Saturday, May 1, 2010

Merge CDs into iTunes album properly

Iphone - Merge CDs into iTunes album properly

When I import several CDs and then merge those imported tracks into one iTunes album it often makes a mess. I merge the imported CDs by ctrl-clicking on the albums, going to get infos and editing the common data (composer, artwork, album title etc.). iTunes then does make a single album out of the cds but sometimes it merges the tracks in a silly order. This happens especially if the CDs are not known to Gracenote. In that case iTunes will merge the CDs in the order Track 01, Track 01, Track 01, ... instead of all tracks from CD1, then all tracks from CD2 etc.. Since there is no Undo if the merge I have to re-import all CDs and start again. Very annoying.

I can set the sort field to sort by "import date/time" which brings the tracks in the order I want (i.e. first all tracks from the first imported CD, then the next one ...) but when I sync my iTunes with the iPhone all the tracks are again in the order Track 01, Track 01, etc. (i.e. the CDs are interleaved).

I do not want to build a separate Playlist but want a single iTunes album with all the CDs that belong to a particular set in correct order.

How can this be done, please ?

iPhone iTunes
iphone girls itunes
To preserve (or enforce your own) order, you should use the fields Disc x of y as well as the track number.

But what is the advantage of merging albums?

Why do you have to re-import? You can select imported tracks at *any time* and use Get Info.