How to move your iTunes media onto a new hard disk

I run iTunes on Mac OS. I'm at the latest version (8.2 at the time of writing).

I have filled a hard disk with 11,000 tracks, many videos, podcasts subscriptions, and applications. I like to keep a separate hard disk for all my iTunes use, distinct from the main drive. This drive contains the audio, video, and the iTunes database files.

Having filled up my media disk, it was time upgrade to a larger disk in the same machine. It's not too hard if you let iTunes manage your music manually, just follow this HOWTO.

However, I like to manage my files manually. I have a directory structure for files which separates them according to use (I use my media with programs other than iTunes, but you need iTunes to sync with iPods). iTunes permits, but doesn't like this.

Moving the iTunes media onto a new disk is hard because:

• iTunes does not cope well with its database files being moved
  
• I sync with a number of iPods and an iPhone. Don't want to lose sync with those devices.
  
• The iTunes database file is a closed binary format, and not easy to edit.

(On the mac, at least) iTunes is clever enough to track file movements on the same disk. You can rearrange your media files, and iTunes won't get confused. This is true for HFS+ at least (perhaps iTunes is tracking files by ID rather than filename, I never worried how it works). However, iTunes cannot cope with files moved between disks, which makes migrating your iTunes database somewhat complex.

There are a number of good HOWTOs on the net for this kind of thing (see the references at the end), but they all didn't quite describe what I wanted to do exactly.

So here's my HOWTO. If you know any better versions of these steps, let me know.

Prerequisites:

1. You have installed the new drive, and formatted it, etc.
   
2. You can see new drive at same time as old drive.

Steps...

1. Quit iTunes. Best not to have it updating the database or downloading podcasts whilst you're working on it!
   
2. Copy entire contents of old media disk to new one, including all your media and the "iTunes" directory full of database files, application downloads, podcasts, etc.
   
3. For safety's sake, I renamed the "iTunes" folder on the old disk to try to prevent iTunes from using it again and confusing matters. Based on iTunes cleverness, it might have spotted the rename magically - perhaps it would have been better to archive the old "iTunes" directory and delete the original?
   
4. Go to new media drive. Look in iTunes directory. Open the "iTunes Library" file - it's iTunes's binary-format database. Open it with a text editor, select everything in it, and delete it all. Save the file. Ensure it has size zero.
   
5. Open the "iTunes Library.xml" file in the same directory in a text editor (this is a XML human-readable version of most of the data in the database). Do a global search and replace for all "/Volumes/OldMediaDriveName" to "/Volumes/NewMediaDriveName" (changing those names appropriately, obviously).
   
6. Start iTunes with the Option (alt) key held down. It asks for you to provide the location of a new iTunes data file. Select the new drive's iTunes directory.
   
7. Get ready for a long wait. iTunes will now rebuild it's binary database from the XML file. For a large database this takes a VEEEEERY long time. I was waiting for over 30 minutes (on a PPC Dual G4, to be fair). Answer nagging questions as required. Trashing the iTunes database loses a lot of important, but non-essential information like album art associations, window setup, etc. iTunes will spend a while churning through all your albums trying to download cover art, work out volume normalisation, etc.
   
8. Sort out the applications you have downloaded. Look under "Applications" in iTunes' source list and you'll see that iTunes hasn't picked and of them up. Drag all the "*.ipa" files from your "iTunes/iPod Games" and "iTunes/Mobile Applications" directories into the Applications view. They'll magically appear. Purchased applications will copy over fine.
   
9. Sort out your podcast subscriptions. Sadly, they've been lost, too. Despite some tutorials descriptions, I can't easily find a way resubscribe. You'll have imported a load of podcast mp3 files which have genre "Podcast" - you can see them in your library with a simple search. The corresponding podcast subscriptions have been lost. You can therefore see the podcasts you were subscribed to; their feed URLs is available in the "Get Info" iTunes dialogue box for each file. You'll have to resubscribe manually.
   

That's it. We're all done. You can now sync your iPods fine. Sync settings are NOT lost, thankfully.

References

• Apple document: how to move your iTunes Music folder. This doesn't move the iTunes database, as far as I can see. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
  
• HiFi's blog: http://hifiblog.com/past/2006/05/11/howto-move-your-itunes-music-while-preserving-library-data-when-you-dont-let-itunes-manage-your-music-library/ http://hifiblog.com/past/2006/05/11/howto-move-your-itunes-music-while-preserving-library-data-when-you-dont-let-itunes-manage-your-music-library/. This is PC-centric, and the closest guide yet. But it's not entirely accurate (iPod applications aren't covered, and it hints that you can copy podcast mp3 files into the podcast "source" which isn't possible - on the Mac, at least).
  
• Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/238296/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-external-drive Requires you to consolidate your library and lose your directory structure.

Tech toys: Synergy

I have four machines on the desk in front of me, each in active daily use. The upshot? A tangle of keyboards and mice on the work surface, and no space for my arms.

But I found the solution. Perhaps I'm a bit late to join the party, but it's here: Synergy.

Synergy is a wonderful application that shares one keyboard and mouse between many machines. It's as if you were using a multi-head display. But with many bodies, too. Synergy is relatively easy to install, although by default requires a little text file configuration. Nothing frightening for a techie, but a casual user might need a deep breath and a good run up.

Performance is really good (it does slow down when one machine is heavily CPU loaded or performs a lot of network access, but this is relatively rare). The application works on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. I run the server on Linux, with two mac clients and a Windows client. The code hasn't been updated in about two years, but it seems every bit as good as it must have been two years ago!

And now? I have one keyboard. One mouse. Lots of free desk space. And deep joy.

Postscript

There are several Mac OS GUI front ends that might be useful floating around the ether. I've not used any of them, so the many or many not be any good...

SynergyOSX

SynergyKM

QuickSynergy

Toys: Alesis MasterControl

My new toy arrived a few days ago: an Alesis MasterControl. This is little baby is a FireWire control surface and audio interface for controlling your DAW. My weapon of choice is an old friend, Cubase. So far, the pair are getting on really well together.

It's taken a while for Alesis to release the MasterControl, but from my initial experiments it's been worth the wait. It's a well built unit and very capable. It's not bad looking either. Very good value for money.

You get 8 channel strips each with a touch-sensitive motorised fader, continuous pot and select/record arm/solo/mute buttons as well as a motorised main mix fader. You get dedicated transport control buttons and a jog/shuttle wheel with cursor keys and zoom/scrub buttons, plus a bunch of assignable buttons for skipping around your project and setting markers, etc. You get 2 XLR inputs with preamps, phantom power, and inserts, plus another 6 line inputs. There's MIDI and digital input, too. There are three stereo outs, two headphone mixes, a talkback facility and more.

First impressions with Cubase were good. I inserted the channel strips for my software, installed the drivers, pointed Cubase at the MasterControl and everything just worked. Manual schmanual. Touching a fader selects a channel, which is a neat little trick. The user experience is very smooth. If it was a dedicated Cubase controller some of the button layout could be better, but since this drives many software packages I can understand the compromises made.

There are things it doesn't do - the LCD screen is small compared to, say, a Mackie Control. But compare the prices. Indeed, compared to all the other alternatives from the likes of M-Audio, Yamaha, Mackie and Digidesign this is a very competitive product in terms of the feature/price point.

It's definitely been a worthwhile investment, and I'd recommend it.

Find more of my MasterControl photos here. And more info on the Alesis website here.

Safari 4 vs a Netgear router: Safari won.

It's true, I am am a technical magpie. I can't help but gather shiny new things. To put on my shiny MacBook Pro, Apple recently released a shiny new version of Safari.

Well, Safari 4 is technically a beta, but it's shiny and new so I just had to download and install it. Must... click... install...

Most people seem to think Safari 4 is marvelous, when they're not arguing over the position of the tabs (tabs in the title bar, that's heresy!). And indeed, it is. It's quite fast, and the new pretty shiny things it provides are both pretty and shiny. If idiots can't find where they've hidden the "stop" and "reload" buttons, then it serves them right. All good stuff.

Almost.

Sadly, Safari 4 has lead to a networking fiasco chez Goodliffe. After a few minutes of Safari use, my laptop now stops accessing the internet. Well, at least it fails to complete any http or rtsp traffic. Pinging IP addresses works OK, and my VPN connection can be started and stopped (the VPN connection uses a fixed IP address). DNS lookups also fail. Traceroutes work.

It's taken me ages to track down the problem. I discovered that my trusty Netgear FWG114P wireless router is a feature-packed network device that can insulate me from networking problems. Including denial of service attacks perpetrated by Safari on my laptop... Safari 4's speedy page fetching provokes the router into thinking it's a hacker's SYN flood. The computer is ceremonially booted from the network for a while as penance.

The solution, if you suffer this problem, is to go to the Rules page on the router's web-based admin interface, and disable Block TCP flood and Block UDP flood. Then hope that this is something Apple will fix, and you'll remember to switch the features back on next time.

