Sonos + NAS + iTunes = Trouble

Sonos users who store their music on a NAS drive may be falling foul of an iTunes glitch.

This is what can happen. You point your Sonos Controller to the iTunes music library on your NAS and you do the same with iTunes. At the outset all may be neat and tidy but after a while things change, let's suppose you face a problem of some duplicate tracks.

How do you fix this? Naturally you'd go into iTunes and highlight the tracks in question, then delete them. When you do this everything will look neat and tidy, with just a single copy of the track / album. When you play music, the deleted tracks don't play, just as you'd expect.

Then you log into your music via Sonos, when you find that much to your surprise the duplicated tracks are still in your music library. How did this happen? Well, I recently found that the way iTunes operates in handling drives such as a NAS, is that in effect although the files leave the iTunes database the files remain on the NAS drive. My understanding is this applies only to files stored on a NAS (rather than an internal hard drive, or a directly connected USB drive).

How can you get round this. First, you should check to see if music you delete from iTunes does actually leave the NAS. I've only tried this on a couple of makes of NAS and so can't confirm it happens on all systems. If your music is being left behind by iTunes I think you have three options. One is to manually go through your folders on the NAS and manually delete the files that are duplicated. Second is to copy all your music off the NAS onto another (internal or directly connected HD), run iTunes against it, then copy your files back onto the NAS - but for a large library will take a long time using this method.

The third option is to use some software that recognises this and has a feature that directly deleted the tracks on the NAS you want to erase. The program is called Dupin and its available from Doug's Applescripts. You'll need to look at the options for deleting tracks and select the route for direct deletion without going via the trash can.

Mighty Red Face Here at NAS Central

One of the reasons I give to people for outsourcing their work, for example getting us to rip their CDs rather than do it themselves, is that we make the mistakes first - so you don't have to. Indeed I may well have said that to the client who has asked us to spread the musical love across his three properties, each of which has a NAS drive. His simple requirement is for a copy of his music to be placed onto a hard drive, then copied across to other drives, which will be installed inside the NAS box in each location.

We've had some problems with this. Initially we'd been given some Seagate drives to use but after much trial and far too many errors we established that the drives, whilst OK to use inside a PC or a free-standing USB enclosure, simply weren't up to the task of running trouble-free in the NAS enclosures he's bought. After much toing-and-froing we now have a collection of Western Digital Red drives, tailor made for a NAS. Very good they are too. We're in the process of copying 1.5 TB data from one of our PCs across the LAN to the NAS.

On Saturday evening I was talking to a friend who manages a major international network for a financial services company. We talked about what I was doing and I mentioned this project, which for us is rather unusual, for him rather routine. I told him how long each transfer is taking and ran through a list of the kit we're using - mainly variations on gigabit ethernet. He thought for a few moments then said it shouldn't be taking anywhere near as long as that. Doing some mental arithmetic out loud he thought it should take around half the time the first transfer had taken.

Why?

"Have you got your wires crossed?" he asked. I didn't think that possible but first thing this morning, before we started on disc 2, I was checking cables and connections. The router plugs were all present and correct as were the plugs into the NAS and the PC into which the USB hard drive with the source files was plugged. I even made sure that USB 3 interface was functioning OK, which it was. The only thing left to check was the quality of the cables. All looked fine and blue, no sign of mousey rodent attention, and the two key cables ran neatly under a mat. Two one side, two coming out the other. For some reason I thought it best to lift the mat and see what was underneath. To my amazement the wires were (physically) crossed, and the effect of the odd footfall on the mat was that at the crossover point the cables were compressed. I took a close look and they both looked fine and undamaged but when I put them and the mat back I made sure neither ran over the other.

When I started the data transfer I didn't think it would make any difference, but something has punched the go-faster button. Just as my friend predicted, data transfer seems to be running twice as fast as it did first time across. So if you have any data wires running anywhere in your home or office, just check that transfer rates aren't being artificially choked by a crossed line or two.

Sonos - Major Upgrade

Sonos have just announced a major update to the features of their product line - you no longer need the bridge unit to connect their mesh into your home network. Yippee. Why is that of any consequence?

First, it saves you money. You were being forced to buy a box that did next to nothing for you. As the name implied it was simply the bridge from your home data network into Sonos and their proprietary mesh network. Second, it's yet another box, something else to go wrong, another set of wires, another thingy to dust.

Mainly its another element of complexity removed from the equation. Over the last few years I've become a frequent visitor at several London houses where the owners had "lost" their Sonos system thanks to the bridge failing. It's never been a hardware failure and usually remedied in a few minutes but it's a weak link that all too often fails.

Restoring the link is counter-intuitive. You have to make the link work and then crawl around the house bringing each bit into play. We've got the hang of it but it took a while to realise what the game was. Maybe this was all OK when Sonos was a product sold by premium suppliers whose hand maidens of audio technology would lovingly massage their boxes into life - for a fee - but today Sonos are pitching the same consumer market as Apple. Sonos needs to play nicely with everyone else in the home technology market, this is a big step towards that goal.

