Live Music on iPods

vedhead011vedhead011 Posts: 300
edited January 2008 in The Porch
So I'm finally going to be able to go digital with my music collection in the very near future. Something that I always thought about when organizing my iTunes library in my head was "what am I going to do with all my live shows"? Today I figured I'd ask the board.

I have an 80GB iPod just waiting for all my music. I probably have between 150 to 175 Pearl Jam shows on cd.

Do I put all studio recordings under artist "Pearl Jam" and create an artist called "Pearl Jam Live" for the live recordings?

What about shuffling? Love my concerts, but do I want to be continually skipping over live Evenflows, Alives, and Bettermans? Do I really want the possibility of another 'Porch' playing after the 11 minute Atlanta '94 version?

I've played a bit with iTunes and iPods, but I don't know too much about the ins and outs of them. Maybe there is an easy answer. The questions are, what do you do, and what suggestions might you have for my situation?

Thanks!
AskPearlJam: PearlJama101-guest says: Who's idea was it for Eddie to play banjo on "Soon Forget"?
Eddie: I don't know whose idea it was but it was turned down.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • vedhead011 wrote:
    So I'm finally going to be able to go digital with my music collection in the very near future. Something that I always thought about when organizing my iTunes library in my head was "what am I going to do with all my live shows"? Today I figured I'd ask the board.

    I have an 80GB iPod just waiting for all my music. I probably have between 150 to 175 Pearl Jam shows on cd.

    Do I put all studio recordings under artist "Pearl Jam" and create an artist called "Pearl Jam Live" for the live recordings?

    What about shuffling? Love my concerts, but do I want to be continually skipping over live Evenflows, Alives, and Bettermans? Do I really want the possibility of another 'Porch' playing after the 11 minute Atlanta '94 version?

    I've played a bit with iTunes and iPods, but I don't know too much about the ins and outs of them. Maybe there is an easy answer. The questions are, what do you do, and what suggestions might you have for my situation?

    Thanks!


    Here is the naming convention I typically use. I keep each one as an intact show, so it would basically be a live album. For example for the Gorge 05 show I would name the entire album as "2005-09-01 The Gorge" This way the shows stay in chronological order as well as stay as intact individual shows.
    Intelligence is the key and she was locked out

    Let's Just Pop a Few Yards of Bubble Wrap and Call It a Day!

    Don't Die Wondering

  • vedhead011 wrote:
    So I'm finally going to be able to go digital with my music collection in the very near future. Something that I always thought about when organizing my iTunes library in my head was "what am I going to do with all my live shows"? Today I figured I'd ask the board.

    I have an 80GB iPod just waiting for all my music. I probably have between 150 to 175 Pearl Jam shows on cd.

    Do I put all studio recordings under artist "Pearl Jam" and create an artist called "Pearl Jam Live" for the live recordings?

    What about shuffling? Love my concerts, but do I want to be continually skipping over live Evenflows, Alives, and Bettermans? Do I really want the possibility of another 'Porch' playing after the 11 minute Atlanta '94 version?

    I've played a bit with iTunes and iPods, but I don't know too much about the ins and outs of them. Maybe there is an easy answer. The questions are, what do you do, and what suggestions might you have for my situation?

    Thanks!

    It depends what you want. You could make a playlist of all your music except for live PJ so that you can play that on random rather then changing the name of the artist. Plus that way you can put some "select" live PJ in there. And then you can always put the whole ipod on shuffle if you are in the mood for a lot of random live pj. I have everything under Pearl Jam. I only have maybe 30 live shows on thereand a lot of other musicso i dont need a seperate playlist but sometimes i do get a lot of pj when on random. you can do so much with an ipod.
  • BinGnarlyBinGnarly Posts: 508
    All my Pearl Jam (1,630 songs) is Pearl Jam as the artist and I just have the Name of the show for album.
    Shows:
    San Diego 2003
    Grand Rapids 2004
    Grand Rapids 2006
    Detroit 2006
    Columbus 2010

    "With my own two hands I can change the world."
  • I keep all of my shows labelled with the artist name Pearl Jam Live, so I can keep them separate from PJ studio albums. Trust me, if you decide you want to listen to Yeild, you don't want to scroll through 100 shows to get to it. But thats just me.
    "No need to be void,...or save up on life...You got to spend it all....."
  • soclosesoclose Posts: 628
    You can categorize certain songs as "skip when shuffling" if you never want them to shuffle with the rest of your music (the option is within the "get info" menu). Maybe just keep your favorite versions of each song as shuffle-able?

