Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions iTunes Question

Any iTunes gurus out there? And if so, do you understand how Genius works? A friend was noticing that Genius wasn't available for the classic 1976 Fleetwood Mac track "Rhiannon" (Brent, some of us still listen to Fleetwood Mac!). I thought it might be because the album he had wasn't on iTunes, but we had "Greatest Hits" which is available on iTunes. We couldn't start a Genius with that track either, but we could with another song from the same album.

Soo . . . is it just that nobody else ever created a playlist and transmitted their personal data freely to the Genius servers, or . . . how does that work exactly?

Seems like Ken or Peter should know.

It's a treat to see your post, Amie.

Thanks for the warm welcome Tom! And of course, I can't let your excellent avatar go unremarked - always a great choice! Nice to see you too!

Amie, great to hear from you again, although I know zero about iTunes and can't offer any advice.

iTunes can be finicky. You can force Genius to update by choosing that option from the Store menu. If you still can't make a playlist based on that song, then maybe Steve Jobs hated Fleetwood Mac.

Hello John - great to hear from you too!

Peter, I tried forcing an update. I even tried disabling and re-enabling Genius to *really* force an update, but still no joy. I'd understand hating all Fleetwood Mac, but to cherry-pick in this manner seems especially odd. Tested one of Ian's "Faces" albums (think Rod Stewart) and the same phenomenon existed - it would create a recommendation for "Cigarettes and Alcohol" but not for "Ooh La La". It would be interesting to find out how that algorithm works.

I was curious and tried it myself. You'll see my results were similar:

Just choose any other Fleetwood Mac song and you'll likely get to the same place. Except for Second Hand News. Seriously. What were they thinking?

Did you just put the song Second Hand News in my head? Gaahhh!! Where's the penalty button?

Hi Amie! Did you kick the kids out of the house and have some free time now?

I really do not like I-tunes, but am forced to use it as I use an I-Pod for my rigs. I-Tunes makes me feel violated for some reason…..

I do not have the patience to create play lists, so I rely solely on the Genius function. I have no idea how it works. I thought Apple might have a bunch of a bored kids sitting around coffee shops creating play lists whenever someone hit the genius button, and they just don’t have any taste, but suspect that’s not really how it works.

I do know that some artists have restrictions on their music and have boycotted Apple in one way or another. AC/DC comes to mind…. Their newer “re mastered” CD’s that I have will not allow me to use the genius function, or the genius function won’t work with them….whichever way that works.

I've used numerous media players, including iTunes, which was my primary player for years until I found MediaMonkey . In my opinion, i-Tunes is junk, and MediaMonkey is by far the best.

I'd still use it but unfortunately it's not compatible with Zune's, but you can sync i-Pods etc. to it. Maybe an alternative Mike and Amie?

Peace,
Cam

In my opinion, calling something junk makes an implicit statement about those who use it. But that's just my opinion.

Yep the Monkey rules.

Peace Out!

Hi Michael! Long time! Where are the latest pics of your beautiful cabin?

I know about some of the artists banning iTunes, but this particular album is sold by iTunes so I don't think that's the culprit.

Cam, Grunt - this is an interesting piece of software! Have either of you run into the "DJ is not available for this song" issue? (I have no idea what MediaMonkey calls it, if they have such an issue.) And Cam, you might know - we have a significant collection of Canadian music - any problems with that getting cued up in the MediaMonkey DJ tracks?

Thanks for the find!

I was ONLY trying to help by giving my informed opinion, and suggest an alternative for Amie and Mike. To piously imply that an adjective used to judge a product, somehow applies to the user, is quite scandalous.

Pick on someone else, Peter; it's getting old. I dealt with enough of it all through school, and it's carrying on in society in a different form because of my disability.

Hi Amie,

I haven't used MediaMonkey in quite a few years, now that I have my Zune and use their software. To be quite honest, I never use playlist's, but I'm sure Dean will help you out with a DJ function reliability.

Regarding Canadian music - if you'd like, I'll gladly download the program and test it with some Great White North content. You just need to give me 5 or so artists .

Sorry for making you flash back to your school years, Cam. I was just trying to point out that words have power and certain words have connotations. Scandalous? What's scandalous is your implication that my reactions to some of your posts would be different if you'd never had your accident. Your disability has absolutely nothing to do with how I interpret your words and how I respond to you. Should it?

I don't think I've done much to the cabin in a while that's picture worthy. I did destroy my lawn in an attempt to kill clover though. It looks amusing now, somewhat like a patchwork quilt.

I had no idea MediaMonkey worked with I-Pods. I will give it a whirl.

PS: Apple fans are very loyal, tread lightly. (PPS...Shhhh I think I-Tunes is junk too)

Go Pittsburgh!!!

I think Chevys are junk.


Just testing.

i-tunes +1; Chevys +1.

Hey, thanks Cam! Hmm, five artists that I think would test it:

Lowest of the Low
Tragically Hip
The Guess Who
Crash Test Dummies
Chantal Kreviazuk

There, that's fairly eclectic! A few generations, a few genres . . .

