iTunes – Tips and Tricks
You just got a brand new iPod for the holidays. You installed iTunes and you are good to go. Now you can listen to your music as you travel, no longer constrained to being near your computer. iPods are great and so is iTunes.
I have listed below some tips and tricks for working with the Windows version of iTunes. Most of these tips also work with the Mac version.
Rip songs as MP3s – Just as Latin was the lingua franca in the ancient Western world, MP3 is the only file format that is universally understood by all hardware and software players. Music purchased from the Apple Store comes in AAC format that includes DRM (Digital Rights Management) restrictions that limit your use of the songs on other computers and players.
You do not have to live with these limits. Burn the song(s) to a CD and then rip it back as an MP3. Also, rip all your commercial CDs as MP3s.
- Go to Edit – Preferences.
- Click on the Advanced tab.
- Then click on the Importing tab.
- Change the Import Using: field from the default AAC Encoder to MP3 Encoder.
In addition, you might change the Setting: field to Higher Quality (192 kbps).
Tag your files – iTunes lets you store a lot of information about each track in something called an ID3 tag. The larger your library the more important these tags become to helping you find what you are looking for.
- You access tags by selecting a song or songs and right clicking.
- Then select get info. You can type Ctrl+I to get there faster.
- Then click on the Info tab.
You might use the Comments field in the Get Info screen to put descriptions or keywords in file tags. You can build a Smart Playlist utilizing those tags. For example, you can create a playlist of songs with "favorite" in the comments.
Find songs fast – Type your search term in the search field on the upper right of the iTunes window. Click on the triangle shape next to the magnifying glass icon to select what to search - All, Artist, Album, Composer, or Song.
iTunes displays the search results in the main window. Click the X in the far right of the search field to clear the search.
See it or hide it – iTunes has a trisected window frame that sits atop the main window called the Browser. It lets you quickly search for items by Genre, Artist or Album when it is displayed.
You can open or close the Browser by typing Ctrl+B or selecting from the menu View-Show Browser or View-Hide Browser.
Use Cover Flow – iTunes lets you browse your albums by flipping through the covers as if you were browsing CDs in a rack. Click on the right most button in the View field (next to the Search field) to access Cover Flow.
Browse your collection by dragging the scroll bar or use the arrow keys on your keyboard.
Play an item by double-clicking on the file name that appears below the artwork.
All is not lost – If you have a hard disk crash and you do not have a recent back up you can still recover your previously purchased iTunes Store tracks. You can call Apple once a year and they will let you again download the music you purchased from them.
Listen to the radio – iTunes let you listen to streaming web radio stations. Most internet radio stations are music-only, one song after another, without commercial or DJ interruption.
- Click on Radio underneath Library in the left side panel of the main window.
- Then select a station from the over 800 streams.
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