My 1 Year Anniversary...

[feckn_eejit]

...with iTunes!

Just realized it was just over a year ago that I, the Luddite IT Guy, finally caved and began the arduous task of importing my CDs into That Infernal Computer Thing.

It started with the iPhone... when the 3G came out in Canuckistan in July '08, I knew I had to have one... I needed the e-mail functionality for work and it was just so much cooler than a Crackberry... oh and coverflow looked pretty darn neat as well.

I did throw a few albums in to iTunes as soon as I got the iPhone just to have some material on there, but didn't get serious until the end of September. Rather than sleeping for two nights in a row, I schlopped in about 200 CDs. I was pretty disgusted to find that I had to manually edit the "Sort Artist" field to get, say, Walter Becker, to show up under B rather than W... and the "Sort Album" field to get albums to show up in chronological order in coverflow on the iPhone... and that lots of album art wouldn't exactly be dead easy to find and import.............

A year later I'm still hundreds of CDs away from being fully computerized... but I do have a nicely growing, albeit anal-retentively organized iTunes library!

It certainly has changed how I listen to music... I used to do proper sit-down sessions in front of the Magneplanars, listening to full albums all the way through... I'd very rarely listen to music in the car (having only a single-shot in-dash CD thinger), never at work, never on the plane...

I bought a pair of UE triple.fis which have proven to be the best money I've ever spent on audio... no other component has brought even close to as much quantitative enjoyment. Business travel is now a pleasure. Ignoring my coworkers is an enjoyable breeze.

I had originally intended for the iTunes library to be used with the iPhone only, and for casual desktop or Airport Express listening. I'd still use CDs for the real serious stuff... so I imported everything at "iTunes Plus" specification... that didn't last very long, further cemented by the purchase of a Genesis Digital Lens, to make the Airport Express sound exactly the same as a nice CD transport... I started going lossless only in April '09 and haven't looked back... I still have piles of CDs to re-rip in lossless...

Anyway...

I can't believe it took me until late 2008 to finally get into this. Having (the lion's share of) my music collection at my fingertips has certainly changed my life for the better. I listen to music far more often. Consequently I've been forced to work at least a little bit harder to further expand my collection, an effort to which this forum has made an invaluable contribution (special thanks to 'stretch). I'm certainly in a better mood most of the time... on the other hand everyone around me has to put up with my frankly brilliant air-instrument skills far more often... but I think it balances out.

[falkon]

A year later I'm still hundreds of CDs away from being fully computerized... but I do have a nicely growing, albeit anal-retentively organized iTunes library!

Smart move! When I first started in the Napster days, 8 or 9 years ago, there was no good way to organize stuff and I didn't pay too much attention to it. Big mistake! Took me hundreds of hours and a few weekends of nonstop work to get my library in pristine organizational condition. And it stays that way to this day. I find that with the proper organization, you can import your library into any program and it will be sorted correctly giving you flexibility and ease of use.

It certainly has changed how I listen to music... I used to do proper sit-down sessions in front of the Magneplanars, listening to full albums all the way through... I'd very rarely listen to music in the car (having only a single-shot in-dash CD thinger), never at work, never on the plane...

More music is always a good thing. And there are times when a proper playlist is indispensable (like the gym). But I've found that playlist listening will never replace full listening sessions with a full album run through. I, for one, am a firm believer that albums were meant to be listened all the way through, especially the classics. An experience, if you will, instead of a distraction. Cliched, I know, but true nonetheless.

[blessingx]

Jeff, if you're on a Mac make sure to take advantage of Doug's Applescripts. Makes the anal organization slightly easier.

Start with:

This Tag, That Tag Scripts

Remove n Characters From Front or Back

Track Number to Song Name Prefix

Search/Replace Tag Text

[Dusty Chalk]

First of all, I can relate -- I only got my first iPod late last year.

Secondly, I didn't even know about the Sort Artist column.

[Smeggy]

Organizing shit is highly overrated

[blessingx]

I think Travis Bickle had some organization issues.

Anyone getting a kick out of Genius Mixes? Have a great Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, Bob Dylan mix goin'.

[HeadphoneAddict]

That's great, but too bad about having to re-rip stuff. I am going through the same thing.

I have been adding music to iTunes since 2003, and I would rip CD at 160K so I could know which songs were not iTunes purchases. I only used the music on iPods, not with a outboard DAC, so I didn't think I needed to go higher. By early 2007 I was ripping CDs in 320K because with my new E4C and C700 IEM I could hear the improvement.

I started ripping lossless 2 years ago after I joined head-fi and bought an iBasso D1 DAC/amp, in addition to ripping the 320K version that I still do for smaller iPods. That was when I discovered the joys of listening to my Macbook as a digital music server and hearing the music in CD quality without having to pull the CD off the shelf and load them up one at a time. I now have about 600 albums in iTunes and about 200 are lossless. I still have about 300 older CDs that I need to add to iTunes.