That's a short description of a problem that's taken me ages to track down and sort out.

Apples, eh? They Just Work.

Be still, my beating heart.

There's NAMM so blind as those that cannot see. But at least we have the guide dog that is the web to let us see what the NAMM is going on.

The Winter NAMM show, the major annual audio industry trade event has just kicked off. It's a popular time for all the MI companies to announce their latest wares. My company is exhibiting there, and I'm sure everyone loves our shiney new stuff. But I'm more interested in some of the other things I've seen announced...

It's a Keytar, Baby!

First up - and I think my heart has missed several beats - Roland have announced a new keytar, the AX Synth. They stopped making the AX-7 "shoulder mounted keyboard" eons ago, and these instruments have since entered keyboard geek folklore. Keytars are so bad they're good, and I love looking like a muppet playing one live. Now Roland have created a new one. And it looks pretty good. Well, visually it actually looks pretty darn awful, but that's par for the course. I want one. I'd settle for two.

Cubase 5

In other news, I've been waiting to see what Steinberg have been cooking. A new Cubase version has been in the pipeline for some time. It's quite suprising what they've done in this release; a lot of unexpected features have been integrated.

They've pulled in Yamaha's pitch correction software and integrated it into the audio editor. That's novel. Sadly, it won't sound as nice as Melodyne, but it's a fairly impressive thing to find in a DAW. They've also added a cut down version of Groove Agent (in the same vein as the cut down Halion in Cubase 4). Novel. Both of those are annoying extras, as I already bought Groove Agent and Melodyne. The external plugins will still, unoubtedly be better than Cubase's native code. But tight integration is cute and handy. And not having to muck around with Melodyne plugin's data files would be pleasant.

They've not particularly spruced up the rather functional-looking project window (which I'd've imagined would have been on their list), although various popup windows have had a chintzy spring clean. So it's even more of the standard Cubase random not-quite matching visual interface, then.

There's loads of other changes in Cubase 5. They've definitely upped the ante for what a DAW provides. It does look interesting, but I'm not sure I actually need to fork out any money to upgrade. But I might; it's annoying to not be on the cutting edge any more.

Melodyne

And of course, there's more tantalising news of the new Melodyne with it's awesome DNA sorcery. They've now called the first release Melodyne Editor. It's still annoyingly "not quite" out.


So what do I spend my bucks on?

Food for the kids would probably be the best option...

(Another) MacBook Pro hard drive upgrade (17" model)

In October I performed surgery on my 15" MacBook Pro, to upgrade the hard drive. Today I've been repeating the performance, but on a 17" MacBook Pro.

A few observations on the different models:

• Upgrading the 17" model was easier. (Partly because I've done it once before, and partly because it's generally a more accessible machine.)
• The screw patterns are identical. However, the Phillips screws inside the battery cover are far more accessible than on the 15" model; they're angled so you can get a screwdriver to them without contorting your hand.
  
• The lid seems to crack off of a 17" model with greater ease - less fiddly plastic interlocking.
• There's more use of sticky tape inside a 17" machine!
  
• The nubs that hold the drive in the laptop chassis are different on the 17", asymmetrical in design. I wonder why the two models differ like this?
  

A MacBook Pro hard drive upgrade

I have just upgraded my 15" Macbook Pro with a larger hard drive. The machine was shipped with a 120G hard drive when I bought it. Times move on, and data accumulates. Cubase projects and Parallels virtual machines quickly fill up precious space.

Hard drives are not a user-upgradable component of these notebook models, but there are plenty of descriptions of how to disassemble a MacBook Pro available on the net. To their credit, MacBook Pros are relatively easy to pull apart and very well-made machines. Still not as serviceable as an IBM (or Lenovo, or whatever they're called these days), but not bad at all.

The upgrade is perfectly simple for anyone with technical competence, a little bravery, and a torx size 6 screwdriver.

The drive

I installed a 320G Western Digital Scorpio drive, which seems a very good choice. It's a high-performance 7200RPM drive. WD claim that it consumes a comparable amount of power as an equivalent 5400RPM drive - a claim I can't validate this yet, except to say that battery life doesn't seem significantly shorter than with the previous drive.

A jump from 5400 to 7200RPM is great. The result is a snappier machine which handles better when running many tracks at once in Cubase. Software build speeds are marginally faster. The machine boots more quickly, too, but I tend to reboot infrequently anyway.

