Sorry in advance for the long post. This pertains to the Playlist Writer & Run External DSPs, and iTunes, so don't be bothered if you aren't interested in those. :yawn:


The past few days, I've been working to resolve a long-standing annoyance with using dBp + iTunes. It occurred to me that others may have already tried to address this same issue, and that it would make sense to see if anyone has found a good solution before I continue with my obsessive experimentation.

The Situation:
- You prefer to rip music in dBpoweramp.
- You prefer to use your own naming and organizational scheme for your music library. (One of the reasons you use dBp.)
- You use iTunes.

The Problem:
- iTunes doesn't automatically add the newly-ripped new music to its library.
- You have to manually add new folders to the library from within iTunes. Tedious, and prone to error if you happen to forget a folder now & then.

Solution?
- Configure dBp to use such DSP options as Playlist Writer and/or Run External to automate the whole "rip + add to iTunes" process.


I've tried a number of solutions, but none are really satisfactory yet. The two main approaches:
  • m3u playlist. iTunes used to automatically add the songs in an m3u playlist, so I was hoping I could rip the music to my desired location, and use Playlist Writer to put an m3u file in the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder. Then the next time iTunes was opened, it'd read the playlist and add the referenced files. But apparently, iTunes doesn't support m3u anymore, so it just puts the playlist in the "Not Added" subfolder. I tried the other options in Playlist Writer, but iTunes just won't seem to add the playlist music.

    So if anyone knows how to force iTunes to add the music within a playlist, I'll keep trying this approach. If I can get it to work, it seems like the most efficient solution, since it specifies the songs to be added and avoids unnecessary searching or broader update processes.

  • Various iTunes updater scripts. There are a variety of online utilities for forcing iTunes library updates, some of which are very handy little programs. I've been trying to configure the Run External DSP such that I can rip the CD, then invoke the external program to add the selected files to the iTunes library. "Selected" files is the glitch. I don't get why, but Run External doesn't allow dynamic elements in the command line parameters if you call the external program after the batch is run. This is very limiting, since you can't specify the new music location. Statically naming the whole library works....it does find and add the new music...but it's really inefficient and takes a long time to update a large library. I don't want to do that after every CD rip.


So...if anyone else has explored this problem or has any suggestions, any feedback is very welcome. :smile2: