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up till a couple of years back i was still using my minidisc but then i got the mp3 player and had to go through all my CDs
yeah, it took a long time to finish them all, well, i still havent done all of them.

i dont use itunes but i'm sure there is somewhere in the options that will let you change the location of the library. well, im not 100% sure because apple is such a control freak that doesnt like you to know anything or make your own decisions ...

i dont have a 'library' like itunes, i just ripped everything to V0 mp3 and then they go on the player, and i keep a backup of all the folders on a hard drive which i have to maintain myself.
every now and then i get paranoid about a hard drive failure so i try to backup the mp3 copies to a 2nd drive - this program is the best i found: http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefil ... ync/v5.12/

oh, and when i compile all the spare tracks / singles etc, i make the artist tag the compilation name

so both the 'artist' and 'album' will be called Various Metal, for example.
i make all the various artist compilations start with 'Various' so that they are all together alphabetically and i can browse them at the end of the list - if they were called Metal Various and Folk Various etc, then they would be scattered all around.

and because they now have no artist in the artist tag, i'll change the 'title' tag to title + artist

I got an Ipod classic a few months ago too, and was in a similar situation. Never counted how many cds I have, but it has to be over 500. Took me ages to rip them all to my computer, and then I put them all in boxes in storage.

As for being selective, I ripped everything to my hard drive, but anything I don't care for so much these days I remove from my itunes library. But I still keep those ones on my computer hard drive so I could put it back on my ipod quickly if I have a change of opinion on the album.

Doctor X wrote:i dont use itunes but i'm sure there is somewhere in the options that will let you change the location of the library. well, im not 100% sure because apple is such a control freak that doesnt like you to know anything or make your own decisions .../

iTunes will let you change the location of your library (under Preferences, I think the Advanced tab.) I use an external 500gb drive b/c I have well over 150 gb of tunes and obviously that's not going on my mac's hard drive. It works really easily, actually, but then your music library is always separate.
Initially I ripped all my CDs in there...at about 400 CDs that took a long time, but once it's done, there ya go. I do like to do a little trimming of fat every once in a while. Stuff I really like I will import at a higher bit rate; iTunes default is 128 kbps, and while it makes for small files the sound quality is poor, which is really noticeable when you play your music back at higher volumes. I buy CDs at a rate of 3 a year now, used are often way cheaper than even buying a digital album...
I use iTunes b/c it's free and initially set it up when I got an iPod for christmas years ago, but I am not a fan. They are constantly doing updates, many of which totally change the layout of the player, and they regularly REMOVE functions. Of course they also have their own proprietary music file (m4a, I think it's called, which is what you get if you buy from the iTunes store). You USED to be able to convert these files to mp3s through iTunes, but no longer. So they won't play on other devices or through the usb port in my car stereo--you have to have an apple product.
Some functions are relatively intuitive, but some are not.

all this info is super helpful

I just closed my first book of CDS
starting my pile of metal and punk now
over 200 disks in and going strong


I do wish I had ripped my book of metal first as my workout last night was a little mopey and sad

but I felt like if I ripped my favorite disks first than I would be less motivated to do the whole collection

I started ripping all my stuff alphabetically a couple of years ago and only made it through the Js before getting sidetracked. I've since downloaded a lot of the albums I never got around to ripping, just because it was easier.

oldangelmidnight wrote:... I've since downloaded a lot of the albums I never got around to ripping, just because it was easier.

That's certainly true. That's why I've been doing most of my music listening on YouTube.

Grooveshark is a good site for streaming too, although the search engine's not the best and idiots make all kinds of errors when uploading stuff, but allows you to stream whole albums, often you'll find rarities or live stuff even. I use it at work all the time, you know, when Electric Wizard might not be so appropriate

I am 350 in and going strong
Gotta go back through and change Genre's on a bunch of stuff once it is all in

I hate having both a rap and a hip hop Genre, I understand their are differences but I would rather have them all in one place


plus I missed a bunch of 6 second cuts on a coheed and cambria cd that will drive me nuts in shuffle mode so I gotta pull them all out

hbombgraphics wrote:I am 350 in and going strong
Gotta go back through and change Genre's on a bunch of stuff once it is all in

I hate having both a rap and a hip hop Genre, I understand their are differences but I would rather have them all in one place


plus I missed a bunch of 6 second cuts on a coheed and cambria cd that will drive me nuts in shuffle mode so I gotta pull them all out

Oh man, I've completely given up on general shuffle mode - I've got so much random shit in my iTunes, it makes pure shuffle mode horrifically disconcerting. Playlists keep me sane.

yeah I gotta do play lists
when i was using media player I had them all up and running
I even had play lists for hotels and traveling

Smart Playlists are the only reason I use iTunes. I clear out the genre field and use it as a tag for building smart playlists.

Flac. Because fuck itunes.

rustywire wrote:Flac. Because fuck itunes.

This. And they sound sooooo much better...
Coordinating genres on itunes is a pain in the ass...I have five different "stoner rock" categories b/c of people's different shorthands, capitals, hyphens, misspellings...seriously. Playlists are the way to go.

Will I get shunned if I say;

People still buy CDs? I've been downloading all my music since napster. I haven't bought a cd in over a decade.