iTunes alternative

Creamy Goodness

how's it going.

here's the dealio, i don't like iTunes, in fact i think it's one of the most hinderence ridden piece of programming ever created.

i won't go into the reasons why i dislike it so much but i'm looking for an alternative to use on my macbook.

a little information about my music collection.

• roughly about 40 gigs
• mixed between mp3/ogg/wma (90%/5%/5%) respectively i'd say.
• a lot of live sessions / demos that have no album art work.

i want a program that will allow me to place a folder in my root directory (itunes insists on copying it to the music folder so i then have two copies of everything) - music - and add it to a library and search for artwork, if that's a problem i can transfer my music to windows and get cover art from another program and have it inserted into the album's folder.

obviously the program must show the artwork, be lightning fast (after inital setup period) and probably most importantly be free macbooks don't grow on trees like i've been told

any suggestions welcomed (as long as it's not a sympathy vote for itunes).

spidermonkey

never used it, but sound like songbird would be what your looking for

Nature Boy

Cremo wrote:

i want a program that will allow me to place a folder in my root directory (itunes insists on copying it to the music folder so i then have two copies of everything)

iTunes does actually allow you to have your music whereever you want. I have mine on a seperate HD. Also, there's an option to stop it from copying the music when you import it.

I tried a while back to find an alternative cos there's a few things i don't like about it too (namely the fact that it doesn't add songs to a playlist when you play them and a few others) but i couldn't find anything as good as winamp on Windows so I ended up giving in to iTunes and trying my hand at applescript to try get it to do what i want

Diarmuid

Cremoitunes wrote:

insists on copying it to the music folder so i then have two copies of everything

Not true, I store all my mp3s on a linux server which I mount using NFS. I then point iTunes at the mounted drive and it reads the mp3s from there. Go to the Advanced preferences (I think) and there is an option to "copy files when importing", deselect it.

440Hz

Cremo wrote:

most hinderence ridden piece of programming ever created.

Ever try Vista?

Cabaal

440Hz wrote:

Ever try Vista?

not for very long thankfully

iTunes def will allow you to store your music anywhere you want, to be honest while I've not used it on Mac Songbird is most likely your best bet as already mentioned:)

Its worth noting that Songbird will now actually work with iPods once you install the correct plugins via their website..

BostonB

While iTunes will allow you to keep its files where you want you lose the ability to have files/folders in sync with tags once you do this. I dislike it because I can't work with filetree properly using it. Vistas a bit slower than XP especially copying files for some odd reason. But since I turned off UAC and indexing etc, I haven't had any problems with it. Old games and apps are working ok. One glitch is MS SQL 2005 doesn't work on it only the express edition.

Dont be at yourself

You could just set the iTunes library folder to your Music folder...

Creamy Goodness

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

You could just set the iTunes library folder to your Music folder...

it's not just that annoys me about itunes.

there's a few other things i'll just mention another one. i have an ipod that i don't use in the conventional way ie. i don't use itunes nor do i use apple's software on it. everytime i connect it itunes wants to try and be helpful by saying it's corrupt and needs to be formatted, then i browse it as an external hdd and my files are all there working like they should do.

i'll try songbird - it looks good - out when i get home to my macbook.

cheers for the suggestions.

Creamy Goodness

ahh just noticed songbird doesn't change the ID tags on mp3's whilst editing them inside songbird changes you make are stored in a songbird database.

pretty pointless me going through 40gig's of music if it won't even save it.

any suggestions on a tagging software for mac?

Soundman

BostonB wrote:

Vistas a bit slower than XP especially copying files for some odd reason.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055131985

ZENER

Cremo wrote:

ahh just noticed songbird doesn't change the ID tags on mp3's whilst editing them inside songbird changes you make are stored in a songbird database.

pretty pointless me going through 40gig's of music if it won't even save it.

any suggestions on a tagging software for mac?

Like others here I have all my 120GB music stored on a server with iTunes pointed to it. It's the sharing simplicity that attracts me to iTunes - I don't have to give everyone at home an advanced course to use it.

For tagging I'd recommend MP3 Rage - works for me.

Also it's not Apples fault if you choose to use your iPod in a way that was not intended so don't dis' iTunes for what it does in that context. From your posts it's apparent you haven't explored the full features of iTunes.

ZEN

BostonB

ZENER wrote:

...It's the sharing simplicity that attracts me to iTunes - I don't have to give everyone at home an advanced course to use it....

I find most people don't use it properly, and their music is so badly tagged its unnavigable. They just leave their iPod on shuffle most of the time. So I'm not convinced most people find it that simple.

Creamy Goodness

well maybe it's because my music isn't tagged properly, but i was looking for a program that would have a library and tagging software built in so it would be easy.

i'll try out mp3 rage when i'm at home cheers.

K.O.Kiki

BostonB wrote:

I find most people don't use it properly, and their music is so badly tagged its unnavigable. They just leave their iPod on shuffle most of the time. So I'm not convinced most people find it that simple.

What's wrong with leaving it on shuffle?
Random songs FTW!