I Hate iTunes. Help Me Find A Better Audio Player

pasteofanchovie · Aug 7, 2008

I finally got my MBP and was wanting to see how much better iTunes ran on OSX. Well, it runs much better than on Windows but half my mp3 files still aren't showing up! Is there a way to fix this or a better audio player that can play mp3 and m4a, while having an easily manageable library?

skaheadpunk · Aug 7, 2008

What do you mean not showing up? As in, you add them to the library and nothing happens?

pasteofanchovie · Aug 7, 2008

I've tried importing them and the drag and drop method. When I do that a window pops up that says "processing" and when it's finished the window closes and the tracks aren't there.

MDCjr · Aug 7, 2008

I've hAd that problem in the past but instead of importing, u want to add files to library. Itunes does its convertion stuff and then the songs should be
there for you to use.

pasteofanchovie · Aug 7, 2008

I just tried that with a few of the tracks and it did the same thing. Could iTunes possibly not be compatible with the mp3 codec is used to rip the tracks?

baggss · Aug 7, 2008

pasteofanchovie said:
I just tried that with a few of the tracks and it did the same thing. Could iTunes possibly not be compatible with the mp3 codec is used to rip the tracks?

To check that right click on the MP3 file and select OPEN WITH, then choose QUICKTIME. If the files open, then they are good, if not, they are corrupt or invalid.

pasteofanchovie · Aug 7, 2008

I checked about 30 tracks from various albums and they played fine. I also tried them with RealPlayer 11 Gold and they worked. Any ideas?

jroller · Aug 7, 2008

I did some research and couldn't find much in the way of answers. Here's the most definitive thing I could find. For future reference, MacFixit is a great site to know about as well.

Click Here

reast · Aug 7, 2008

pasteofanchovie said:
I finally got my MBP and was wanting to see how much better iTunes ran on OSX. Well, it runs much better than on Windows but half my mp3 files still aren't showing up! Is there a way to fix this or a better audio player that can play mp3 and m4a, while having an easily manageable library?

I am of the opinion that Itunes was not written with the user in mind. It seems to have started out badly and has been hacked together over time. While I love my Mac, I can't stand Itunes. Believe it or not, I use Zune player running in Parallels on my Mac. Its easy to use and I purchased the Zune pass so I have access to all the music I want. I normally stream the music via the Internet.

belunos · Aug 7, 2008

I'm quickly becoming a fan of vlc

http://www.videolan.org/

pasteofanchovie · Aug 8, 2008

reast said:
I am of the opinion that Itunes was not written with the user in mind. It seems to have started out badly and has been hacked together over time. While I love my Mac, I can't stand Itunes. Believe it or not, I use Zune player running in Parallels on my Mac. Its easy to use and I purchased the Zune pass so I have access to all the music I want. I normally stream the music via the Internet.

I've thought of doing that and if the methods that have been mentioned don't work then I most likely will.

belunos said:
I'm quickly becoming a fan of vlc

http://www.videolan.org/

Does VLC have a "music library" somewhat like iTunes or the Zune player?

mrplow · Aug 8, 2008

Are you seeing anything in the 'Recently Added' Playlist after adding to library?

Are the tracks fully mp3 tagged?

pasteofanchovie · Aug 8, 2008

mrplow said:
Are you seeing anything in the 'Recently Added' Playlist after adding to library?

Are the tracks fully mp3 tagged?

None of the tracks that are missing in the library show up in the recently added playlist and the tracks are fully mp3 tagged, both ID3 v1 & v2.

Drustin · Aug 8, 2008

That's weird itunes has always worked perfectly for me. but like other people said try adding the mp3s to your library.

dtravis7 · Aug 8, 2008

I have never had an issue adding my music to iTunes unless there was some corruption in the MP3. I have maybe 15K songs. Started with iTunes in Windows and then OSX.

Something is wrong somewhere.

Chris_Mav · Aug 8, 2008

reast said:
I am of the opinion that Itunes was not written with the user in mind. It seems to have started out badly and has been hacked together over time. While I love my Mac, I can't stand Itunes. Believe it or not, I use Zune player running in Parallels on my Mac. Its easy to use and I purchased the Zune pass so I have access to all the music I want. I normally stream the music via the Internet.

Same here, primarily because i have a zune and wanted to keep it, works great

gal_amy · Aug 8, 2008

reast said:
. While I love my Mac, I can't stand Itunes. Believe it or not, I use Zune player running in Parallels on my Mac. et.

Just got my mac 2 days ago, talk about 2 days of zero sleep. iTunes did do a search on my portable hard drive and found all the music. I have no idea what I clicked on to make it work, but it does. You just have to poke around. I also hate the bloated Windows Media. I had a WindowsXP crash and had to reinstall everything. Couldn't believe how simple Media ORIGINALLY came. I sure not going to update it.