MediaMonkey uses freeDB.org for tagging albums and tracks.

http://www.freedb.org/freedb_search.php

Here’s what it returned for the groups you listed Amie. If you go to the site above and check for more make sure to use quotation marks around the name of the group or track or however you are searching or it will return everything with any of the words in it.

Lowest of the Low:
The Lowest of the Low / Night of the Living Assholes Details
Lowest Of The Low / Motel 30 Details
The Lowest Of The Low / Shakespeare My Butt Details
Lowest of the Low / nothing short of a bullet Details
The Lowest of the Low / Hallucigenia
The Lowest of the Low / Shakespeare My Butt
Lowest of the Low / City Full of Cowards
Lowest Of The Low / Rare Tracks
The Lowest of the Low / Nothing Short Of A Bullet [Studio Disc]

Tragically Hip:
110 results but some are duplicates

The Guess Who:
156 results but some are duplicats

Crash Test Dummies
93 results but some are duplicates

Chantal Kreviazuk:
Chantal Kreviazuk / Leaving On A Jet Plane (CDS)

I actually don’t use MediaMonkey for tagging since most of my 56,000+ tracks are downloaded using “Radio Tracker,” part of the AudialsOne package so they come already tagged off internet radio. What I have tagged are CDs using Exact Audio Copy which does use freeDB.org and I have only ever run across a few CDs it didn’t have.

Cheers,
Dean

P.S. I don’t use iTunes so I can’t vouch for MediaMonkey either working or playing nice with it, however it does seem to play just about anything else I’ve thrown at it. It also syncs with my Galaxy S phone.

No it shouldn't, but I said absolutely nothing of the sort-or even implied it-nor would/should I.

By picking on me, I'm talking about treating others the same. I'm definitely not the first person to call something junk. I'm definitely not the first person to swear on the forum. BUT you've vetoed me on both occasions whilst giving others a pass.

And having met you, knowing your character, I would never suggest that you thought someone was junk (or something of the like) because your opine of their product is junk. Just sayin', friend.

Then it looks like what we have here is a failure to communicate effectively. You should definitely fire your transcriber.

Really? That's awesome! Thanks for mentioning that, Dean; I have the same phone.

I don't know if you use LastFM, but this article explicates how to set up Auto-DJ with a LastFM plugin.

Wow - I just checked and they even have Men Without Hats in that DB. Good times in the "Amie half" of the iTunes collection!!

Thanks very much for the tips!

HEY REF!!!! ^^^^^ FOUL!! FOUL!!! ^^^^



I'm telling your neighbors you broke my pencil Ken.

With exception to "Lowest of the Low", I luckily have at least one CD of those groups and artist. Give me a day or two to get use to it and test er' out, and I'll report back .

Edit - Oops, it looks like Dean's the man and already taken care of things......?

Yup, Dean's got me hooked up. Now, gotta get you some Lowest of the Low! Classic Canadian stuff! I'm hoping to try MediaMonkey this weekend. And failing that - gasp - I'll have to make my own playlists!

I just listened to their song "Salesmen, Cheats And Liars" on YouTube, and it is good stuff.

Thanks for introducing them to me. I'm going to pick up a CD.

The cult classic from the 90s was YouTube: Rosy and Grey Rosy and Grey. Ian and I had the opportunity to see them do their 20th Anniversary Reunion Tour at Massey Hall this spring (my first time at Massey Hall! WOW!) and he was bemused to note that the entire audience knew every word to that tune and I'm not sure the band sang at all!

Although it's hard to recognize him with the blindfold on, the man on the far right on the album cover is Stephen Stanley who sang at the Axiom party last summer with the guys from Laganza. Gosh - was that a year ago??


Anyway, glad you're discovering them! They re-released on vinyl if you're interested in vinyl.

Awesome song...thanks for posting this Amie.

Hey Amie

If I recall correctly, Genuis uses play info from users who have Genius enabled. It will look at what other songs appear in the same playlist, what songs users choose to play next and so forth.

Downside, is for unpopular songs. If Genius can't see enough users with that Fleetwood Mac song then it can't make recommendations.

Test: Get all Axiom Forum users to get a copy of that song and make a playlist with it and update Genius. See if your side works any better!

snazzed

*All the above is my recollection and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Yeah, I guess Amie's on the very short list of people who I would listen to Fleetwood Mac for.

Still laughing over your comment Ken!

But it's funny, snazzed - I admit I like the odd popular pop song, too, and they won't genius either. And now I can't write to Steve Jobs about it anymore.

I bet you can still write to Tim Cook.

His day may come too - Jack Welch had some big shoes to fill when he started with GE and now we never think of the company without him. Maybe I shouldn't bother him with my iTunes problem in case he's got other stuff to worry about. Like the iGPS. Or iRemoteControl. (just throwing those out there in case he's reading.)