iTunes to BB1

[arthur rodman]

HI there,

I located my iTunes folder and transferred it to a BB1.

Everything went smoothly but instead of about 40 albums which

I could browse or play it made a list of everything in alphanumerical order.

Are the albums there and I am missing how to locate them or do I

need a different way to get them on the BB1?

Regards,  arthur

[PMB]

Hi Arthur,

When you say a list of everything, do you mean all of the tracks are listed rather than the albums? This may have been caused by the way the music was organised on iTunes. Ideally you need a top level of Artist folders, containing Album folders, containing the tracks on your transfer device (USB HDD or memory stick).

Paul

Brennan Support.

[arthur rodman]

yes Paul, a list of all the tracks. on the iTunes interface on the Apple screen I can search by artist, album or track name 

thanks for prompt response. arthur

[PMB]

Hi Arthur,

How do the albums and tracks appear on the device (HDD or memory stick) you used to copy the iTunes to the BB1? Or did you use upload?

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Mark Fishman]

iTunes (the display you refer to on the Apple screen) uses metadata (tags) embedded in the files to sort, keep track of, or display the information you are seeing.

Brennan does not. Brennan relies on the filenames and the folder (directory) structure in which they are placed, and insists that the tracks be inside folders that it will say are the "album", and the album(s) be inside folders that it will say are the "artists". In other words, it doesn't matter AT ALL what iTunes shows you, what Brennan wants to see is this folder structure:

 ARTISTNAME --> ALBUMNAME --> TRACKS

If you feed it any other structure it will mess up. As Paul says, what matters is what's on the USB gizmo that you use to transfer the tracks. It MUST be that structure (you can put it under a "music" folder if you don't want it at the root).

[arthur rodman]

Hi Mark,

thanks for your input. Looking at it on screen the USB content is just an alphanumeric listing of all the tracks.

This is exactly what the Brennan comes up with when I hit "browse" in the menu.

Each track will play when selected so it can certainly see the individual songs.

The CD Albums in iTunes were loaded from the drive in the PowerMac (G5 style).

If I hit Artist or Albums in iTunes menu I get exactly that.

So....  if iTunes is organising in the ARTISTNAME --> ALBUMNAME --> TRACKS format

by an iTunes system how do I get it in folders for the Brennan without either again loading from CD or manually

creating folders for each Artist - Album etc?   arthur

[arthur rodman]

Hi Mark, have replied to Mark's post and it includes an answer to your question.  arthur

[arthur rodman]

OK, for clarity....  brain glitch detected

 Hi Paul, have replied to Mark's post and it includes an answer to your question.  arthur

[Mark Fishman]

If memory serves. iTunes itself can rearrange things into artist and album folders -- but you have to allow iTunes to copy things into, and then manage, your iTunes Music folder.

Failing that, you can use a tagging application (such as mp3tag, which is available for Macs running Wine -- but that doesn't work for Catalina, and might not work on a G5) that is capable of using the embedded tag info to rename things into folders appropriately.

On the Mac, if you open a Finder window, and navigate (under your home directory) to Music, iTunes, iTunes Music -- working from memory here, please allow me some slack :^)  -- somewhere down there should be the folder structure that the tracks are actually stored in. Does that look like artist -- > album --> tracks? If it does, you could just open another Finder window to your USB drive and drag (copy) everything across exactly as is. If it looks like somethig else, let us know.

[PMB]

Hi Arthur,

It sounds like you copied the 'tracks' from iTunes rather than Artists and/or Albums. As Mark says you need to find the Artists folder i.e. up two levels, in iTunes and copy that to the transfer device.

You'll have to delete all music on the BB1 before importing the Artist/Album/Track again.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[arthur rodman]

Thanks Paul,

yes, clearly the tracks need to be deleted before a reload.

Is there an easy way to do this on the BB1?

Shall follow Mark's advice regarding locating the albums to then

transfer them complete to USB. Thanks again, arthur

[arthur rodman]

Hi Mark, shall go for the search option and see if I can

locate the albums to copy and load. Thanks again,  arthur

[arthur rodman]

Hi Paul,

trying Mark's album folder search and have already found the simple erase files menu on the BB1 so ready to 

load again once I finish the search. arthur

[PMB]

Hi Arthur,

Great, let us know how you get on.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[arthur rodman]

Hi Mark,

going in to the iTunes folder directly rather than through Finder there is a 

Music folder which when opened is the Album Files, and in each album

folder the track files of the album.

Erased the BB1 and ported this Music file to it on a USB stick.

All the Albums and Artists are in the Browse window and can be

searched so all good and my thanks again for the prompt responses.

Best regards,  arthur

[arthur rodman]

Hi Paul, sent this to Mark:- 

Thanks for the prompt responses, best regards.  arthur

[Mark Fishman]

> Music folder which when opened is the Album Files, and in each album folder the track files of the album.

Albums? not artists, then albums? (in other words, one more level than you have mentioned)

Hmm.

If it worked, and your BB1 shows artists, then OK.

[arthur rodman]

Hi Mark,

the BB1 has direct menu option search boxes for either artist or album

so maybe it can see the iTunes code for the artists when the albums are loaded.

I went Go  -  Enclosing Folder - Music - iTunes - iTunes Media - Music

The last one is the Music folder I ported to the BB1 which has the albums in it

all in individual folders, and in each folder the tracks of that album.

If you look for Elvis all you see is the separate albums not

"Elvis" and in that folder his albums. arthur