Beatles LP's not syncing to iPhone

Hi there,

An iTunes LP is some additional content that can be bundled with an album. It is essentially a small self-contained website that can contain related text, images, lyrics, notes, and other media. There will also be a page that can be used to play the tracks of the album. The iTunes LP itself only works in iTunes, but the tracks of the album should be able to sync to your device like the tracks of any other album. Presumably in the case of this box set there is also an iTunes LP that lists each of the individual albums and links into their respective iTunes LPs.

I don't have this particular item, but it does seem looking in the iTunes Store that it comprises some 250 tracks, 15 iTunes LPs and 15 videos. It would seem that all tracks are listed with the same box set artwork under the album name of The Beatles Box Set, rather than being presented as the individual albums that comprise the set. A method that I sometimes use for box sets is to ignore the artificial breaks that might have previously been caused by limited CD or vinyl size and create one album in iTunes for each album or musical work with all its tracks in the correct order. For example I've taken the 4-disc recording of Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, King Arthur and The Fairy Queen and turned it into 3 individual albums (each with the same artwork) and I've taken the 3 disc Remains Of Tom Lehrer and reconstructed his 5 original albums, with their respective artwork, leaving the remaining bonus tracks under the box set cover.

I haven't tried this with a box set that includes iTunes LPs, but I have edited metadata for individual albums with iTunes LPs without breaking them. Typically I eliminate terms like {Live}, {Bonus Tracks Version) and such from my album titles. You could try splitting out the first album, its iTunes LP, and the documentary video, by changing the album title for that selection to Please Please Me, then attach the correct artwork downloaded from the web. Check the behaviour of the Please Please Me iTunes LP, and the main Box Set iTunes LP to see that both still work, and sync your device. This album should now show separately. Continue with each album if that does what you want. Otherwise please explain what you'd like to achieve. I should be able to tell if it is feasible or not.

tt2

turingtest2 wrote:

I don't have this particular item, but it does seem looking in the iTunes Store that it comprises some 250 tracks, 15 iTunes LPs and 15 videos. It would seem that all tracks are listed with the same box set artwork under the album name of The Beatles Box Set, rather than being presented as the individual albums that comprise the set....

I haven't tried this with a box set that includes iTunes LPs, but I have edited metadata for individual albums with iTunes LPs without breaking them.

I am replying to you so I can include the above. The OP can accomplish what he wants, I am pretty sure, but it will be very time consuming. He will have to decide whether the time is worth it or not. I have done it for a much smaller set, 2 albums with 37 tracks and it took time. Doing this for 15 albums with 250 tracks will take many hours if not days. I don't have this particular set either but the problems I see are: 1) based on what you said above, all tracks are under a single Album Name, The Beatles Box Set and 2) how the individual track numbers show up in iTunes. IF the tracks are all under one album name with numbers 1, 2, 3, .... 249, 250, he would have to edit each and every track to change not only the Album Name (and Artwork if he wishes) but also the track number, a royal pain.

I'll offer an example. Please take a look at this Screenshot:

I have a 2 CD set called Vivaldi: La Stravaganza. CD #1 contains 18 tracks under the album name "Vivaldi: La Stravaganza" and with track numbers 1 through 18. CD #2 contains 19 tracks under the same album name with track numbers 1 through 19. After I ripped both CDs with iTunes they showed up (as expected) under one album but the tracks were 1,1,2,2,3,3,....18,18,19. No way to play in that order as it ruins the flow of music. Obviously when playing each CD with a CD player this was a non-issue but trying to play this 2 CD set with my iPhone was a non-starter. I really like these CDs so I had to edit each track, all 37 of them. Using Get Info I edited the album name of each CD #1 track as coming from a new album "Vivaldi: La Stravaganza 1" and all tracks of CD #2 from new album "Vivaldi: La Stravaganza 2". Then bingo, 2 albums appeared in iTunes under those album names with the right tracks in the proper order. I left the Artwork the same as I can distinguish the albums by their new names.

For the OP, if all 250 tracks are currently under the same Album Name, they will appear as one album in iTunes and also in an iPhone. To do what he wants he would have to go into each of the 250 tracks and change the Album Names. He would have to select the tracks that fall under the first album and change the album name as he wishes, "I want to hold your Hand" or "I want to kill you for making me do this", and then edit the track numbers, let's say 1 through 15, so they play in the proper order (this may not be necessary if he is willing to live with album #2 having track numbers 16 through 30, etc.) He would then have to select the tracks for the second album and do the same and on an on for 15 albums.

