iTunes Genius, not really

[WadeFillingame]

There are so many reasons that I dislike Apple.  Genius is just the latest. 

My music library is somewhere close to 5K songs.  I never rent my music from the iTunes store, I buy CDs and rip them to MP3s.  I have not done a hard test to see but I would guess that about half of my songs if I tell iTunes to make a Genius list it gives me the "can't do it with this song" message. 

I've updated it repeatedly and it still gives me that.  This is not odd music, Etta James, Bare Naked Ladies, Fleetwood Mac, SRV this is not fringe music folks. 

[ncast2523]

It may have something to do with the improper tagging of the music files. It tends to work pretty well for me, and I don't usually purchase my music either. Perhaps look into a iTunes library correction software.

[kombat96]

Should've went with the cloud.

[TheGiver]

This is most certainly a tagging issue. Media Monkey is your friend. It does it ALL including the ripping to mp3 and the tagging.

[WadeFillingame]

Tried changing most of my tags with Media Monkey, iTunes is still in the dark.

[RANT]

Freaking iPOS apple crap.  So I finally broke down and changed the iOS for my phone with the whole vulnerability issue with the apple software.  I was running an older iOS 6.** version.  Well crap, now the iDiotic system will not communicate with my phone, since my iTunes version is still 10.* the new improved iOS won't communicate with it. Apple, concept here, backward compatibility!?!?  

I don't put music on my phone, all I want it to do is function as a freaking phone, calendar, contacts manager, and on occasion browser.  I swear I may go back to my Blackberry 8830.

Three months until I can dump this iPOS .

[/rant]

[TheGiver]

All files tagged with media monkey can be read just fine with iTunes. Including ALL tag information. In fact it can even overwrite all AAC(Apple media) files with new info and iTunes will not skip a beat. Something else is going on. I have been using both apps in unison for over 5 years now.

Why not just update all your Apple stuff to the latest?

Turn off Genius
Buy CD
Rip with Media Monkey into appropriate iTunes Media folder
Tag With Media Monkey Cntrl-L(Auto Tag from Web)
Start iTunes and let library scan complete. Confirm all tag/album photo etc is in the file
Plug in iphone/ipod and sync music or drag&drop. This will not change any tags.
Done

[WadeFillingame]

Two things going on here.

One, my current music library has well over 5000 songs.  Some of it is CDs that I ripped when I was getting divorced 10 yrs ago and I don't have them any more. The issue with Genius is that it fails to recognize more than half of them.

I've used Media Monkey and updated the tags on several hundred songs (entire albums) that iTunes won't recognize, and it still does not recognize them.  

As to the updates, my house is recent construction, 10 yrs ago it was woods here.  This end of the valley has neither cable or DSL access so my internet connections are on wireless cards.  Apples insane 1.7gig system replacement updates take 34% of my allowed monthly bandwidth.  The entire idea that you have to spend hours downloading an update is asinine.  As I said, I don't put music on my phone, my iPod works fine with the current iTunes, the problem currently is that since I updated the iPhone I can't synch my calendars and contacts.  I am finished with Apple.  

[TheGiver]

Gotcha. That sucks about the wireless and high speed part. But hell.... your living in a pretty new house! Not to mention that any house w/out high speed internet generally means a decent amount of privacy. That's certainly a bonus. :)

My current library is 133736 songs at 1198GB. I really have no other choice but to use MM because it is designed to handle massive libraries. 500 or 100K songs, I wouldn't use anything else.

Be sure to put Artist in the Album Artist tag field as well. I think that's where iTunes reads the artist info from. I've never used Genius. I just turned it off as soon as it came out. The last thing I want is a suggestion for more music. :)

[WadeFillingame]

Genius is cool when I'm driving or mowing the lawn and I don't want to build a playlist.  I just tell it to play something by SRV or Warren Zevon or Disturbed or what ever I'm in the mood for and let it build a list.  It is convenient.  I got hooked on the idea with the Pandora genome project.  Plug in something by The Black Keys or some other not quite main stream band (5 yrs ago The Black Keys were not) and get a bunch or stuff you've never heard and you can skip it if you like.  In any case I find the genius function a convenience when it works, but I've discovered that it only draws from a small portion of my tunes.

I wish I had the bandwidth to stream, I'd be on Pandora about 99% of the time. 

[WadeFillingame]

What kind of stupid pills do they put in the lunches in Cupertino? 

After being forced to update my iTunes to the latest version to get my [b]calendar[/b] to work (which is in itself just stupid) the geniuses at Apple release another huge (1.2gig) iPhone operating system update.  These fkrs are sucking up more bandwidth than porn!

So, first the new to me iTunes is stupid, it took me hours to find the button to turn on the menu bar. 

Second, my wife opted to "save" the latest ridiculously large file so we could update devices.  Ever try to find where it's saved?  You have a better chance of finding MH370!  So after locating the hidden file in the hidden folder on her computer I am trying to figure out how to use it on mine.  WTF, this is the most ridiculous system I've ever had to deal with.