iTunes question

stpalmstpalm
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I'm on a PC, and I recently downloaded iTunes, as I am anticipating getting an iPod soon. I, in my idiocy, used Windows Media Player to encode all my music. Inexorably, the music was obviously encoded in Microsoft' sound format, which really sounds like crap. I downloaded a little app that lets me convert songs from WMA to mp3. yay! thats my little story, but here is my problem:



iTunes is great, but I have one question. Every single song is listed on the album in alphabetical order, since I did not rip the CDs using iTunes, it does not know the correct song order- the song starting with "A" is listed first, even though it might be the 5th song. How do I change the playlist to sort in the right order? I have the track number data in the Id3 tag, doesnt iTunes recognize that? In Winamp, you have an option to "sort list by filename", which does indeed play the tracks in the correct order, not alphabetically. Does iTunes have an option like that? My search hasnt turned up much.



Thanks to all who respond, this is very aggravating!





p.s. hi luca

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    if you sort by album and your track numbers in the tags are correct, each respective album should be in order.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    stpalmstpalm Posts: 8member
    thanks- windows media player sucks the fat one and winamp I just didnt like. iTunes looks good, I dont see what advantages it has over either yet, but at least it doesnt hurt my eyes.



    some tracks are listed correctly when I choose to sort by album, but some arent- they dont have the track number data in them- I have no clue why. I guess I will have to re-label them!



    thanks for your prompt reply.
  • Reply 3 of 12
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by stpalm

    thanks- windows media player sucks the fat one and winamp I just didnt like. iTunes looks good, I dont see what advantages it has over either yet, but at least it doesnt hurt my eyes.



    some tracks are listed correctly when I choose to sort by album, but some arent- they dont have the track number data in them- I have no clue why. I guess I will have to re-label them!



    thanks for your prompt reply.



    No prob. Ya WMP sucks--once everything is organized properly you wont know how you lived without iTunes.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    I can't imagine WMA-to-MP3 could at all improve sound quality. Surely it must degrade further?



    Better to re-rip altogether. Hopefully you didn't sell off your CDs?



    (I am, perhaps naïvely, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you did indeed rip them from your own CDs).
  • Reply 5 of 12
    crazychestercrazychester Posts: 1,339member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by johnq

    I can't imagine WMA-to-MP3 could at all improve sound quality. Surely it must degrade further?



    Better to re-rip altogether. Hopefully you didn't sell off your CDs?



    (I am, perhaps naïvely, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you did indeed rip them from your own CDs).



    Yep, yep, yep. And hopefully, yep.
  • Reply 6 of 12
    socratessocrates Posts: 261member
    Erm... you know that iTunes can convert WMA to MP3 by itself now. You don't need a third party app.
  • Reply 7 of 12
    jginsbujginsbu Posts: 135member
    You can use an AppleScript called 'Albumize Selection' to do this. It's available at:

    http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/s...umizeselection

    Select the songs in the album, then File > New Playlist from Selection. Within the playlist you can put the songs in album order, then just select all and run Albumize Selection. It will take care of the rest.



    Unfortunately, I don't think AppleScripts work on a PC, so to use this you'd need to do the organizing on a Mac somehow. I hope I'm wrong about this for your sake -- doing it by hand is a real pain. OTOH, nothing looks better next to a shiny new iPod than a shiny new Mac!
  • Reply 8 of 12
    northernsoulnorthernsoul Posts: 5member
    thanks for that link jginsbu, thats exactly what i was looking around for. the only problem is that when i do as the directions ask, it says: "the variable p is not defined". what is this? how do i fix it? this is the first ive seen of scripts, so i really have no clue how to fix this.
  • Reply 9 of 12
    the wizthe wiz Posts: 28member
    I highly suggest you rerip all your music. Not only will it sound alot better, but it should have all the correct track information and be in the right order and everything so you wont have to do that yourself.
  • Reply 10 of 12
    mattjohndrowmattjohndrow Posts: 1,618member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by The Wiz

    I highly suggest you rerip all your music. Not only will it sound alot better, but it should have all the correct track information and be in the right order and everything so you wont have to do that yourself.



    for real, that is what i would do, i never rerip stuff, ever, it ends up sounding like crap!
  • Reply 11 of 12
    jginsbujginsbu Posts: 135member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by NorthernSoul

    thanks for that link jginsbu, thats exactly what i was looking around for. the only problem is that when i do as the directions ask, it says: "the variable p is not defined". what is this? how do i fix it? this is the first ive seen of scripts, so i really have no clue how to fix this.



    No prob. It seems they updated the script and introduced a problem since I first downloaded the script. When I encountered this I looked on the site and found that there where two scripts, one called 'Albumize' and one called 'Albumize Selection', and one of them (I don't remember which) wasn't broken -- it's working fine for me now. Just grap 'em both and experiment to see which works for you.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    daisyggdaisygg Posts: 4member
    use itune to import your music instead of any other programs. Apple lossless encoder makes your mp3 like CD.









    Quote:

    Originally posted by stpalm

    I'm on a PC, and I recently downloaded iTunes, as I am anticipating getting an iPod soon. I, in my idiocy, used Windows Media Player to encode all my music. Inexorably, the music was obviously encoded in Microsoft' sound format, which really sounds like crap. I downloaded a little app that lets me convert songs from WMA to mp3. yay! thats my little story, but here is my problem:



    iTunes is great, but I have one question. Every single song is listed on the album in alphabetical order, since I did not rip the CDs using iTunes, it does not know the correct song order- the song starting with "A" is listed first, even though it might be the 5th song. How do I change the playlist to sort in the right order? I have the track number data in the Id3 tag, doesnt iTunes recognize that? In Winamp, you have an option to "sort list by filename", which does indeed play the tracks in the correct order, not alphabetically. Does iTunes have an option like that? My search hasnt turned up much.



    Thanks to all who respond, this is very aggravating!





    p.s. hi luca



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