Maybe you have a magical fast way of doing this... 🙂

Here is another example but going the other way around.

There is no such album. I ripped 18 tracks from various CDs, most named differently and with their own artwork. The tracks showed up as expected under their original album names. I then edited the album name of each track to "Celia Cruz Selections" and the album artwork to one I liked. After doing that for all tracks, all albums consolidated into one. But I also had to change the track number of each track so they would play in the order I wanted.

I have synced both of these albums (and others done the same way) to my iPhone and iPad and they show up as they do in iTunes, 2 albums for the Vivaldi and one album for the Celia Cruz.

All I can say to the OP is good luck and sorry. Maybe tt2 has a faster better way... 🙂

Looking at https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-beatles-box-set/id402060584 the track numbers are probably OK, with each disc getting a different disc number. 14 album edits with Get Info to correct the album name, set the disc number to 1 of 1, and add the right artwork. Assuming that is the way they want to go.

I've also built a number of scripts for making batch changes that aren't so easy to do in iTunes alone, but they probably aren't needed for this project.

Your Vivaldi album would grate in my library. Each artwork should appear just once. Adding in a disc number for each disc would have sorted out the ordering, and since they were ripped one at time using date added to sort the list would have allowed this to be done in two Get Info operations. This is my copy of the Stones' Exile On Main St. In my case I've renumbered the tracks of the second disc with a script so the track numbers are sequential over the whole album. Note also that the iTunes LP is marked as Disc 2 of 2 so it appears at the bottom and not just after track 18.

tt2

This is how my Vivaldi: L.S. 1 appears now:

When I first ripped these two CDs about 2 years ago the tracks showed as 1,1,2,2 etc until I split them into two albums. As I recall, the iTunes version at that time did not allow me to select more than one track at a time and use Get Info to batch edit the Album Name. I could batch edit the Album Name by selecting the album itself but all tracks under it would have been changed, not just the ones for CD #1. I may not be recalling this correctly. Now when I click on the album the contents appear to the right, not under it as it used to, but more importantly, I can select more than one track at a time and use Get Info (I just noticed that now). This would speed up the OPs project significantly (if he is able to select all the tracks for Album #1 and edit the Album Name once). I had to edit the album name for each track.

Edit: You were editing your post as I was writing. I will have to digest it.

I have the Beatles Boxed Set synced to my iPhone 5s and my iPad Air 2. If I view the downloaded content on my devices and sort by album, I can see them as such. I synced them from my Mac as albums, not as individual songs or playlists.

Launch the Music App, tap Library, Tab Downloaded Music, tap Albums.

I don't know that the artwork is all that important anyway. I did this a number of years ago when I firt got the boxed set for Christmas, but I know that I meticulously imported one album at a time. checked to make sure that everything imported OK and then went on to the next album in the set.

When you sync them, did you select them as albums in iTunes? You did sync the music and not drag and drop in iTunes, correct?

I think I overlooked the fact that these are LP's. I am an old timer (and an old man) and back in the day, and LP meant that it was a vinyl record. I imported CD's from the boxed set. How did you get the music into iTunes?

I took the easy way out. I asked for boxed set for Christmas, got it, imported the CD's into iTunes the next day, and synced them to my iOS devices. That was simple to do and I didn't have to pay for it either. 😉

Thanks to turingtest2 and to elcpu for their help and for sharing their knowledge. 🙂

photogdude wrote:

Not sure how I got those folders on the windows box in the first place, but I'm glad they were there.

Is iTunes set to manage your library? Preferences > Advanced, Keep music folder organised?

iTunes will generate folders based on the metadata in the files. It seems like you have replaced the files with different ones with different metadata.

If you are unsure about what the tags should be in iTunes you can consider running the files through an app that corrects the tags. Picard will read the audio & try to suggest correct tags - obviously backup first as it will edit the files. Once the tags change iTunes will reorganise the files & folders when it next reads them (just play the file).

https://picard.musicbrainz.org/

Sadly you have to be retentive about using uniform tags to get them to organise correctly, the Apple Store seems to have some odd metadata on some files.

This will be a dumb question I'm sure , but did you import them one album at a time and associate album art with each album?