Need a music player with specific features

malibu · Apr 19, 2009

Hi there, I'm usually a windows guy but my daughter won a macbook so I am trying to set up for only use (playing music). I have the following two requirements:

1) Play music off of a share instead of copying to local drive like iTunes
2) Various nice visualizations

This is what I normally use for them on windows: MediaMonkey » Free Media Jukebox, Music Manager, CD Ripper & Converter so i'm looking for something similar for the mac. iTunes seems to fail horribly on feature number one. Songbird seems to fail on feature 2.

Thanks!

louishen · Apr 19, 2009

iTunes doesn't fail on issue number one, putting music on an external is easy

Here is the answer

Keeping your iTunes collection on an external

The following assumes you want to keep all your iTunes music and movies on an external disk and ensure new music is always stored on the external drive.

First, you need to consolidate your iTunes Library to a folder you have chosen on the external drive.

Set the new iTunes folder location to the external in iTunes preferences > Advanced

Select the command consolidate library from the Advanced Menu (or from the File Menu > Library > Consolidate library _ in Itunes 8). This will copy all your iTunes media to the external folder and link the iTunes library file to it

The files will now be on the external while the library.xml file (the index as it were) will still be in the Users > Me > Music folder of your mac.

If you want this file on the external as well as well, copy it to external iTunes folder, start itunes with the alt key pressed and you will have the option to select the library file now on the external

Select the library file you just copied and now both your music and the library are on the external

You can now delete the old iTunes folder off your mac

You can also use the choose library dialogue to switch between a large music collection on the external and a smaller music folder on the mac if you wish

If you really dislike iTunes then Songbird is an alternative

Songbird - Open Source Music Player

malibu · Apr 19, 2009

Thank you for your response. Yeah I have already heard of this solution with iTunes but I consider it more of a hack then a solution. For one thing, I may have some music on the local drive as well (for when the laptop is out of the house) and iTunes pointed at an external drive wouldn't be able to handle this. I could repoint it at the internal drive at this point but that would be just a mess, especially for my daughters to accomplish (and mac is supposed to just work, right?) I'm not even sure what would happen if I tried to start iTunes in this configuration if it was not on our network.

Songbird may be an alternative but I can't find anything on their website regarding visualizations. Does it have any?

louishen · Apr 19, 2009

You could use a library manager to handle the switching better

Steve Roy, Software Design : Libra 2

AS for songbird, it is the only alternative to itunes on the mac that I am aware of

malibu · Apr 19, 2009

So it is as I had feared....

The most expensive laptop in the house is of limited use to me.

bobtomay · Apr 19, 2009

Sorry, but it's only of limited use if you insist on doing things the Windows way.

If you have no interest in learning a new approach of doing things with a different Operating System, whether that is on a Mac with OS X or some other machine with a version of Linux, you should be able to sell the Macbook for within 10-15% of it's retail price (assuming it is a new machine) and replacing it with a Windows PC pretty easily and maybe even have some cash left over.

A new and different OS is not for everyone.

And one of these days MediaMonkey may decide to develop a version for OS X if enough of it's user base makes the request for it.

malibu · Apr 19, 2009

I'm just not interested in the OS dictating how I do things. With the way I am 'accustomed' to, I have absolute choice. I can store my music on another PC, on a media center, heck even a NAS device if I want. I can even do things the 'Macintosh way' and store them on the local drive. But I am not bound to that; I can use any combination thereof on Windows. So please, PLEASE don't insinuate that I am being inflexible. It is the machine that is inflexible. There is a premium retail on this laptop and I expected it to be pretty darn close to clairvoyant when it comes to my configuration requirements. Anyway it will probably work wonderfully for my five year olds.. They don't care whether their music is on the network or local and I'm starting to understand that the ultimate goal of the OS is to be foolproof.

ErikJenkins1187 · Apr 20, 2009

Why would one ever want they're MP3's scattered all over multiple hard disks? Just store them all one place and be done with it. iTunes works fine with USB/FW disks, NAS, and linking to other users libraries on your network. The Mac way is simple: Organization, if you don't like things tidy and like just scattering files all over the place, Windows is for you. It took me a while to crack this mental barrier too, but I figured out that this was the best way of doing things.

Now, there are ways to manage multiple libraries on one machine, which is essentially what you want to do. Check this out to get started:

Apple - Downloads - iPod + iTunes - MultiTunes

malibu · Apr 20, 2009

I didn't say I wanted my music in multiple places. I said I wanted choice where I put my music in a way that works. 99% of my music must stay on a network drive because it's simply too much to copy onto a laptop drive. On the other hand, eventually some must be local because that is the nature of laptops; they might leave the house one day.

Multitunes seems like it may be an adequate solution, however! Thank you I'll try it out. I just didn't want to have to alter / recreate the music library I already had.. My other software arranges it into a set of basic folders by artist and CD and I really wanted to keep it in tact somewhere that made sense, while not sacrificing the ability to play files off the laptop at a whim.

