I’m glad I found a replacement for TUM.
I have the trial version but want to upgrade after I see the program work.
I am an exclusive iTunes user and trialed a folder with an album without artwork. I drag and dropped files into the SondKong interface and it ran with diagnostics. I checked the fix + artwork dropdown and yet nothing happens to the files in iTunes.
What am I doing incorrectly? I don’t see any changes.
Thanks
Brad
New User--Used to Use TuneUpMedia
Thats because it is a trial, the report generated is a preview of what would be changed. It should say Preview Only at the top of each page of the report
e.g
The hard bit is song identification not changing the actual files, but if you want to check file saving then the Manual Edit task (last icon) works in the free Lite version (but SongKong is mainly designed for automated matching not manual editing)
Hi Paul
By trial, I dont mean preview mode (i have not upgraded to pay version yet–thats what i meant).
I have the fix artwork box checked. If there is another step to initiate the change in iTunes i am missing it and now following through. If i understand you correctly, the lite version doesnt go that extra step–only in manual edit. Is that correct?
Thanks
Brad
Hi Brad, if you have not purchased a license then the Preview Only checkbox on the Basic tab is enabled and cannot be disabled. The free SongKong Lite only allow you to run Fix Songs and Delete Duplicates in preview mode.
got it. i will upgrade later.
again, seamless integration into iTunes and everything updates automatically, yes?
(if you are familiar with TuneUpMedia, now defunct as mentioned above, did just that)
Thanks
Brad
SongKong can automatically update your iTunes library with changes unless you have an unusual setup, but it does not depend on iTunes in any way.
I purchased.
Is there a way to more easily keep SK open next to iTunes. I have to shrink the panes and keep next to each other to drag and drop (“always on top” or "attach to iTunes)? iTunes also shuts down after every run. I would rather do all the updating and restart x 1 instead of repeating after each album’s worth of song files i drop in.
Songkong is designed for mass tagging, so why not just run on everything, you could run in preview mode first to check results.
And just select the folder(s) from with Songkong rather than dragging files from iTunes.
if you import folders through SK or drag and drop, iTunes shuts down after a run.
Is this on Windows or MacOS, the iTunes interaction works differently.
But as I said earlier why not just run it over everything then iTunes is only going to get shutdown once until you add new Music.
thanks for sticking with me, Paul
I have 1000s of album. I need to go in bit size chunks. As I am working through first batch, as I work through iTunes, I note issues I didnt pick up in the SongKong. I fix them. The process of running, checking and editing takes time and iTunes opening and closing is annoying. Yes, I could run 5K albums all at once but the process would be unwieldy. I might be missing an easy workaround to the program and I am making it more complicated than it has to be, so I do teach. However, i do find albums–or at least the way i organized them, are getting altered (an artist who collaborates with another artist for one track–a mixed album composer) will not get separated out. I have to manually go back and change “Ozzy Osbourne and Elton John,” for example, back to “Ozzy Osbourne” so every track gets consolidated and grouped properly.
Hope I am being clear, and again, thanks for your patience.
Brad
SongKong tries to match group of songs to albums, if it does the Album Artist will be consistent for all tracks on the album, but the (track) Artist can of course vary. Assuming you are meaning the (track) Artist here you can in most cases remove the extra artists by setting When track contains featured artists to Only use main artist in the artist field and discard other artists on the Format tab.
But this will only have an effect when there is a clearly defined main artist and featured artists, not when two artists have equal billing.
If you want to apply similar logic to Album Artist you can by using the next option - When albums contains featured albums artists to Only use main artist in the album artist field and discard other artists.
I am glad you are working in batches not one album at a time, but have you explored the Browse By section of the report that SongKong creates, this should help identify these kind of problems possibly more easily then using iTunes itself. For one thing the report will constrain itself to the folders you have processed and it should be easy to spot unfamiliar artists, incomplete albums and missing artwork this way.
when you are a music fanatic and are particular with the details of your collection and how they are ordered, subtle changes can be exasperating. SK is a powerful program and has the potential to cause mischief if you are not familiar with what it can do. as i am learning–and i am finding lots of processed changes that altered covers, artists, etc
i need to gain more experience with it.
i have also found, and did not realize, that album art is not only one pane within the iTunes GET INFO pane. I was updating covers and replacing with proper ones and finding that they were not populating in iTUnes. But they were–only adjacent to the front facing ones in the GET INFO song tab. There is a slider bar and the space can hold multiple pics. I am finding when i replace them with SK app, they do go in. But not as the primary one.
I should add pics ARE getting replaced when the proper ones were there prior.
Anyway, its a learning experience and when you know the software i am sure its a cinch. Im not there yet.