Itunes driving me crazy...

[ra2bach]

I try to import songs into iTunes from my computer that I loaded from disc, but a lot of the songs come over in multiple albums, sometimes with only one or two songs in it.

fer instance, I have 8 "Essential Johnny Cash" albums with only at most 4 songs in each one.

what do I do to get all the songs into one album???

[VooDoo6Actual]

You SHOULD have a "preferences" settings drop down that let's you select to override and duplicate songs. I do it all the time for the reasons you annotated.

I always have the box show up and lets me chose etc.

HTH....

[Just a Jarhead]

If I understand you correctly:

When you download to iTunes they're catgorized by album. If you want them all on the same album, from the file menu at the top you can create a new playlist folder. When you download the songs they'll show up in the main screen with the rest of your songs, drag & drop them into your playlist folder. Name the playlist folder whatever you want i.e. Best of Johnny Cash etc. Delete the duplicates. On your iPod look for "playlist".

[chadbag]

I try to import songs into iTunes from my computer that I loaded from disc, but a lot of the songs come over in multiple albums, sometimes with only one or two songs in it.

fer instance, I have 8 "Essential Johnny Cash" albums with only at most 4 songs in each one.

what do I do to get all the songs into one album???

More info or explain better please. I don't understand at all what you are saying.

[ra2bach]

You SHOULD have a "preferences" settings drop down that let's you select to override and duplicate songs. I do it all the time for the reasons you annotated.

I always have the box show up and lets me chose etc.

HTH....

OK, I found this but it doesn't seem to be able to help with what I want to do.

or maybe I just don't understand iTunes. but even my 16yr old and his friends say it can't be done so I'm hoping there's a work around.

thanks for the suggestion...

[ra2bach]

More info or explain better please. I don't understand at all what you are saying.

ok, I downloaded a CD to my computer. when I add it to my library, it shows up as several "albums" all with just a few songs in them.

most egregious is the "Essential Johnny Cash" disc 2. I now have 12 identical albums in my library with no more than 4 and sometimes just one song in them.

for instance, I have Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan album with one song in it.
and a JC & June Carter Cash album
and a JC & Waylon Jennings album, etc., etc...

I want to combine all these "albums" into one so that if I want to hear ALL the songs on the original album, I don't have to search for them or make a playlist.

fwiw, Windows media player doesn't have any of these problems. I can change the name of songs or albums, or I can just drag and drop any song into any album. iTunes won't let me edit song titles or combine anything except by using playlists.

is this what I have to do?

[ra2bach]

If I understand you correctly:

When you download to iTunes they're catgorized by album. If you want them all on the same album, from the file menu at the top you can create a new playlist folder. When you download the songs they'll show up in the main screen with the rest of your songs, drag & drop them into your playlist folder. Name the playlist folder whatever you want i.e. Best of Johnny Cash etc. Delete the duplicates. On your iPod look for "playlist".

I suppose I could do this but making playlists just seems like a lot of extra work. I'm sure it's because I wasn't "brought up" in the Apple way but it just seems so cumbersome that I don't get why it's so popular. not as much capability and NOT as user friendly...

and I don't even want to try to sync my iPhone till I get this sorted out on my computer...

thanks for the suggestion...

[Palmguy]

I've had a similar issue with a couple of albums using PowerAmp on my Android phone...the issue for me was the metatags for contributing artist weren't consistent across the whole album. Corrected by manually editing the tags in Windows Explorer.

[chadbag]

Hi

I am still not understanding what you are trying to do and what is happening.

How did you "download a CD" to the computer? How did you add it to the iTunes library?

I am on a Mac, but iTunes should be about the same on Windows as well in terms of how it operates, and I have none of these issues. Albums stay together etc.

So please elaborate on exactly what you are doing -- steps you take -- settings in iTunes (like leave files where they are if importing already ripped stuff, or not etc)


ok, I downloaded a CD to my computer. when I add it to my library, it shows up as several "albums" all with just a few songs in them.

most egregious is the "Essential Johnny Cash" disc 2. I now have 12 identical albums in my library with no more than 4 and sometimes just one song in them.

for instance, I have Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan album with one song in it.
and a JC & June Carter Cash album
and a JC & Waylon Jennings album, etc., etc...

I want to combine all these "albums" into one so that if I want to hear ALL the songs on the original album, I don't have to search for them or make a playlist.

fwiw, Windows media player doesn't have any of these problems. I can change the name of songs or albums, or I can just drag and drop any song into any album. iTunes won't let me edit song titles or combine anything except by using playlists.

is this what I have to do?

[chadbag]

I've had a similar issue with a couple of albums using PowerAmp on my Android phone...the issue for me was the metatags for contributing artist weren't consistent across the whole album. Corrected by manually editing the tags in Windows Explorer.

I suspect the issue here is something with meta data as well. You have songs that exist on one album, but also exist on compilations and best of albums etc, so the meta data for each individual track does NOT show them being from the same album, because they were not when they were ripped.

[ra2bach]

I suspect the issue here is something with meta data as well. You have songs that exist on one album, but also exist on compilations and best of albums etc, so the meta data for each individual track does NOT show them being from the same album, because they were not when they were ripped.

so what's the answer?

[VooDoo6Actual]

OK, I found this but it doesn't seem to be able to help with what I want to do.

or maybe I just don't understand iTunes. but even my 16yr old and his friends say it can't be done so I'm hoping there's a work around.

thanks for the suggestion...

When this exact scenario happens on anyone of my 5 Apple devices (iPhone 4, IPad2, Macbook Pro, Macbook, G4 Powerbook) I get a pop up prompt that informs me that the same title/song already exists and if I want to cancel. delete, download anyway or ignore.

I was able to tweak it to my specific preferences.

Have you actually done a decent iTunes search on the subject/topic ?

I would go to a Genius Bar & they can fix you up in a Jiffy.

[chadbag]

so what's the answer?

If you look at the "Library / Music" thing in the sidebar, and order by song name (on the Mac you click the column you want to sort by -- I suspect iTunes on Windows is similar) you should actually see all the songs listed, including those which you have multiple times from different albums.

You can edit the meta data to match whatever info you think is correct. I don't know if you do this from the desktop on Windows, or inside of iTunes. On the Mac, I can edit it right in iTunes. I am sure there are lots of stand alone applications as well for managing song meta data. (The meta data is embedded in the song file itself and is not actually from or part of iTunes but was put there when the disk was imported from CD)