I didn't think of looking for plugins because I'm not accustomed to a music player having plugins, the ones I have used are all in one. I'm looking forward to see what other plugins I can find that might help me out. Frankly I didn't expect to find 'free' stuff on the apple site.

ErikJenkins1187 · Apr 20, 2009

malibu said:
I didn't say I wanted my music in multiple places. I said I wanted choice where I put my music in a way that works. 99% of my music must stay on a network drive because it's simply too much to copy onto a laptop drive. On the other hand, eventually some must be local because that is the nature of laptops; they might leave the house one day.

Multitunes seems like it may be an adequate solution, however! Thank you I'll try it out. I just didn't want to have to alter / recreate the music library I already had.. My other software arranges it into a set of basic folders by artist and CD and I really wanted to keep it in tact somewhere that made sense, while not sacrificing the ability to play files off the laptop at a whim.

I didn't think of looking for plugins because I'm not accustomed to a music player having plugins, the ones I have used are all in one. I'm looking forward to see what other plugins I can find that might help me out. Frankly I didn't expect to find 'free' stuff on the apple site.

Thats because you've been fed the common Apple misconceptions for a long time, most Apple software is cheap. There is a literal ton of freeware for Macs, and 99% of it is useful, most freeware for Windows is terrible, built in some old Win 98 API. And X11 apps work too. Plug-ins are the best thing about Macs, no more writing DLL's into a massive and fragile registry, just drop a plug-in into a library folder and it works. Want it to go away, throw it out. Simple.

malibu · Apr 20, 2009

ok, sounds great!

So.. now I am trying to add my music library to iTunes and I can't figure out how to have iTunes index the original files. We're talking 10Gb of files here arranged in a custom folder hierarchy so copying is not doable, mostly because it would make the files unusable for all my other music players, uPNP server, etc. How do I have iTunes use my file repository?

Thanks again.

ErikJenkins1187 · Apr 20, 2009

malibu said:
ok, sounds great!

So.. now I am trying to add my music library to iTunes and I can't figure out how to have iTunes index the original files. We're talking 10Gb of files here arranged in a custom folder hierarchy so copying is not doable, mostly because it would make the files unusable for all my other music players, uPNP server, etc. How do I have iTunes use my file repository?

Thanks again.

Just file>add to library. I am not sure how the plug-in I pointed you to actually works, hahahaha, but that should do the trick. iTunes *shouldn't* make changes to your existing hierarchy as long as you have this done, preferences>advanced and then uncheck Keep iTunes Music folder organized. iTunes just writes what it sees in an XML file, Library file and some other odds and ends. All iTunes really is is a fancy SQL database with an audio player built in at the end of the day. Once you actually figure out how feature rich iTunes is, you won't be able to find a substitute.

bobtomay · Apr 20, 2009

Uncheck that 2nd box in the same place Erik noted also - Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library to keep it from making copies on the Macbook.

I don't use a plug-in, just used the File / Add to Library and pointed it to the top folder where all the music is stored.

I'm not all that fancy or have that much stuff in mine. The best site for iTunes/iPod info is iLounge.

malibu · Apr 20, 2009

ErikJenkins1187 said:
Once you actually figure out how feature rich iTunes is, you won't be able to find a substitute.

I've used iTunes for quite awhile on Windows because I've had an iPod video and then an iPod touch. At first I made an honest attempt to use it as my primary music player but finally I found it so lacking in features that I went back to Mediamonkey and used iTunes only to transfer stuff to my iPod. In fact, I would say that iTunes has drastically hurt my enjoyment of my iPod because I have to go through it to do most things.

Maybe it's better on the mac though, or maybe the available plugins add a lot of features. I'm willing to consider that I have missed something and tackle it with an open mind again. Thanks everyone for your comments.

bobtomay · Apr 20, 2009

tbh, and never used mediamonkey on my Win machines, maybe not. That's why I mention sending a note to the developers. There are definitely some software on each OS, that is just better than the best on the other. More and more of us out here are becoming multi-OS users at home. The more we can get developers to grab onto the idea of them being multi-OS, the more choice we all have.

ErikJenkins1187 · Apr 21, 2009

malibu said:
I've used iTunes for quite awhile on Windows because I've had an iPod video and then an iPod touch. At first I made an honest attempt to use it as my primary music player but finally I found it so lacking in features that I went back to Mediamonkey and used iTunes only to transfer stuff to my iPod. In fact, I would say that iTunes has drastically hurt my enjoyment of my iPod because I have to go through it to do most things.

Maybe it's better on the mac though, or maybe the available plugins add a lot of features. I'm willing to consider that I have missed something and tackle it with an open mind again. Thanks everyone for your comments.

iTunes for Windows is not the best, it's a port, a good port but a port nonetheless. iTunes uses a LOT less resources on a Mac, it is MUCH snappier. Windows iTunes vs Mac iTunes = night and day.