Get more out of iTunes, pt. 1 – Get organized!
So I’m sitting here mixing and compressing this week’s sermon audio and decided it was an awesome time to go ahead and write another lovely blog post!
Now for those of you who know me, you know that I LOVE music. My music library isn’t as large as some, but that’s typically because I have weeded out the junk that I never listen to. Right now I’m at 5,000 songs… which is pretty good for me. I am also VERY picky as to how my music is organized. So how do I do it? Here’s some hints:
GENRE: Genre is a hard to pin down, because various artists like to change their style up a bit, even if it’s just for one album. I typically go by their “average” genre, meaning that whatever style they do the most is how I categorize them. I typically go to Rhapsody.com, insert the artist name, and then it usually tells me what genre that artist fits into. Why is this important? Well, if I like the Goo Goo Dolls, I may like other artists that fit into that genre. So it’s important for me to make sure that I have the genre nailed down as best as possible.
YEAR: Year is important for putting together smart playlists that go by year. For example, if I want all my music from the sixties to show up, it is important for me to make sure that all the music is tagged correctly. For newer music (late ’90s to present), this isn’t a big deal at all. But when you’re dealing with older songs, this starts to become a pain. As we start to get “old,” we find out that music we listened to in the ’90s, ’80s, ’70s, ’60s, typically come out on compilation or “Best of” albums… even when you download it from iTunes or Amazon.com MP3. The best way to find out the year in which a song was released is to search for the song on Wikipedia If you can’t find the specific song in Wikipedia, look for the artist.
ALBUM: If you’re like me… which some of you are, the album is actually important. Usually I’ll buy a compilation or “best of” album to get the best tracks and then rip it to iTunes. But I typically like to have the correct album information (to go with the correct year). The best way to do this is to search for the song on Wikipedia, which is usually pretty good about having discographies. If you are unable to find it, another good resource is to do a search for the song on Google and adding “recording year” to the search. So let’s say I wanted to find out what year Dido’s “Thank You” was released I would type something like “Dido Thank You ‘recording year’”. Along with finding the album, you may want to go to Amazon.com and get the coverart for the album, there are also programs that will search your iTunes library and find the missing album coverart for you. In fact, I think iTunes now does this.
BPM: If you’re into dance/trance/techno music, it may be a good idea to make a note of the beats per minute (BPM). On Windows, I use a program called beaTunes. I love using the BPM information when coming up with mixes for my workouts. Why? Because I can start out with a song with a slower beat and work my way up to a faster song and so forth. This does take work, as beaTunes doesn’t always get the correct beat count, but if you’re really into it, this is a great tool.
RATING: Rate your music! This is probably the biggest advice I give to friends who can’t get the results they want from their playlists. Here is how I rate my music:
- No stars = Hasn’t been rated or don’t like it
- 1 star = Did not like it (probably won’t listen to it much, if ever)
- 2 stars = Almost into it (will listen to it, but not on a regular basis)
- 3 stars = Liked it (average rating)
- 4 stars = Really enjoyed it (would listen to it more often)
- 5 stars = Loved it (would count as one of my top favorite songs)
So there you have it, there’s just a few ways you can clean up your library. In future posts, I will talk about creating effective smart playlists in iTunes… but until then, clean up that library!