Melbourne Beats

Was gonna post in the thread about nothing but figured it may have warranted its own thread, so here goes

After a few years off buying music, I've decided to start again by downloading iTunes. It's already done my head in. I know iTunes works, but I just can't seem to get my head around it. Hate it hate it hate it

So I have a few questions..............
b) Can I tell if a tune is DRM protected before I buy it? If so, how?
a) Are there places online other than iTunes with such a wide array of stuff to choose from?
c) Which personal players do people use? Should I just bite the bullet and buy an iPod, or is there another out there that will support all the relevant file types

I fucking hate that 1 in every 5 or 10 files on iTunes is DRM protected. If I wanted to be dodgy, I wouldn't have paid for it in the first place

Just wish the whole process was simpler ie- find track/album, buy it, copy it to personal player/burn it to disc. Done. I can't stand the way iTunes wants to organise everything for me, and the fact that if I don't own an iPod or iPhone, I can't listen to my music on the fly

Or can I?



Help

enter hardy.....

i'd rather not, but if it'll help

sans lube

if you don't, he's just going to enter you... think about which is worse.

aroes - good luck getting a helpful reply!

completely flabbergasted at the number of people that can't figure out itunes. huhu

i use doubletwist to transfer tunes/photos etc to and from my desire.

I wish you would transfer me to your desire huge. uhuhuh. yes pls.

lol amick, i had it coming

i realise it's something everyone probably figured out years ago, i'm just way behind when it comes to this stuff

any insightful advice appreciated

nic?

aroes wrote:
any insightful advice appreciated

nic?

now you're taking the piss

^^ same. and im a tech tard!

This might be too simple for what your looking for, but hey, it might help.

Aroes, you might just have to get yourself an ipod to save the hassle. If you buy tracks in itunes and then get a a non ipod, your going to have to change the format. If general use of itunes is doing your head in, using a non ipod will make it worse imo. Having said that, heaps peeps on here would do it and not have a problem. Im not that bright, so cant be fucked.
You can burn anything you buy on itunes. I buy loads of tracks from itunes for gigs and never have an issue burning them. Cant do it in multiple mp3 format tho, so usually 1 cd per album kinda thing.

Regarding the organisation, you can tweek it to be however you like. I hate having single tracks in my itunes - namely the 1000's of trax ive bought over the years for gigs, so i make my own albums out of them. I have an lmb file for my breaks at 120-125 bpm, 125 - 130, a drum and bass one, blah blah.

Just mess with track info and specify what you want. Easy.

I-tunes can be great for playlists.

I have created a 6 hour Sunday Chill playlist and gone in and ordered the tracks the way I want them. Edited the start and finish times of each track to skip any dead air or wanky bits or to flow better. Almost like a DJ.

I do hate that you can not export tunes you have bought as mp3's though. I mean come on!~

lol total noobs.

dont buy DRM tunes, make sure they're all mp3's and you can do whatever you want.

doubletwist, foobar2000 are the players i use. i buy tunes from itunes, beatport, boomkat, juno, plenty of other options.

you can totally export as mp3 in itunes.

if all else fails buy a Zen
i got my fella one and he loves it...... that was before the iPoo went nuts in the market....

but like the Huge one said -mp3 and no drama's....

DBoy wrote:I-tunes can be great for playlists.

I have created a 6 hour Sunday Chill playlist and gone in and ordered the tracks the way I want them. Edited the start and finish times of each track to skip any dead air or wanky bits or to flow better. Almost like a DJ.

I am such an itunes noob i dont know how to make a playlist.
I have so much music that its all stored in externals & so its kind of like this big dusty library that i just cycle through 87 Aphex Twin albums and recordings on the ipod to find something more suitable for the morning commute.

but yeh - buy an ipod, easier. and then listen to huge.

iTunes Store is completely DRM free these days.

Lephrenic wrote:iTunes Store is completely DRM free these days.

as of when?

i bought two DRM tracks from the iTunes store last month.......a Space Invadas tune and an Eddy Current Supression ring tune

huge wrote:lol total noobs.

dont buy DRM tunes, make sure they're all mp3's and you can do whatever you want.

ok, but is it possible that some of the music i want is ONLY available in DRM protected form from iTunes?

or should i just look harder? (beatport, juno, boomkat etc)

Mate - fuck iTunes.

Use BigpondMusic.

320kbps MP3's, similar sized range of mainstream pop/rock/hip-hop etc, but cheaper. All DRM free.

I use it for all my hip-hop and rock.

It's a clunky site, but fuck paying $1.90-odd for a 192kbps MP3 when you can score a 320kbps for $1.60*

*I think that's the price for both sites. Unfortunately maybe 15% of songs are 256kbps, but - it's still better than 192.

