[bkwiram]

I need help. I made the mistake of buying a 60GB video ipod and it may be the single greatest stress-creating techno device I ever did see.

I’ll keep most of my frustrations to myself. But here are three that maybe someone here can help me with. Keep in mind that I do not have an internet connection at home, where I rip music.

My system comprises a Dell Inspiron 4100 laptop with WinXP SP2, a USB 2 PCMCIA card, a Seagate 300GB external drive, and a Plextor PX-W4824TU external CD-RW drive. There’s also an internal DVD/CDRW drive.

1) When importing music, itunes does not appear to allow me to copy album info from track to track. Thus, importing the Goldberg Variations, I have to type in ‘Glenn Gould’ and ‘Bach’ and ‘classical’ etc. for every single one of the 32 tracks. Along with the individual track info. Is there a way around this? It’s driving me crazy.

2) I just ripped my store-bought copy of ‘A State of Wonder,’ the remastered Gould renditions of the Goldberg Variations. I put the 1955 version on the ipod and toddled off to the subway, only to find that in the first second or so of every single track, there’s a little digital hiccup. Is this just Sony screwing with me? (If so, how does the disk know that it's being read by a computer rather than a cd player?) Will I run into this problem on a regular basis? Any way around it short of doing a complete D/A (from CD player) and then A/D conversion?

3) itunes 6 will only recognize the internal drive. It will not rip or play from the Plextor. It will pull track numbers and lengths, and will eject the disk from the Plextor, but that’s it. Nero meanwhile will rip all day long from the Plextor. Since I don’t like using the internal cheapo drive to rip music, this is so far causing me the following headache: I have to rip from the Plextor in Nero to WAV (w/jitter correction, natch) and then add the folder to itunes, enter all the CD track information again (reinventing the wheel track by track – see #1 complaint above), convert to Apple Lossless, and then finally delete the WAVs. This is just a crazy way to live. Anyone know how to make itunes speak to my Plextor drive??? Like I said, Nero likes it fine. I’ve tried unplugging, turning on and off, removing/reinstalling software, removing the internal CDRW drive, etc. etc. etc.

Any consolation or good advice or plain sneakiness will be most appreciated - thanks!

BK

[philipp]

Hey bkwiram,
I have a Mac but I'm sure these would work in Windows too.

1) Select all 32 tracks, then Ctrl-I for the info window. You'll be able to add identical info for all tracks at once. p.s. Why aren't you letting iTunes look up the info for you on Gracenote? Unless it's a rare CD, it's probably there.

2) Is this a live recording where there should be no space between tracks? If so, you're experiencing the dreaded 2 second gap iTunes puts between each track. The only way around it is to select all of the tracks and join them into one. I don't remember where that is in the menu, so you'll have to look around for it.

If what you're experiencing is some sort of digi-glitch, I'm not sure about the cause.

3) I can't help you here other than to say that I, too, have both an internal and external Plextor on my Mac. iTunes has no problem with discs in either drive. I'm not sure what to make of it. By the way, are you avoiding using your internal drive because you are hearing a difference in the sound quality?

[jp1]

Classical musica can be a total bitch with itunes, just because there are so many data points - name, theater, performer, composer, orchestra, soloist, etc... I had to do the same thing with my version of the variations. most cds work ok - i imported 700+. Very few problems, almost all the problems were classical or random remix cds.

good luck and chill out. just make sure you are importing at lossless format, especially with that size hard drive - you have the space, and you definietly dont want to have to reimport later on when you want better quality sounding music.

cheers
jp