[dcktr]

Decided to make this a new topic instead of another entry in my rookie set up

Help,
I purchased a mac mini, have it all set up and ready to go. Will be using a Calyx DAC and audirvana plus.
To get ready for the move, I reloaded all my CD's into my PC iTunes library so they are all in WAV format with a bit rate of 1411. I am going to keep I tunes running on my PC as well.
Purchased a 1 TB seagate Free Agent for mac hard drive. I only have about 200gb of music. I loaded the PC program so that the drive will work with Mac and Windows
copied the tunes to the new hard drive using the "change music location" method, then used "organize file" to keep the files on my PC and on the new hard drive.
Hooked up the seagate to mini (firewire)
changed the iTunes preferences on the mac mini to read from the external hard drive. I could not get the mac mini to use the external drive as the library. I redown loaded I tunes from the website to "start over" because I had inadvertently erased the basic files that are sitting in I tunes before you have any music in the library.
Tried again to  read the music from the external hard drive. still did not work
Decided to not use the hard drive for the library and just used "add folder to library" on mac mini from the external hard drive.  Music is loaded but the bit rate of 1/3 of the songs has been reduced to 128 and the WAV format was not preserved. They have been changed to AAC files with bit rate of 128. Those songs maintained the albums and artwork.
2/3 of the songs loaded with a bit rate of 1411 and as a wav but have no albums listed and the songs have a 01, 02, etc in front of the song titles.
Help?
Do I delete everything on mac mini music folder and re-download I tunes?  Do I need to wipe clean the seagate external and recopy from my PC Itunes? then, try again to use the seagate as the library? try again to just transer the tunes from the seagate to the mac mini hard drive. Music is 200gb, I have a 500gb hard drive on the mini, and this will be a dedicated music server.
Thanks
Hours of lost sleep

[srb]

Because the .wav files don't have tags embedded in the files, the artist/album tags and artwork were stored separately in the iTunes database library files, iTunes Library.itl and iTunes Library.xml, located in Users/username/Music/iTunes.
 
If you have deleted these database files from the iTunes folder, iTunes will not know anything about your library folder.  When you change the iTunes Media Folder location, you are only changing the location where newly imported or ripped files will be stored, but it is not a folder location that is "monitored" as in some other music programs.
 
When you add .wav files from a folder, they will be tagless and will have the track number as part of the filename, which iTunes added when you ripped them (and that iTunes then filters out for song name display).
 
The iTunes Library .xml file is primarily used by other music players for playlist information, but it can also be used to re-create the iTunes Library.itl file.
 
I would try to utilize your external drive library location.
 
You can try this:
1.  Copy the iTunes Library.xml file from your PC to the Mac Desktop.
2.  Drag the existing iTunes Library file from the Music/iTunes folder to the Trash
3.  On the Mac in iTunes go to File > Library > Import Playlist and browse to the iTunes Library.xml file on your Desktop.
 
iTunes should (hopefully) recreate the Library file and you should see your external drive library if your external drive and path are the same as was on the PC.
 
Steve

[newzooreview]

To attempt to keep this simple:

1. The original WAV files on your new hard drive should be untouched.
2. Open iTunes and in Preferences--Advanced, remove the check from the box saying "copy files to iTunes…" Like so. (keep iTunes organized is not relevant, checked or unchecked). This will force iTunes to simply build a little database file so it knows that the songs (your WAV files) are on that external hard drive. Whenever that drive is connected, iTunes can play the songs. Even without the drive connected, however, you can see the songs in iTunes.



3. After you change this preference setting, close iTunes and hold the Option key down (on the Mac) while opening iTunes. It will give you the option of creating a new library. This will leave your existing library untouched and available as wanted. It will create a second, empty library so you can get a fresh start. (Technically, this will be a separate xml file that iTunes puts in your iTunes music folder and where it will store its index of your music files).

4. So, with this new, blank library opened in iTunes you can use "Add to Library" to select your music folder on your external drive. In a couple of minutes it will index those files (it's fast because it's not moving them off of that hard drive).

5. If you still see files that are not WAV files in this new library, it means they are not WAV files on that hard drive. Possibly you didn't have the import setting configured correctly when you ripped the CDs originally in iTunes. It's possible for iTunes to rip and compress to AAC on import if that's how it's setup. If that's the case then you'll need to change the import settings and re-rip the affected CDs. On the Mac side, the free program XLD is best if you have older CDs that might benefit from a bit more robust error correction than iTunes ripping provides.

I hope that helps somehow.

[skunark]

Probably the easiest way to transfer the files from your PC to your MAC is to set up the home sharing and just import the files from your PC to your MAC.   It will copy the files over with all the tags etc in place for your WAV files and to recover the artwork, just go to the advanced menu and 'get album artwork'.  Depending on your library size, it could take some time.    You can test it on a few files then import the entire library and even configure it to copy new files as they appear on one computer or the other.