Music Library is a Mess

[David M]

I have a music library with about 230Gigs of music and it is a mess. Right now I am using iTunes. I like iTunes a lot for what it is, but it does have it's limitations.

Is there better music management software than iTunes?

Here are some of the things that I am looking for:

First of all, iTunes does not have a specific library, it looks all around my drives for the music files which I have stored in a number of different folders. If I have to disconnect my external drive then itunes does not work. I would like to be able to manage all my music from one master folder (preferably a 750Gig internal hard drive)...and then load playlists etc directly into my ipod. itunes does some sort of M4P conversion which apparently has to do with copy protection. Would different software allow me to load mp3's directly into my iPod?

iTunes will not let me strip off the anti-copy protection. (Sorry, but so long as I am paying for all my music then as far as I am concerned I am not breaking the law if I want to put my music on my other ipods or put my files on another type of media that I own.) I don't think the people who run PC Mech would disagree with me here, therefore I don't think I am breaking any of the terms. Go easy on me if I am Pam.

I tunes does not let me find duplicate files AND delete the duplicates automatically.

So...is there better music library management software? I am not looking for the free software if there is better software that I have to pay for. Sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Is it required to have iTunes in order to load music files into an iPod?



Thanks

Edit, I ran across Helium, Media Monkey, Winamp and XM Play. Any opinions? Any others out there?

[Kov-Ice]

I've been using MediaMonkey for the past month or two, and have found it to be a solid alternative (and free!). It's tagging functions are great, and you can easily sync to an iPod.

[hitchface]

I like Winamp a lot. Never tried Mediamonkey, but I have heard nothing but good things about it. Whack iTunes...system hog for just a media player.

[David M]

I just downloaded MediaMonkey and am monkeying around with it. I will have a look at Winamp as well and see if it Wins me over..

Thank's Kov and Hitch!

[Jester]

If you like the look at feel of iTunes you can set it to manage your music for your. It will out all your music in the folders that they belong in according to artist, album, ect. This is assuming all the tags are right. There is a great tagging program out there called The GodFather that is pretty awsome.

...waiting for more puns...

[Floppyman]

I've been using Winamp since the late 90's and still use it because of its relatively small memory footprint and intuitive interface.

[novie]

For me, nothing will ever beat having the files organized and tagged in their local folders, but since you have a lot that's gonna be a pain ... I like Winamp as well and also used it since back in the days, though if you're mainly serving media off this box I guess footprint isn't as big a concern as it might otherwise be. I don't have an Ipod so I guess I'm useless on that aspect, sounds like a pretty cool setup when done though (saw the receiver you mentioned in another thread)

[David M]

I went ahead with iTunes, despite its limitations. After MediaMonkey lost all the work I had done in one night, I knew I could not trust it. I don't want to take the chance of putting hours and hours of work into my music library only to have all that work disappear.

[Kov-Ice]

Lost your work?!? What happened?

[Powerstroke2000]

My...it would be nice to know what kinds of music you have, as 230 GIGS is ALOT of music! I have about 14 GIGS, with many many different genres, and I thought I had just about every song made!

Personally, I've never had good luck with Winamp, but kudo's to those that use it and have no issues. I've never had reason to try any other, as ITunes works flawlessly for me, albeit now and again it loses "tags" and I end up having to do a search of my 2 hard drives to find it, replay it through ITunes, where all is fine again. No idea why this happens, but it's the only issue I've had with the software.
I don't use an Ipod, as the music on my PC is for my own listening pleasure, and I'll occasionally burn a CD or put some MP3's onto a USB flash drive, so I'm wondering if you've got the newest version of ITunes, which instead of being a smooth concept of the software is troublesome....there again, perhaps for your Ipod useage you need the newest version?
When ITunes asks me to upgrade I just say "no thanks" and continue with the older version I currently have.

Let us know how things turn out.

PSD2000