New Mac user question in regards to iTunes + current music.

Hey guys,

Hopefully this is the proper forum for this question, if not feel free to move it to the best place.

I just got my new Macbook today and so far it's been...an experience . This is the first time I've ever used a Mac and it'll take some getting used to. One of the things I find most attractive about the laptop is the remote/media controls. This is where it's gotten a little tricky...

What I want to do:
-With my iPod plugged into the Macbook, I would like to be able to control my iPod with the remote. As it stands now I can only go through songs that are in my "Library". I want to avoid transferring all my music from my iPod simply to save disk space. Is there a way to do this?

Also, I use a program on my PC called mp3tag. It allows me to add MP3's to the program and search either online databases or Amazon for ID3 tags/album art. I've been trying to find a worthy substitute for my Mac without any success. Is there such a program?

Thanks in advance!

dak125 said:

Hey guys,

Hopefully this is the proper forum for this question, if not feel free to move it to the best place.

I just got my new Macbook today and so far it's been...an experience . This is the first time I've ever used a Mac and it'll take some getting used to. One of the things I find most attractive about the laptop is the remote/media controls. This is where it's gotten a little tricky...

What I want to do:
-With my iPod plugged into the Macbook, I would like to be able to control my iPod with the remote. As it stands now I can only go through songs that are in my "Library". I want to avoid transferring all my music from my iPod simply to save disk space. Is there a way to do this?

Also, I use a program on my PC called mp3tag. It allows me to add MP3's to the program and search either online databases or Amazon for ID3 tags/album art. I've been trying to find a worthy substitute for my Mac without any success. Is there such a program?

Thanks in advance!

Click to expand...

G'day dak125 and welcome to Mac-Forums.

Firstly, let me congratulate you on your new MacBook, it may be a learning curve but if you stick around here and read some of the threads I'm sure you will find nearly all the answers to your questions.

A good program to fix/add tags to your mp3's is iEatBrainz. It has some great features especially the one where it searches it's database to find the artist when you have an MP3 which you don't know who it's by.

Another great app is Senuti. Senuti allows you to transfer MP3's etc from your iPod to your Mac directly, without iTunes getting in the way.

As for using the media remote to access your iPod library, I'm not aware that it's possible unless you placed alias' in the respective folders on your MacBooks HD (eg: movies, iTunes music).

I hope this answers your questions. Feel free to post any further questions or use the Forums Search feature.

Pulse-8 said:

G'day dak125 and welcome to Mac-Forums.

Firstly, let me congratulate you on your new MacBook, it may be a learning curve but if you stick around here and read some of the threads I'm sure you will find nearly all the answers to your questions.

A good program to fix/add tags to your mp3's is iEatBrainz. It has some great features especially the one where it searches it's database to find the artist when you have an MP3 which you don't know who it's by.

Another great app is Senuti. Senuti allows you to transfer MP3's etc from your iPod to your Mac directly, without iTunes getting in the way.

As for using the media remote to access your iPod library, I'm not aware that it's possible unless you placed alias' in the respective folders on your MacBooks HD (eg: movies, iTunes music).

I hope this answers your questions. Feel free to post any further questions or use the Forums Search feature.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the welcome and the quick response! The stickies and search have been my mainstays throughout the day.

Ieatbrainz was actually the first app I got and to be honest, I haven't had much luck with it as of yet.

Senuti sounds like a good solution for copying my music to my Macbook but I wanted to avoid doing that. My thinking is, why take up hard disk space when the iPod is right here?

Could you explain the aliases a bit more? That sounds like what I'm looking to do but I honestly have not a clue what you mean.

Thanks again!

EDIT: I just took a look at Ieatbrainz again and remembered why it wasn't working. It only looks in my iTunes library for music. If I just drag music folders from the "Music" folder into the "iTunes" folder, will that solve that problem?

And on a sidenote, is the Macbook supposed to produce enough heat to melt polar icecaps? I'm going to have to check my thighs for third-degree burns once I'm done for the night .

Using Senuti to access your iPods media library, I would select the file and make an alias (if possible, sorry dak125, my son has my iPod and isn't here right now for me to test run this advice) of each file and place the alias' in the folders which FrontRow uses.

FrontRow accesses your iTunes music library and your movies folder and also your iPhoto library so the alias' need to be in one of these locations depending on the file type.

iTunes by default will mix all movies stored on an iPod and when these are transferred to your Macs HD, iTunes places them in iTunes>iTunes Music>Movies. So they place them in with the other music files. So whether you have music or not on your iPod, you could place their alias' either in your UserAccount>Movies or as above.

To make an alias select the file which is displayed in Senuti's window and right/ctrl-click and select 'Make Alias'. I'm sure you could select more than one file to make an alias for.

RE: iEatBrainz...yep the mp3's need to be on your HD. Drag your music directly onto the iTunes Library window, after launching iTunes of course.

RE: the heat issue, there are several threads about this, I have an iMac so you'd be best searching the forums for relevant threads.

Thanks for the response. I will give this a try tomorrow.

Cheers!

Marty, thanks for your help. I wound up transferring all of my music to the laptop and now the remote works great!

Upon transferring my music to my laptop I gave Ieatbrainz a try and I'm not impressed. So far none of the songs I need ID3 tags have been found in the database. Does anyone have any other program recommendations? In particular one that is similar to MP3tag, IE the ability to search Amazon and other locations for information.

Thanks in advance!