Pretty sure site is: http://www.bigpondmusic.com

PS: I think the iTunes player is great for organising music. But I don't let it name everything itself, I edit where need be. My iTunes is very organised.

do not buy from itunes its all gheyloard AAC / 256
i cant tell the difference tho, lol.

itunes is awosme
create playlistss - drag directly into abelton

try play.com for your more ghey disco commercial stuff you woint find on the ever smug boomkat or multi window juno

http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download- ... d=15322410

ok thanks guise

looks like i'll have a dig around these other sites, set up a few accounts and go from there

will report back

I fucking love itunes.

^ store, player or both?

haha i can fast see this turning into an 'iTunes rulz vs iTunes is ghey' discussion

Direkt wrote:^ store, player or both?

both actually.

after using winamp for years and not really understanding itunes' appeal I have got to say that as a player is the most practical, centralized and no nonsense way of not only storing but also listening to music.

for me, its gud.

aroes wrote:c) Which personal players do people use? Should I just bite the bullet and buy an iPod, or is there another out there that will support all the relevant file types

I've got a Sansa Fuze. It's got 8GB of flash onboard, but accepts microSD, so is technically expandable to 40GB now (fuck me, the 32GB cards are a rip, though.) Sound quality is excellent, has FM radio, will interface with 'puter like any removable storage, so it's just drag and drop. All the same can also be said for the Clip+ - was just a bit teeny tiny for me. I don't think either will play AAC, though. (I also have no idea if you can get them in Oz...)

As for iTunes: I use it to play my pre-organised music. ie. I arrange everything nicely by album and just get it to Add to Library (having UNchecked the 'copy to music folder' thingy that it does automatically.) I've never bought anything from the music store (mainly buy CDs, but will get individual downloads from Beatport, etc.)

youthful_implants wrote:

Direkt wrote:^ store, player or both?

both actually.

after using winamp for years and not really understanding itunes' appeal I have got to say that as a player is the most practical, centralized and no nonsense way of not only storing but also listening to music.

for me, its gud.

Player is good.

Store is functional - but has substandard quality. I would have thought as a producer, bang for buck in the way of fidelity for coin would have been paramount?

when just at home listening, I don't care to have 320s.... for DJing etc, mandatory.

Pretty silly buying two different versions though imo

music player wars! please to continue.

I hate hate HATE iTunes as well... Hugh, does doubletwist allow you to transfer music to and from your ipod? I have an ipod but dont want iTunes on my comp so need another app to get music onto it...

repeated question from first post.....

anyone know how to tell a file is DRM before you buy it?

lol, it seems lephrenic was right, iTunes now lets me convert everything to mP3

i accidentally the whole thread

plz lock

quick wrote:Hugh, does doubletwist allow you to transfer music to and from your ipod? I have an ipod but dont want iTunes on my comp so need another app to get music onto it...

anyone? i really want an alternative to itunes for transfering music to my ipod... love the help, meow

deviant wrote:http://tinyurl.com/bu7vtw

thanks numbnuts but there are shit loads that dont do it well or even at all... some are just dodgy pay later deals... there has to be one someone has used and likes...

I used amarok for a period... it's good

so I suggest installing linux and then using amarok

this site says Winamp will do it... surely that's got to be good/free?

http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/08/10 ... your-ipod/

http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/07/ho ... your-ipod/

I'm pretty obsessive about keeping my itunes collection clean in terms of labelling, cover art etc.

I've started using tune up for my itunes

http://www.tuneupmedia.com/index.php

I've found it doesn't quite work as described, you can't just dump your whole libarary in and it fixes it all perfect. Sometimes the suggestions need to be fine tuned, some times they are just completley wrong.

But, as a tool for managing the labelling of your collection I find it useful.

I usually drag 30 or so songs across at a time, or 3 or so albums, and then carefully review each to make sure the suggested fixes are correct. Any that it gets wrong I don't save and instead add the information manually, by either looking it up in itunes and making sure it has all the labelling correct so that it will reference correctly to gracenotes, or by just fixing the labelling to what I assume it to be and then manually looking up the cover art via a google image search.

I'm sure that sounds stupid but to be honest its one of the ways i relax, just sit on the couch with beer in hand and go through collection to fix any errors, or sometimes updating all the genres for every track because I just decided that Electronica/Dance is too broad and relabel everything to ridiculously specific sub genres like "Minimal Electro Polka" only to decide that its gone to far and decide to just put everything under "Techno".

deviant wrote:enter hardy.....

Is that an invitation or a demand? You know I only like it when it's non-consentual

speaking of itunes.. mine CRASHED badly on the weekend. I re-installed it, all the shilw FREEEAKING out about losing all my apps and data etc...

Once re-installed, not an issue..