Is there such a thing as 'too much' album art?

[Mintyyf]

I was once that awful person who just dragged and dropped music into my itunes and would have those awkwardly named tracks like 'AzWqojkNUA3' (I still have no idea what track that is, its an instrumental and I got it back in like 2013.. I really hate past lazy me sometimes*sigh). That also meant the duplicates in the downloads folder, and all that other fun awkward stuff.

 

Recently I've gotten a bit more obsessive about the whole thing and renamed tracks, artists, albums and year and made a point to add album artwork. Removed duplicates, consolidated my library, learned the importance of backing up on to a harddrive more often that not. So I'm slowly working my way down my list and even making a point to add genre's and put them into playlists. It's really long and tedious, but weirdly a great way to relax in between studying.

 

I think it may just be the recently born perfectionist in me but I can't seem to let the little things slide. Like it not having the appropriate art or an album. But I've been collecting music for years and it comes from various sources, from tv shows, to movies, or opera I like, or random remixes off soundcloud etc. The problem really comes with lesser known or newer artists. Having albums from Blue Oyster Cult or something isn't that problematic because of their actual album releases with a set tracklisting so everything is pretty and organized. But when it comes to artists like The Chainsmokers, everything is released as a single. Now I get that I could put all of their singles into a single album and just add a cover, but honestly compared to looking at the Tommy James & The Shondells - Crimson & Clover cover.. The individual artwork for some more recent tracks is really quite stunning with some artists who are only releasing singles in more recent years. Having it showing as a single also allows me to add year (which is really just because certain years are associated with particular phases or memories in my life, easier grouping for playlists =p).

 

Now I've made a point to empty out the cache every so often, and my laptops been pretty good and not going to slow when it comes to loading them. But I'm just wondering, is there a point when its just too much? Or may cause me issues in the future? So far its been saving all the artwork into the metadata so its all convenient in that sense. I've made my way up from Z to T (I got frustrated with A and Z seemed easier to tame, but with over 10,000 tracks, I don't think I'm allowed to even use the word tame)... And it just now occurred to me to check if would be problematic later. =/

 

I like to think that I can fully take advantage of technological advances but alas with those advances there always seems to problems as well. Any input would be appreciated..

 

Hope you all have a great day!

[kirkmc]

iTunes is pretty good about loading album artwork. It pulls the artwork from the files, then puts it in a cache folder. It seems to cache artwork in RAM when you scroll or view, say, a playlist with lots of different artwork. I've never had any problems with iTunes responsiveness that I could trace to artwork. I do delete the Cache folder from time to time, because I shift music in and out of my library fairly often.

 

But I, too, want the artwork for everything. It's how I identify music; I still have a visual approach to my library.

[Mintyyf]

I actually first stumbled across your blog due to a congested cache folder problem. It was also the eye opener for so many other things that were possible on itunes. (Just wanted to say thanks for that.. =])

 

I think I recall reading this on your blog sometime back but I don't think I quite understood. In a situation where you were to add all your own music into itunes, rather than downloading it from the store and used the 'Get Album Artwork' on itunes it would be saved in the same folder under Downloaded right?

 

I'm not quite sure if I understood this correctly, so feel free to correct me here. Would getting artwork through Itunes means it wouldn't be embedded into the metadata, but rather be saved just in the download's folder? And I think adding it manually would actually embed it (assuming your library is consolidated and all that fun stuff). Because I couldn't really understand the function of the download folder in the album art folder unless that was how it worked. But as you mentioned you move tracks in and out of your library often, wouldn't that mean it would lose the artwork every time.

[kirkmc]

I'm not quite sure if I understood this correctly, so feel free to correct me here. Would getting artwork through Itunes means it wouldn't be embedded into the metadata, but rather be saved just in the download's folder? And I think adding it manually would actually embed it (assuming your library is consolidated and all that fun stuff). Because I couldn't really understand the function of the download folder in the album art folder unless that was how it worked. But as you mentioned you move tracks in and out of your library often, wouldn't that mean it would lose the artwork every time.

 

Yes, that's correct. If you download artwork from the iTunes Store, then it isn't embedded in the files. Unless you use this AppleScript, which I do:

 

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=embedart

 

You can also copy the artwork from one track, then select all the tracks, Command-I, and paste it, to embed it. But the script is quicker.

[Mintyyf]

I'm on windows so I wouldn't be able to use those scripts. Mind you I hated some of the art iTunes actually got, either because of quality or inaccuracy. Is there a way to tell which ones were done by itunes aside from looking at that folder? I don't mind doing it manually, but it would be nice to know which ones I did and didn't do.

 

Also I'm aware the image size minimally should be 500x500 but what if you use a larger image. Does that mean the song file would be that much bigger or does it default to the 500x500 square?

[Mintyyf]

I think just my mental OCDness may have led me to solutions but I'd just like to know if I'm on the right path here.

 

Option 1. Deleting the download folder in album art *should* remove all the album art that isn't embedded and I could go back an manually do track by track.

 

Option 2. I found scripts for windows users that is used to embed. This solution probably makes more sense seeing as it would be far less work, I just want to make sure this means that if I didn't like the itunes version that was embedded through the script I would be able to just go to the info, delete it from there and manually add whatever I wanted. And that should technically embed whichever image I choose. And also to confirm that the script work could I cut the download folder, to another location temporarily just to check that it worked. And if not, repaste it?

 

I'm starting to miss the days where this didn't matter to me. I don't know if I'm thinking far to hard about my itunes library.. But I think its one of those things when you're done is like a good feeling and almost like a relief or some huge accomplishment.. =p

[kirkmc]

Right, removing the artwork removes all of it, embedded or not. I use 600x600 graphics myself; that's the size that the iTunes Store uses.

 

You can move the download folder temporarily to try and see what happens. But quit iTunes and relaunch it after you do so.