Re: Music programs and maintaining music on computers.

Now if you don't put music on your 'puter, my hat goes off to you Mr. HiFi, but if you do, how nerdy and obsessive are you? Is all your album art on there? How specific is the genre label ( jeez that tune is definitely neo classical post-avant garde contemporary punk)? Who puts music lyrics in iTunes?

Lyrics? Nope. Genre labels? I don't get too granular, but when I see an artist like Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers labeled "Country," I do change it.

But album art? I'm definitely the obsessive nerd in that department. In fact, if I rip a CD whose bonus tracks once were released as a separate item, I search the web and find a picture of that long-lost EP, live promo or whatever. (The bonus tracks on the Pretenders II reissue constitute a good example: they were recorded at the Santa Monica Civic in 1981 and released as a promo LP.) Gotta keep those vinyl memories alive!

Delvin, I whole heartedly can relate. I am not too finicky, but I like putting album covers in there.
I would love to meet whoever puts lyrics into iTunes (that is a true believer!) If I was independently wealthy, I would spend my days developing an app that would automatically put lyrics into iTunes. And then I would compile them...like Gracenotes for lyrics.

Quote

I would spend my days developing an app that would automatically put lyrics into iTunes. And then I would compile them...like Gracenotes for lyrics.

Not me. I'd develop a program that automatically converted the correct lyrics into mondegreens on the spot.

Perhaps that app already exists? I'm always lagging tech-wise. Just got a phone that takes pictures the other day. Just try to buy one that doesn't.

Had to replace the one that got stolen outta the car, y'know?

I only care about rating and year, so that I can create auto playlists such as play all my favorite 80's songs or songs from 2011 or by GBV.I have spent countless hours assigning 1-5 stars to every song on my work computer (I am a programmer but havent bought a computer since 1998). It seems the world hasnt quite standardized how this is supposed to work. All the players use a propriety database format which inevitably gets corrupted and you lose everything. I gave up. Why this cant simply be a standard field in the MP3 format I dont quite understsand.

nosepail wrote:

> I only care about rating and year, so that I can create auto
> playlists such as play all my favorite 80's songs or songs from
> 2011 or by GBV.I have spent countless hours assigning 1-5 stars
> to every song on my work computer (I am a programmer but havent
> bought a computer since 1998). It seems the world hasnt quite
> standardized how this is supposed to work. All the players use
> a propriety database format which inevitably gets corrupted and
> you lose everything. I gave up. Why this cant simply be a
> standard field in the MP3 format I dont quite understsand.

Actually, there *IS* a field that is almost universally found in the MP3 format that is designed specifically to contain such data. It's called the ID3 tag:

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3

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ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself.

There are two unrelated versions of ID3: ID3v1 and ID3v2.

Although ID3 is sometimes referred to as a standard, the term applies only in the de facto sense, as no standardization body was involved in its creation nor has such an organization given it a formal approval status

Lots and lots of software--CD rippers, MP3 players, MP3 taggers--handle ID3 metadata without problem and give you immense flexibility in extracting the data and manipulating it. The problem is that many commercial programs don't read or properly utilize ID3 tags in preference to their own *proprietary* data storage formats. You can probably blame corporate business models that attempt "customer lock-in" to a given proprietary data format for that.

For more info see the ID3.ORG website:

http://www.id3.org/Home[/url]



Post Edited (05-22-12 22:38)

umm, can a digital music library deteriorate?

Yes, it certainly can. Hard drives deteriorate, mostly due to heat. Back your library up to an extra hard drive regularly, and leave that hard drive alone otherwise. Be ready to bring it into service when the old hard drive dies.

I read an article last year saying that a lot of albums that originally were recorded digitally are "deteriorating" for a different reason. Some of the sounds that listeners hear on those albums never were "played" in the first place; they essentially were triggered and stored digitally. As record labels have pulled out these albums for reissues, they've discovered that those sounds can't be pulled up from the digital media, because the various software products that were used to create them is obsolete. No way to make sense of the code on the media.

well sure, back ups are a must.

but the beach house cd that i recently ripped to iTunes....i'm wondering if that digital file (i believe it's an m4a) can deteriorate over time (or suddenly?)

randysan wrote:

> well sure, back ups are a must.
>
> but the beach house cd that i recently ripped to iTunes....i'm
> wondering if that digital file (i believe it's an m4a) can
> deteriorate over time (or suddenly?)

Digital files don't deteriorate in the same way analog data does. Analog data fades and degrades over time as the media ages, while digital data typically disappears in chunks small or large. Digital files consist of a long series of ones and zeroes. The disk that data is on can get damaged and have data read errors that will corrupt the data.

So yes, the file can deteriorate in the sense that some or all of the file may become unreadable OR can be overwritten by some other software or hardware failure. As long as the hardware can make out all the ones and zeroes on the media it will always sound the same. But if the physical media that holds those digits degrades to the point that it cannot tell a one from a zero then the music is gone and you have to cross your fingers and hope the data loss isn't so extensive that the built in error correction software is unable to mask the data loss and you get a dropout.

totaljive,
i read something BILLY WILDER said the other day. and i hope it answers your question. he said, ' find something you love & hold onto it.'