Import track names from different source?

You're a gem!

I downloaded XLD and googled how to "rip" CDs. I was able to take the files from the iTunes folder itself and rip them via XLD because apparently I can treat a folder like a CD. That's neat. XLD's "find Metadata" function listed an additional three metadata sources, one of which was perfect! Picked the metadata which I liked the most (which just means correct tracknames. The rest I can batch fix myself), then transcoded. I deleted the old files, and moved the new files back to iTunes by re-importing (I'm not touching those files directly for fear of screwing something up).

I know, I know. Some people facepalm that I use iTunes but I like it a lot, even if Gracenotes doesn't like my Final Fantasy music, haha.

XLD does not like my old .m4a files from my previous library, so I had to convert them to mp3 in iTunes (or... you know, put the CD back in, except that would require me to dig it out of a box). Max seems to hate me, and I'm not sure why. But XLD works, so that's how I'm going to roll.

It didn't look like XLD fixed metadata without transcoding, just found it. Or am I missing something in all these XLD preferences?

Though I could always just copy paste the correct names now that I have them.

Hmm... tried Picard just now, and it didn't change the artist like I told it to. So I think I still need to play with that program a bit more. However! I did manage to figure out the XLD to iTunes track names. Its a bit complicated but...

Step 1) "Rip" using XLD by opening the iTunes folder as a CD and clicking the Find Metadata button until I found a metadata source I liked most.

Step 2) Save cue sheet as WhateverIWantItCalled.cue onto the desktop (don't trascode, burn, or anything)

Step 3) Open cue sheet in excel (Import, use the texfile option)

Step 4) Separate the track names out of all the crap the cue sheet gave me

Now, I use excel a lot, but in case someone else needs to know how to sort out the track names from the crap:

Everything is imported into column A from the cue file.

Into column B, I wrote =ISNUMBER(SEARCH("TITLE",A1)) which searches for the term "TITLE" in column A, row 1 and spits out "TRUE" if it the box has "TITLE" in it and "FALSE" if it does not.

Click and drag the formula so that for every filled in blank for column A, there's a formula in column B.

Select all, go to Data -> Sort by column B (largest to smallest). All of the "TRUE" should come up in order.

Delete everything that is false, and delete the first true thing, because that's the album name.

Then find-replace TITLE, quotation marks, and double spaces with nothing and that's the cleaned up track names.

Optionally add more metadata here in column B, C, whatever.

You don't need the formula column anymore. Delete it.

Step 5) Export as tab delimited text

Step 6) Run this beautiful script (after reading how it works! I didn't change the play order like it told me to and was confused): http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/importfromtext.php It can be launched right from the browser, which is pretty sweet. I don't change the script at all: It asks two questions in pop windows: "Is the playlist you're staring at the one you want to change?" and "where's the textfile I'm pulling things from?" In which case the first question is yes/no and the second question you double click on your textfile.

Perfect. Never had to delete anything out of the iTunes folder or put anything in or re-export or anything.

And it doesn't take long. My Final Fantasy VI soundtrack (three disks) was done in about ten minutes. Probably can do my next four disk soundtrack in less than that.

I'll still try to make Picard work because now I'm on a roll and want to figure out the easiest, laziest way of doing things. And generally I like to work with interfaces instead of scripts, though this script is ridiculously easy.