I hear ya- I am overly anal with my music catalog. I have 8800 songs, and they all have perfect tags and album art. I started this when I got my first iPod that displayed images. Now I have all my iPods and iPhone synced so this is no problem. I am a little crazy so I have an intense workflow:
I copy the cd into AIFF format, get the metadata perfect, then archive on a 1tb for all my uncompressed stuff. Then I create a 256 vbr AAC, all of which stores to the local hdd (for my mobile music), which I periodically back up to a different external hdd (full backup of everything- had a hdd fail and this was a life-saver).

 

I ended up downloading a free, program which allows me to transfer 100 songs from my Ipod to my Itunes. It's worked flawlessly and I just downloaded it on multiple computers to get all 500 songs off

Purchase TouchCopy 11 for PC and Mac

Thanks for the input guys.

 

I lost my iTunes library but luckily have most of it still on an Macbook Pro I gave one of my daughters...It's mostly Apple Lossless and once I get it back, I will back it up in two places as it took a long time to copy hundreds of CDs....

I think I will want to have another copy of this library in smaller sized MP3s for some portable devices..is there an easy way to do this without making a mess of it?

 

No.

 

thanks Bonehead...downloaded and using iRip...terminal didn't work with my iTouch for some reason...

 

spent at least two hours learning stuff in iTunes...at least an hour to make a goddamned ringtone...and i was doing it right but it was weird and a royal pain in the ass....easy when it works.

anyway...I also copied 1400 AAC recorded songs from an old iTouch into iTunes...that took another 2 hours at least...

I then hooked up my iPhone and am copying them onto it...there is an option to concert the original AAC files to 128 AAC... I'm doing that now to see how it is.

I never really delved into iTunes and how it restricts certain copying of music...the whole thing is a bit confusing but I think I am starting to get it...

like i said....generally easy when you know how...but the Ringtone creation was shaky and the files were simply not appearing in iTunes...not sure why but finally it's working..

 

quick easy question...we can copy our iTunes music by copying the iTunes folder to let's say an external hard drive...yes?

We can then copy this folder to as many computers as we have? Yes?

I get confused with the restrictions of iPhones and other devices...what exactly are they?

the whole thing is just so goddamned closed and protected it's confusing to say the least.

 

You can copy the iTunes folder, and that will make an exact copy of the music. Now, if they music was originally purchased through iTunes with their privacy protection, no matter how many computers you copy the music to, it will count against the number of authorized machines allowed to use the music (I think 5). But, if it is just music that you ripped from CDs or procured any other way, it can be used an unlimited number of times.

One thing you can do in iTunes, under the 'store' menu, you can authorize or deauthorize machines. If you have many machines already authorized and you cannot access them to deauthorize, if you go to your account on the iTunes store, you can click deauthorize all to take care of this.