the music library to your new iPod.

I don't know of any way to make the ipod work off of the directories. I too owned an Archos unit and it bugged me at first that my new iPod could not be driven by directory structures. Now that I have had 2 years as an iPodder, I cannot imagine going back to a directory driven structure. Relational databases populated by id3 tags are the way to go. Of course that will mean a lot of work for you at first if your id3 tags need to be cleaned up.

Probably not the answer you were seeking, but stick with it and things will work out. I thought the Archos was great before getting my first iPod. However I find that the iPod has much better sound quality (and definitely better bass) and is a dream to navigate.

Best of luck to you!
 

turbodog

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Wish there was some way to edit a group of songs' id3 tags.

That way I could at least go album by album.
 

turbodog

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It may be easier to just rip the stuff again. The original rips were by crummy software and that's where the id3 problems came from.
 

James S

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just checking my iTunes here, though this is the mac version and I don't know if you're running that or windows. I can highlight multiple songs in the list at once and do a get info on them. What opens up is a "multiple song info" window with the various fields that aren't specific to the individual song (like no title) but group and album and such can be edited this way.

Additionally all the fields in these windows are type ahead so you only need to type enough of the name of the band so that it's unique and it will fill in the rest. Then use the next/previous buttons to go through them.

It's not ideal, but it's not as bad as it might be.

that being said, I did re-rip just about everything I own which is many hundred CD's after the AAC format was released. It just sounds so much better than the low bitrate MP3 I had originally used.
 

turbodog

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[ QUOTE ]
James S said:
just checking my iTunes here, though this is the mac version and I don't know if you're running that or windows. I can highlight multiple songs in the list at once and do a get info on them. What opens up is a "multiple song info" window with the various fields that aren't specific to the individual song (like no title) but group and album and such can be edited this way.



[/ QUOTE ]

You are my HERO!

(I already tried this, but must have hit the wrong key somewhere. So... I thought it would not work this way)

happy happy, joy joy
 

Saaby

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My ID3 tags are messed up too, but I've only got maybe 2000 to work through :p

Welcome to the Pod people club! Directory structure is nice, but a database like ID3 lets you do awesome things, like for example make a "smart" playlist with all your music from a particular set of years. I had a "smart" playlist that was a playlist of all my Christmas music. As I imported more Christmas music it got added (Automagically) to the smart playlist. Then I could just set this as the source for Party Shuffle and listen to Christmas music all I wanted.

Now that Christmas is over (Well, almost) I will export a playlist of all my Christmas music, then delete it all from my iTunes library (But keep the song files). This way when I shuffle my whole library Christmas music doesnt' sneak in. Next year I'll just re-import the playlist and it will bring all the Christmas music back.
 

turbodog

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Ok,

Just finished renaming all my id3 tags. I told it to update. It appears to be recopying ALL my mp3s. I wonder if it'll overwrite the old ones on the ipod, or will I have dupes and a huge mess?
 

turbodog

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Ok,

After even a little use I am really liking the ipod now. The difference between it and the archos is the difference between turning one thing or clicking another thing a hundred times. Sort of like changing brightness levels on a u2 compared to an arc 4.
 

bobisculous

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Turbodog, and other iPod owners. I have had my iPod for a few months now and love it. But today, I got the TransPodFM made by DLO. Bought from Best Buy, its a extremely kewl unit in which the iPod sits in while plugged into the cigarrette lighter of your car. At the bottom of the new gizmo is an LCD screen where you can adjust the frequency. You simply turn your radio dial to that frequency and bing, You are listening to your iPod via FM waves. I read a lot on it before I asked for it and read mostly that the waves only travel ~30ft~. Wrong, they go probably 1000ft or more. I was in a seperate car with the iPod in another and we were 1.5 - 2.0 blocks apart and the music was still just as clear. And I was highly impressed with the sound quality. Well, extremely impressed with it. Very easy to change the song with the positioning of it in my car so I am very happy. I recommend you look into getting one. And also, it does all this while charging the iPod too.
AND, its very clean looking. Simply unplug it from the cig lighter and off to another car with nothing else to unplug. Very cool!

Cameron
 

Luminocity

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Glad you made some progress with those id3 tags. I am sorry that I did not mention that you can do multi-file id3 tag edits with iTunes.

For lots of info on your new iPod, check out the iPod Lounge at:
iPod Lounge

Probably the best online iPod community.
 

Aloft

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Don't despair everyone! Open Source Software may rescue you such catastrophes in the future. I use MP3 BookHelper. . . it's for Windows (runs on my XP Pro and Win2000 machines). Do a google search for it, or if you're familiar with SourceForge, look for it there. You can convert one type of ID Tag to another version, change one or more of the fields, and do lots of other stuff--and you can do it to groups of MP3's all at once. Since this software is free, it is guaranteed to give you AT LEAST your money's worth.
 

turbodog

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[ QUOTE ]
Aloft said:
Don't despair everyone! Open Source Software may rescue you such catastrophes in the future. I use MP3 BookHelper. . . it's for Windows (runs on my XP Pro and Win2000 machines). Do a google search for it, or if you're familiar with SourceForge, look for it there. You can convert one type of ID Tag to another version, change one or more of the fields, and do lots of other stuff--and you can do it to groups of MP3's all at once. Since this software is free, it is guaranteed to give you AT LEAST your money's worth.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks. But my main problem was that a LOT of my files simply had NO id3 tags. I was using the file name as the artist and song. The ipod showed thousands of songs with no title/artist/album/etc.

Anyway, after a lot of cd swapping, it's doing well now.
 

Aloft

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Oops. . . sorry you did all that work. You can set MP3 BookHelper to automatically use the file name for artist, title or both, using some boolean arguments. For future use, you may also want to try CDex. . .there is a feature with which you can automatically download the track and album titles, and other pertinent info from a central database. Saved me lots of time when I ripped my 400 some CD's! Again, all free software! Amazing!
 

Saaby

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When you put a CD into the computer and use iTunes to play it, it downloads the track info from the Gracenote CDDB.
 
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