Automatically Add to iTunes?

How do you add music to your iTunes library? Well, pretty easily, we do it most days and when we complete a project we brief clients on how they can do this themselves. These days most of our digital music goes back on a small USB hard drive but the process is the same if you’re loading from a data CD or data DVD.

“Add folder to library”. It was in iTunes at the outset and in the first how-to notes we supplied with the first set of CDs we ripped some ten years ago. Reliable, proven and I don’t think we’ve edited our instruction sheet nor had anyone say it was difficult to follow.

A couple of years ago iTunes introduced a new folder which it creates along with your main iTunes music library file. It’s called Automatically Add to iTunes and there’s no escaping it. So, why? And what use is it for you? Why would you need a second way of adding music when the first works so well?

Let’s tackle the how first. Anything you put into this folder will be checked and then added to your iTunes library the next time iTunes is opened. As its a data file you can use normal tools such as drag and drop to get files across. Then just open iTunes, the rest is done for you.

More complex is the why?

In many ways its easier. You just drag and drop. If you have files from multiple sources you can scoop each group up, copy them over and away you go. If you’re restricted by the number of USB connections it is straightforward to copy several batches of files rather than plug in each unit and run through the Add folder loop.

It’s tolerant to breaks. I found this myself a couple of weeks ago when a lightning strike nearby caused our power to trip out. Not only did I need to go back to the beginning with Add folder but you’re never quite sure if the process completed properly.

You can start and stop. Not sure the files came across? Just drop the lot again and let the operating system sort out if there are any duplicates.

You don’t need to worry about file types. Just stick everything into Auto add and let iTunes sort out not just what goes where but also what should and shouldn’t be in iTunes. You can see any orphan files, they get left in the Auto add folder after you open iTunes. If you inadvertently include a Word document iTunes will leave it be.

You know the files have reached their destination. With add folder I’ve sometimes had a nagging doubt that it worked OK. Actually it had but Auto add offers a handy, comforting, open view of what has happened. I like the now you see it, now you don’t method.

Of course you don’t need to constrict yourself to music files, this method will handle movies and podcasts too. Just drop them into the magic folder and let the computer sort out the details.

I’m very tempted to revisit our advice to clients on how to load music. In fact i bounced this off a couple of friends over the weekend and got an unexpected response. Scepticism. They thought this was so simple, so foolproof, that it was almost too good to be true. Well then, go on and give it a try next time you need to add anything to iTunes,

iPod Classic - the ideal player for CD ripping

Over the years I've consistently said the iPod Classic is the device to buy for the serious music lover who wants as much music as possible at their fingertips.

Capacity is the most obvious reason, particularly if you have a large music collection and/or music ripped at a high quality level, such as Apple Lossless, then the lower capacity devices just don't enough storage space. However I've also felt, from entirely subjective listening experience, the Classic just sounds better than the Touch or even the iPhone.

Well I can believe my ears, there are differences between the Classic and other devices. The Classic has a better digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) and more effective amplifier for the earbuds. Even though the underlying music files may be the same using these two components will deliver a far better listening experience. So, if you're thinking about investing in a new iPod you might want to snap up an iPod Classic PDQ, they might just be replaced later this year by another device.

iTunes Phishing Scam

I've just checked my emails and seen that Google has placed in my Spam folder a message that appears to be an invoice from iTunes for the cost of some downloads - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire - and in a nice touch, in brackets, unabridged. Total value of my supposed purchase - $289.90. Must say I liked that little touch, the supermarket psychologist's "just under" price point.

Thankfully the ever watchful Google reports other users believe this is a phishing fraud and indeed the body of the text suggests if I query the transaction, or believe my "account" has been hijacked I may indeed be asked for financial data.

Two giveaways for me. First, I can't imagine Apple or iTunes Media Store ever allowing anything out of its grasp without pre-payment. Second, the sender's email address is a tubarao.unimedsc.com.br address.

If you get anything like this, don't respond, if you can flag it to your email host that it's definitely spam / phishing. 

Equalizer

Last Monday I took a break from CD ripping to catch up on an outstanding chore, sorting out some scanned 35mm slides. I knew at the outset it would take all day so I decided to use iTunes as the source of entertainment to stave off the mind-numbing boredom of the task.

I spent the morning listening to various podcasts and streamed internet radio stations. Although it was fun, for a while, to listen to early morning local stations in America just after lunch I turned to what the iPod / iTunes ecosystem was designed for - music. We've just finished a library of 750+ CDs for a client so I dipped into that from the NAS drive we're running just now. I was using my Mac with the Soundsticks attached, a set up I love almost as much for how it sounds as for its looks.

