Itunes users...
 

Okay, first of all this is not a thread to express how much you think itunes is crap in the world of media players. I think we have a thread with a purpose more specifically directed towards those opinions.

So, me being the Mac user that I am, I don't have a lot of options for platform-friendly media players that will also burn to disc and sync with my ipod. I can't think of any off the top of my head. I do have Songbird and I like it, but it really makes no sense for me to use it as my dedicated MP if I can't sync my ipod or burn a disc, that and I also use the itunes store a lot to browse music. It's quite resourceful like that, although I never actually buy anything from there.

Anyways, here's the rub. I've been acquiring a great deal of 'various artists' compilations lately, for the most part, I don't want to get rid of any of them, but I havent found a way to organize my library so that these compilations are consolidated into their respective albums like they should be. Instead they are all over the place and each different artist appears as a different album. Who on here knows how to remedy this situation with itunes. I'm trying to clean up my library right now and I have this unruly mess to deal with.

By "respective albums", do you mean the original albums the songs appeared on (the artist's album), or the compilation album itself?

The compilation album. I basically want to find a way to have each individual artist listed and still have the tracks consolidated into one album, the compilation album.

Here's what you do:

1. Select every song on the album.
2. Go to File > Get Info.
3. If a dialogue box pops up asking if you want to edit multiple items, click "OK".
4. In the "Multiple Item Information" window click on the "Options" tab.
5. In the "Part of a Compilation" dropdown, select "Yes"
6. Just click "OK" and all your compilation albums will be saved on your hard drive as separate albums inside the "Compilations" folder.

Hope that helps. :)

Edit: Also, try going to iTunes > Preferences, clicking on the "Advanced" tab and then check "Group compilations when browsing".

I've tried that and for some reason it doesn't work. Each individual artist on the compilation still appears as a separate album of the same title, so instead of having, for example, one Trojan Dancehall 69': 40 Skinhead Reggae Rarities album cover in Coverflow, I have 37.

Are you talking about in the file structure on your hard drive or are you talking about in iTunes itself?

Itunes itself. I don't really care about file folders. Ironically, I organize as I accumulate with them.

Did you try the second thing I mentioned, the "Group compilations when browsing" option under Preferences?

There is no option for that that I can see under my itunes preferences.

Failing that ^, I would also make sure the "Album Artist" field is blank both in the "Info" tab and "Sorting" tab of the tags for all the songs. It's been my experience that sometimes that creates a situation like what you're talking about.

That may be it right there.

I don't know. Nothing I try seems to work and none of the changes that I make seem to affect anything. Every time I go back into the "get info" pane the changes I made previously seem to have been reset to default, like the "part of a compilation" option.

What version of iTunes do you have?

When you select "Yes" from Part of a Compilation dropdown are you also making sure that the checkbox to the left is checked before clicking "OK"?

Yes, and All of my software is up to date as of 2 days ago. I'm running Snow Leopard

So you have iTunes 9 then? Looks like they moved "Group compilations" in that version. It's now found here:

http://www.ilounge.com/assets/images...tunes91/21.png

What's happening, i think, is that it's not allowing all the tracks to be compiled together because there is too much variance in general track info because of the dumbass who uploaded it. And I really don't feel like going through and painstakingly dealing with the track info of 40 individual tracks, and that's just on compilation. This is the one and only thing i hate about itunes.

That option is inhibited in my drop down menu

There's a lot of that stuff that you can can do as a group to save time. For example the pain in the ass "Album Artist" issue: Just select all the tracks, get info, click the checkbox next to "Album Artist" and make sure the text field is empty. When you click "OK" this will clear the info from the "Album Artist" field of every track.

The "group compilations" option Had no effect.

Bingo!

Success?

Well, I went from 37 album covers to 3. I'd consider that a remarkable improvement.

:laughing:

I'd try and make sure all fields that should be identical from track to track are exactly identical (including things like capitalization).

I have. It's dropped me down to two, with the ever mysterious "what is it about the particular info for this one song" puzzle that seems to be itunes' calling card.

I nominate the "Disc Number" and "Composer" fields as prime suspects.

Glad you found a solution :)

It turns out the standout track was the one that didn't have any artwork.

Done.

:beer:

It also works within iTunes if you type "Various Artists" into the Album Artist field. However, if you sync the album to an iPod then the tracks will be separated.

That's my problem, I just let it go and search by album on my cars iPod interface.