Nwacobyforce
Level 1 (4 points)
iTunes

Q: Why won't iTunes join tracks (seems to be an ignored request)?

I think I am satisfied that iTunes can only join tracks upon importing a CD (at least it used to). I guess what baffles me is that so many people seem to look for a way to do this while shuffling songs in a playlist. There are some recordings where artists give their tracks some strange breaks and two tracks should play together. I have looked this up before to no avail and here some 4 or 5 years later there is no solution in iTunes. So, either this is just too hard to do or there may be some legal reasons this shouldn't be done. I don't think that I should have to go by CDs just to join tracks on an album. So, my question (directed more to Apple) is why is this a feature that is not in iTunes? This just seems to be like an easy thing from where I sit, but clearly it is not and I want to know why. Or are we to just accept that it won't be done and listen to tracks in order to get the desire for two tracks?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), macOS Sierra (10.12)

Posted on Oct 21, 2016 9:49 PM

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Nwacobyforce

Q: Why won't iTunes join tracks (seems to be an ignored request)?

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  • by Kenichi Watanabe,

    Kenichi Watanabe Kenichi Watanabe Oct 22, 2016 3:10 AM in response to Nwacobyforce
    Level 8 (40,289 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 22, 2016 3:10 AM in response to Nwacobyforce

    I think it needs to be "joined" while importing from CD (and they have to be consecutive tracks on the CD), because iTunes encodes them as a single audio file while importing.  Once a song is in your iTunes library, it is a separate audio file from every other song file, and there is no mechanism in iTunes to merge two audio files together into one.  You could use something like GarageBand to edit the two (or more) audio files together, and export ("share") the result to iTunes.

     

    There seems to be an app that automates the process (which I have not used)

     

    http://dougscripts.com/apps/jointogetherapp.php

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Oct 22, 2016 3:47 AM in response to Nwacobyforce
    Level 9 (54,635 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 22, 2016 3:47 AM in response to Nwacobyforce

    I am sure it would be possible to code into iTunes but it is a relatively low level item.  Probably each entry in the library file would have to have a flag and then also include something about with which tracks an entry is supposed to be associated.  Then too this would be an iTunes library specific feature and then somebody would have to code it separately to work on a mobile device. I can just see it being a lot of work for something which probably wouldn't affect that many users (yes, you see lots of them complain about things here but what's a few dozen posts compared to the hundreds of millions of users?)

  • by Nwacobyforce,

    Nwacobyforce Nwacobyforce Oct 22, 2016 8:55 AM in response to Limnos
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 22, 2016 8:55 AM in response to Limnos

    Thanks for the response and sounds like you have thought about this more than I have - at least how the associations have to work in iTunes and in the mobile environment. And you are right, often the squeaky wheel gets the attention. From a user's perspective, it just seems like something that should be done given the way that artists sometimes cause the music to flow on their CDs or albums.

     

    I guess it is what it is. This seems like low hanging fruit (especially if none other has figured it out) for Apple to pick. I guess this one of those things I think so many people would appreciate since people have been asking about it for the last 5 or 6 years (based on the Google search results I remember). Ah well, wishful thinking! Thanks for taking the time to respond!