Dragging m4a files into Itunes

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BobD
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:23 am

Dragging m4a files into Itunes

Post by BobD »

When I drag m4a files created with Amadeus Pro into my Itunes Library everything seems fine until I play one of the songs. It plays fine but after 1 play the Name of the Song has the track number added in front of the song name. The m4a files were created from LP after editing markers and cleaning up cracks and then by "Split According To Markers. (bit rate 320, m4a, AAC compression)
This happens consistently and is correctable through Itunes Get Info editing.

Suggestions?

:?

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Lou Kash
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Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:39 pm
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Post by Lou Kash »

From what I can say, there is a bug, probably in the QuickTime framework, where Apple Lossless (which uses also the m4a container) tags created outside iTunes are not editable or not even readable by iTunes. This happens not only to files created/edited by Amadeus, but also with files processed with dedicated tag editors like Media Rage. And thus likely it happens to compressed AAC/m4a files as well.

The workaround so far has been to leave the edited files uncompressed (AIFF) and without tags and do all converting and tag editing later within iTunes.
after 1 play the Name of the Song has the track number added in front of the song name.
iTunes 8 and higher automatically adds the track number to the beginning of the file name. Then, when there is no Track Name tag (or when iTunes can't read it), it will show the file name as track name instead.

The automatic track numbering used to be an option in earlier versions of iTunes, but Apple in its "infinite wisdom" has hidden it from us dumb users. So now it's available only as a "hidden preference".
Get Doug Adams' helper application to turn the hidden iTunes prefs on and off:
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/s ... iddenprefs
is correctable through Itunes Get Info editing.
Sort of. iTunes likely doesn't even write the tag to the file, only to its internal database. If you remove the file from the iTunes library and then reimport, iTunes will possibly show the file name again...

BobD
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:23 am

Post by BobD »

Lou,
Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try. However I also make a CD versions of the LPs I encode with AP. When I import with AP encoded CDs the problem doesn't happen. So I now have 3 workarounds. Too bad we can only treat the symptoms instead of correcting the problem.

thanks again

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