    I second the recommendation of naming your shows based on date, beginning with the year. Makes it much easier to navigate the list.
  • Interesting responses so far, thank you.

    I really like the idea of keeping things in chronological order.

    Playlists are something that I haven't checked into at all. And it sounds like a good idea, just making an uber playlist that has everything except the live shows. And you are also right Come Back in Black, maybe a nice State of Love and Trust would be great popping up randomly. We want to preserve the integrity of the shows, but a sample here and there isn't too blasphemous.

    iPod for dummies question: Say you've got a 100 song playlist; does it take up any memory? If so, how much? If not, do the playlists just kind of act as pointers to the already stored songs?
    AskPearlJam: PearlJama101-guest says: Who's idea was it for Eddie to play banjo on "Soon Forget"?
    Eddie: I don't know whose idea it was but it was turned down.
  • bicyclejoebicyclejoe Posts: 1,203
    My Pearl Jam Road: 10/22/90 Seattle | 12/22/90 Seattle, Moore Theater | 9/29/92 Seattle, Magnusson Park, Drop in the Park | 9/5/93 The Gorge, with Neil Young and Blind Melon | 7/20/06 Portland, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall with Sleater-Kinney | 7/22/06 The Gorge, 10/21/06 Mountain View, Shoreline Ampitheatre, Bridge School Benefit | 9/21/09 Seattle | 9/22/09 Seattle | 9/26/09 Portland, OR | 7/14/2011 Eddie Vedder, Portland, OR | 11/29/13 Portland, OR
  • Red Mosquito: That is exactly what I was thinking, and it's assuring to know that it's working out for someone.

    Soclose: had no idea about that "skip when shuffling" option. Sounds fantastic! And it would be fun to pick favorite live versions of every song to keep shufflable. Awesome.

    BicycleJoe: Thanks for the link. It's good to be informed before you get into something. I have printed out the story to give it a good read. I'm still keeping my cd's and don't think I'll purchase albums off of iTunes as long as cd's are available. I love my cd art, I love my cd collection, and I wouldn't dream of just stop buying them. I also have a small but growing vinyl collection.
    AskPearlJam: PearlJama101-guest says: Who's idea was it for Eddie to play banjo on "Soon Forget"?
    Eddie: I don't know whose idea it was but it was turned down.
  • Ok this is what I do. I make each CD I have into a playlist. For instance I'll have:

    Alice in Chains- Dirt
    Alice in Chains- JOF
    Alice in Chains- Tripod
    Alice in Chains- Facelift
    ...
    ...
    ...
    ...

    ...
    ...(you get it)
    Pearl Jam- Albany 2006
    Pearl Jam- Avocado
    Pearl Jam- Berlin 1996



    I did this for every CD I have. If I just threw it on my iPod I noticed that it either got the artist screwed up or put it in alphabetical order. So I just put my CD's into play lists.
  • deadnotedeadnote Posts: 1,678
    you is lucky with that ipod thing
    set your laughter free

    dreamer in my dream

    we got the guns

    i love you,but im..............callin out.........callin out
  • I keep all boots under the full name of the artist - it affects my scrobbling otherwise ;)
    Here's the convention I use.
    Year/Month/Day Venue/Town/Country (where applicable)

    With all my boots, demo's, studio albums and various other odds and sods that's over 140 albums and they're all easy to find.
    One thing you should note is that the latest versions of iTunes put numbers at the end of the alphabet, so all the date ordered boots come after the studio albums and demo's etc, which are named normally. It ends up looking a little like this...