Let the music play. But my attention was fading, my eyes were tired and the thought of cropping a couple of hundred more scans was less and less appealing. I wandered over to the iTunes equalizer settings. The control panel appears under the Window command in the top menu level. It's worth pointing out what this doesn't do, which is to alter any of your digital music files, nothing is changed.

The equalizer intervenes between your ripped music and your speakers and it massages the sound you hear. It allows you to fine tune how your music is played so you get sound playback that's better than the bog-standard settings. At the top you'll see some pre-programmed options designed to suit jazz, rock, classical music and so on, plus others to adapt to your system such as small speakers which I think works well on a laptop. Below that there are sliders which can boost or fade sections of the sound spectrum held within your digital files. You can also create your own pre-sets if you find a particular setting that works well for your music, your hi-fi / speakers and of course your ears.

So I played and fiddled. I tried the classical setting against Exile on Main Street, then to be impish I planted Hip-Hop on Haydn. I found myself fiendishly amused, well against image editing anyway, and the time slipped by. It was a couple of hours well spent.

Just one thought. I wonder if its possible to fix an equalizer setting to an individual track or maybe a genre. It's a powerful tool, certainly one I've neglected in the past.

iPod Earbuds to BOOM?

I've been to London a couple of times this last week, once by train and then by car. A couple of things struck me.

First, as I was sitting on the underground fewer people were listening to music on large ear covering speakers. It seemed too that more people were using the white Apple earbuds. Now I think the latest version of Apple's free headset is much better than the original they still lack a lot compared to a bigger and / or more expensive alternative.

Second, the number of taxi drivers with white earbuds. Is this legal? Maybe they mostly use them as a hands free phone system but I did notice a couple of taxi drivers tapping their steering wheel as if they were listening to music. The Apple speakers are quite discrete so maybe the Police and the Public Carriage Office don't notice.

The thought I had in mind is that maybe the tide has turned against wearing anything larger that earbuds in public. OK the sound can be much better but they do make you look a little odd don't they? So I was surprised to read speculation yesterday, repeated this morning in The Times, that Apple are planning to buy Dr Dre, the company that produces the most iconic of the larger than life headsets. Maybe Apple have noticed a worldwide trend that has swept past London, maybe the good Dr Dre has something in the pipeline that Apple admires.

Maybe Dr Dre can work his magic and produce a future version of Apple's own product that sounds much better. Or could it be that Apple want to get hold of the music streaming service that apparently goes with Dr Dre? All will be revealed - or not - in a few days.

CD Ripping & UK Law

So, at last, it is to happen. In the next few days we will all be legal. Say goodbye to worries and fears.

It seems hard to believe that just over ten years ago I sat opposite the assembled legal might of the UK's recording industry and was told they'd like to put me (and a few others) out of business. In the following days I awaited stiff legal action, but it never came. CD ripping was a matter of public debate and I kept telling anyone who'd listen that as the process was now very easy, and massively convenient, the great British public would do it whatever the industry said.

Then a few months later senior figures in the industry said that while they still held to the view that CD ripping was strictly speaking a breach of copyright, they would take no action provided it was purely for personal use. So away we went, and along with millions of ordinary people we've been ripping CDs ever since. Despite their grave concerns when we met in London, I don't think anyone in the business would say the humble Apple iPod and iTunes had opened the floodgates and drowned an otherwise healthy industry.

That's how it's been, a kind of legal stalemate. A decent truce which i think has benefited us all. Well today I heard on the BBc that next week the government will introduce legislation to legalise "format shifting" providing it is for personal use. Which I think is very sensible, so well done the good and the great.

Sonos - iTunes - Out of Sorts

This afternoon I was at a client's premises looking into some problems with their network and how that was handling music streaming. The client asked me to look at an issue that was puzzling him and it concerned music on his Sonos controller, compared to his iTunes library.

He showed me his Sonos hand held controller and accessed his Bach music. Right at the top of the list were two tracks that were obviously out of order. When we crossed to the Mac with iTunes, did the same search and looked at the result. A very different result. It was a trip down memory lane for me, back to my early days in IT when as a programmer you had to keep in mind a thing called "sort order".

I've deliberately put "sort order" in quotes, but if you saw that phrase among others, sorted alphabetically, where would you expect it to be slotted? In the good old days It manufacturers took different views and looking at the Sonos display it was obvious that the Sonos view is that single quotes and double quotes should come at the top of the list, like this -

'A
"A
A
B
C and so on.

Looking in iTunes it's clear Apple have set up iTunes to ignore any distractions such as the single or double quotes. So the track title will appear in the place it would be in if it didn't have those marks. Clever, would have saved me hours and hours all those years ago.

So if you have an iTunes / Sonos environment and you're experiencing some sort oddities take a look at your track names and album titles. My client's library is huge (2,700 albums) and I found four albums and 12 tracks that started with ' or ". It only took a few minutes to edit out those unnecessary characters and now iTunes and Sonos sort in harmony. Lovely.