I need help with burning on Itunes.

Hello,

I am new to Mac and just purchased a MacBook Pro. Today I decided to burn my first audio CD. I first created a playlist in itunes. Then, I opened up my finder and went to my Music file so I could drag music files from finder into the playlist.

As I did this, it would put the songs into a folder with the album name in my finder. Which, is not the way I want them. Most of them are from years ago and don't even have an album named assigned.

For example, before I go to my music file in finder and I see:
Mc Chris- FettesVette
Coheed and Cambria- Far

But when I drag the song into the playlist it puts them in folders. So, now when I go to my music file in finder I see:
Mc Chris (folder)/ Unknown Album / Fettes Vette
Coheed and Cambria/ Unknown Album / Far

So, now the rest of my, 'Mc Chris,' songs for example are on their own together and I can just click them anytime. But the ones I decided to burn are in different folders and it's annoying to get to them.

So, what I'm asking, is there anyway to change where it does not automatically do this? Or is there an easier way to burn without going through this? Or do I have to manually go add the artist name back to the song and then drag it and put it back where it was and delete the folders every time?

There is no Finder involved.

"Assuming" you have a new Mac with iTunes 9...

Create your playlist in iTunes
name it to whatever you want
go back up and highlight Music in your Library
drag and drop the songs you want right there from iTunes into the playlist
When you are done - highlight the playlist again
click on the 'Burn Disc' button at the bottom right of the iTunes window

You can hover the pointer over the track/album you want. Then right click and you will see a "get info" option. Click on this and a window will come up.

Look at the window and you will see a section called "Name & Extension"

Change the name to what you want then hit the Red button at the top left of the window and close it. The name will change automatically. You do NOT need to click "save" like you do on Windows computers.

Hope this helps.

To the first reply,
I understand what you are saying. But I was dragging my music from the finder. If I go to library I don't have but a few songs there in Itunes. I never imported my music in there. I just opened up finder and clicked the music folder and then I dragged all of my songs from external hard drive to the music folder in finder. So, to get them to the playlist, I have to drag them from finder to there. Now, I guess I could put them in the itunes library right? But how do I do that?

To the second reply,
Yes, I know how to do that. But the problem is, I have to do that every time I drag a song to burn. Because it takes the artist name OUT of the title and puts it in a folder with the album name. Some don't have an artist name or album name so it puts them in UNKNOWN ARTIST or UNKNOWN ALBUM. So, I might end up with like 3 MC CHRIS folders where as before I just had 3 MC CHRIS mp3's in my music folder and could just click them and it would play. So, it's annoying have to go back and rename 16 tracks just so I could burn them and then delete the folder.

So, say, I want to put all of my songs in the Itunes library what would I need to do? drag all of my music in my music folder to the Itunes folder that is in my music folder?

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Someone call a doctor -- we have the worst case of "Windows mentality" I've seen in quite a while here!

Now, I guess I could put them in the itunes library right? But how do I do that?

Click to expand...

1. Arrange your windows so that you can see the music files in your Music Folder, as well as the iTunes main window (ie the program is open).

2. Select and drag the music files into iTunes' main window.

3. There's no step 3.

Alternatively, you can choose "Import" from within iTunes to do the same thing.

Both of these methods are described in detail (along with how to burn a music cd) in iTunes Help.

Let go of your old thinking, and I'm sure you'll find it quite easy and fun.

PS. Forgot to mention that when you import your music into iTunes, it makes a copy of it -- so you can delete the songs in the Music Folder once iTunes has them.

beenincrease

chas_m said:

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Someone call a doctor -- we have the worst case of "Windows mentality" I've seen in quite a while here!



1. Arrange your windows so that you can see the music files in your Music Folder, as well as the iTunes main window (ie the program is open).

2. Select and drag the music files into iTunes' main window.

3. There's no step 3.

Alternatively, you can choose "Import" from within iTunes to do the same thing.

Both of these methods are described in detail (along with how to burn a music cd) in iTunes Help.

Let go of your old thinking, and I'm sure you'll find it quite easy and fun.

PS. Forgot to mention that when you import your music into iTunes, it makes a copy of it -- so you can delete the songs in the Music Folder once iTunes has them.

Click to expand...

Well, again, this is my first Mac. It wasn't so much as windows thinking although I know it looks that way. I just liked having my songs look in that order in a folder. When I had like 3 things in Itunes it was putting it all into album folders and some of them don't have album names. Or artist names. For example a track might be named, "Chimaira-Pure Hatred," but that's just the name I put as the track, which includes the name of the artist. But where it actually ask for artist name it has none. Same with album. So, in Itunes it ends up being in Unknown Artist. See what I'm saying?

Of course the solution you might say would be put all the artist names. But I have 100's of files and honestly I'm not willing to go through each of them. Let me try importing them into Itunes and see what happens. I just know the way I did it before, that's what it did.

What if say, I went to finder and drug all my music in the same order into the itunes folder? How would that make it look in itunes?

Okay, I have now figured it out! I went to preferences and unchecked, "Keep Itunes media folder organized." What that does is automatically put's stuff in album folders and artist folders instead of the way I wanted it. Next, I unchecked, "Copy files to Itunes media folder when added to library." That way I can still have my music folder and everything the way I want it. Add something to a playlist to burn it and I don't get two copies or anything like that.

It's not that I don't want to switch way of thinking. It's just that I have massive amounts of files here. I have it very organized the way it was on my external hard drive. So, now this works. Now, if say, years ago I would have started added album and artist names to the "get info" page and the info page on pc then yeah, it would work doing it the way it was trying to get me to do it.