    ....
    Wishlist Single
    Worldwide Suicide Single
    Yield
    1990/10/22 Off Ramp Cafe, Seattle, WA, USA (Mookie Blaylock) - Boot
    1992/02/26 Eddies No8, Birmingham, UK - Boot
    1992/03/04 Utrecht, Holland
    1992/03/16 MTV Unplugged, Kaufman Astoria, NY, USA
    ...etc

    I personally haven't bothered with the skip during shuffle setting, it's very rare that I use the shuffle all songs option as I'm using the 160gb iPod and I generally end up skipping most of the stuff that comes up (it always has a knack of picking something I'm not in the mood for). Besides you can also select to shuffle by artist or album in the individual track menus on the iPod

    I like the idea of the playlist per album, but I've never had a problem with transferring incorrect data on either manual or auto syncing iPods. Besides if I did that, then I'd have to have 1658 playlists - which would take a damn sight longer to scroll through than my current system! ;)
    ...London Doesn't Call Anymore... (rip joe)

    Yes, I have been to some Pearl Jam concerts. Several of them.
  • soclosesoclose Posts: 628
    I keep all boots under the full name of the artist - it affects my scrobbling otherwise ;)

    I was going to mention that issue, then I remembered this wouldn't have much of an impact on the average iPod user!
  • bicyclejoe wrote:

    This article raises some very valid points for people who love music.

    The article said that MOST people can't tell the difference above 224 kbps. Who are the people that can't tell the difference, and how did I find out if I'm one of them?

    It also says that the AAC file is a slightly higher quality than its mp3 counterpart. When you are exporting a cd into iTunes, do you get a choice what type of file and what rate you are exporting to? It seems clear, judging only from the article, that in this flawed system a 256 kbps AAC file will be the best sounding coming out of your iTunes and/or iPod.
    AskPearlJam: PearlJama101-guest says: Who's idea was it for Eddie to play banjo on "Soon Forget"?
    Eddie: I don't know whose idea it was but it was turned down.
  • soclose wrote:
    I was going to mention that issue, then I remembered this wouldn't have much of an impact on the average iPod user!

    Sorry, I'm a damn Yank and don't know what scrobbling means!

    Also, Evolutionary, from the way you describe things, it sounds like you can tweak the settings to suit the personal needs of the listener. And I'll know that if I use your naming convention I won't worry that somethings missing until I check all the way to the bottom of the list.
    AskPearlJam: PearlJama101-guest says: Who's idea was it for Eddie to play banjo on "Soon Forget"?
    Eddie: I don't know whose idea it was but it was turned down.
  • soclose wrote:
    I was going to mention that issue, then I remembered this wouldn't have much of an impact on the average iPod user!

    For those interested... Scrobbling becomes sproggling...
    http://www.last.fm/group/iSproggler
    (Scrobbles tracks played from your iPod)

    If you have no idea what this is about, I won't explain here (might take a while).
    Try here instead - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last.fm
    (or ignore this completely)
    ...London Doesn't Call Anymore... (rip joe)

    Yes, I have been to some Pearl Jam concerts. Several of them.
  • JwmccJwmcc Posts: 451
    Does any of this playlist advice work with Zune's as well? (see technical section) :o
  • demetriosdemetrios Posts: 92,505
    My bro got the 40 gig Ipod Video months back. When I used it for a few day's straight, I wouldn't even add music on it. I would just encode all these fan made Pearl Jam DVD's to .mp4 and upload 40 gig's worth to the Ipod. It was sweet. :)

    My Zen 30 gig is for the on-the-go music playing. :P
  • dr teethdr teeth Posts: 115
    vedhead011 wrote:
    This article raises some very valid points for people who love music.

    The article said that MOST people can't tell the difference above 224 kbps. Who are the people that can't tell the difference, and how did I find out if I'm one of them?

    It also says that the AAC file is a slightly higher quality than its mp3 counterpart. When you are exporting a cd into iTunes, do you get a choice what type of file and what rate you are exporting to? It seems clear, judging only from the article, that in this flawed system a 256 kbps AAC file will be the best sounding coming out of your iTunes and/or iPod.

    you do have an option.it's under the preference section.go to the advanced section.
    jeter drinks wine coolers
  • itsevobabyitsevobaby Posts: 1,809
    i put it all under 'artist' pearl jam but separate it using the 'composer' field by having pearl jam (studio) & pearl jam (live). works well.
    Look Alive,
    See These Bones
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