[Daedalus Audio]

I am looking for an application(s) to organize music, download/format album art, and also for ripping. I am tired of the half-assed ways of i-tunes.

any help?  I use Mac's (leopard & snow leopard) and also Squeezebox server etc.

thanks,
lou

[Blackmore]

You could try Songbird.  It plays flac and is free.  Don't know if you'll like it better but it imports your iTunes library and works without a glitch.  Is that what you're looking for?

[Wayne1]

Lou,

You can try MAX for ripping, TAG for file editing and DECIBEL for file playback.

[skunark]

Perhaps describe what you don't like about iTunes, some issues are universal across all players.

[newzooreview]

I am looking for an application(s) to organize music, download/format album art, and also for ripping. I am tired of the half-assed ways of i-tunes.

any help?  I use Mac's (leopard & snow leopard) and also Squeezebox server etc.

thanks,
lou

For ripping and grabbing album art, XLD on the Mac is excellent. It's an improvement on EAC, which many people consider the gold standard on the Windows side. It's also regularly maintained and is donation-ware (fully functional without donation). http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html

For much improved sound quality over iTunes, and for maintaining playlists and a song database, nothing beats Decibel. It's made by a small, independent developer who created his own 64-bit audio engine that can grab processing priority (hog mode) and also automatically switch output resolution so you can seamlessly play a mix of redbook and high-resolution music out to a DAC, for example. It's only $33 if you decide you like it. http://sbooth.org/Decibel/

 

[Crimson]

I use XLD and MAX for ripping/format conversion, various different programs for artwork (that automatically attach approved-by-myself artwork to tracks in iTunes), and Pure Vinyl and Amarra for their playback engines (both piggyback iTunes for library manipulation). Nothing, IMO, beats iTunes for library management and organization.

This thread has some useful links.

[jrebman]

Hey Lou,

Yes, XLD is a nice ripper/fomat converter, but all the other programs mentioned (except possibly Songbird, which I've not used myself) all fall far short on the library organization/management end of things -- very much a manual operation and mostly limited to playing pre-assembled playlists.

Maybe this is ok for you and others, but I typically listen to albums, not playlists and vastly prefer a library in tree form and sorted by Artist, album and track, which I know is not everybody's approach.

-- Jim

[eclein]

I was in the same boat as the OP and switched to JRiver Media Center. It does it all and does it very well....

[InfernoSTi]

I was in the same boat as the OP and switched to JRiver Media Center. It does it all and does it very well....

I considered JR but since it is a Windows only program, that seemed really clunky on my Mac.  I don't like a lot of extra clutter on my Mac Mini that I use "headless" for audio.  What solution did you employ?  A description of your back of shop to make JR run on your Mac would be great for me, too.

John

P.S. I use Decibel, Tag, and MAX currently (and I play albums so I'm not making song mixes for the most part, although I have saved a few "sample" mixes which is pretty easy on Decibel.