Running XBench tests before and after give compelling results:

• Sequential uncached writes increase from 18.3MB/sec to 55.5MB/sec
• Sequential uncached reads increase from 9.1MB/sec to 19.7MB/sec
• Random uncached writes increase from 9.8MB/sec to 31.7MB/sec
• Random uncached reads increase from 8.2MB/sec to 24.93MB/sec
  

Installation

The only interesting part of the process was working out how to migrate my old data onto the new drive.

Previously, I've performed a Leopard install with the old drive attached over USB; the Mac OS installer magically notices the old drive and offers to migrate the data over. I tried this. but it didn't go as planned - not all the data migrated over (a whole load of components and programs didn't move across) and the installer still forced me to register and add a new user, despite there being a number of users that had just migrated over. Less than full marks, then. I wonder whether this was due to the Leopard version on the old disk being ahead of the install DVD version?

There are suggestions that a Time Machine backup is a good migration strategy. But I fear that this will fail in pretty much the same way.

The solution is simple, though:

• Boot the machine from the Leopard install disk.
• Select Disk Utility from the Tools menu.
• Partition the new drive with a suitable partition table to boot an Intel machine. Create a single journalled HFS+ partition.
  
• Click on the "Restore" tab and restore data from the old drive (make the old drive the Source) onto the new drive (make the new drive the Destination).
• Ensure that Erase desination checkbox is selected.
  
• Click on OK.
• The old data is copied onto the new drive's parition.
• You now have a carbon copy of yor old drive, covering the entire surface of the new drive.
  

Toys: Canon Powershot G9

It was time for a new digital camera, and despite my long-held preference for SLRs, I still do not have the time or the money to plough into the digital SLR world. So I went shopping for the most suitable (that is, the best in my humble opinion) digital compact camera.

I ended up with the Canon Powershot G9. This is the top-end Canon compact camera; effectively one of their SLRs rolled into a compact (it has their top-spec DIGIC III processor). I went with Canon, as they are a name I trust for reliability, quality of optics, and usability of the interface. I haven't been disappointed.

It's a 12.1 megapixel beast (in RAW mode, it burns through SD cards like you wouldn't believe). The large 3 inch LCD screen is really high quality. It has RAW imagine capture. The 6x optical zoom (effective focal 35-210mm) is very good, although my previous (physically larger) camera had 10x optical. Goodness knows how many times digital zoom it offers; I never go near that. The optical image stabilisation appears sound. The camera sports all manner of cunning shooting modes but, most importantly, offers full manual operation, which is what I really want at my disposal.

I've used the G9 for a few months now, and have been very impressed by it. It was a great purchase. It has taken a number of awesome shots, and has proven to be quick. intuitive and easy to use. I took it to Uganda with me and it coped with the handling, dust, and general conditions fine.

The G9 feels good in the hand, it's not too large and the weight is not too great (at 320g is heavier than some compacts). I rather like the pleasing retro styling, but it won't be to everyone's taste.

The problems I've so far encountered:

• Frustratingly, the ink quickly rubbed off the central FUNC button, but that's a minor (if embarrassing) inconvenience.
• The front optics wobble slightly. I presume it's OK, as the camera functions fine. It's got no worse, but doesn't feel very good.
• The Canon PC/Mac software is dire. I run the camera with iPhoto on my mac, which is great. But the Canon-supplied utilities look embarrassingly naff, with a very dated UI. The photo-stitch application really isn't all that clever at all. It makes no attempt to colour-match the photo seams and makes stitches really rather obvious.

I paid £270 for this machine (it was on offer, normally retailing at £300).

Overall: I'd highly recommended the camera if you want a high-quality, high-feature compact.

Respect the Keytar!

This is a post that will satisfy synth geeks and very few others.

I recently bought a keytar, a Yamaha SHS-200 to be precise. It was a wonderful eBay purchase - bought for a song (pun intended) and in absolutely mint condition.

I really bought it for a laugh, but last Sunday at C3 we had a bassist crisis (they were all either playing guitar, busy, studying, dead, or something) and so we needed someone (a keyboardist) to fill in for our lack of bassists. Hang on, I've got just the right implement for that job... enter the keytar!

So there I was, on stage, playing an 80s retro throwback instrument. Genius! Despite my lurking doubts, the whole thing went really well. I was able to play some great bass parts, and doing so on the keytar was ace - I had room to move around, and wasn't constrained by being behind a large keyboard (which just doesn't make sense when you're trying to play bass parts). I normally move around quite a bit when playing keys, but there's a limit to how far you can move without a keytar.

The proof of the playability was in our opening song (Salvation is Here). It has a bass solo in the middle of it (check it out 2:20 in that video), which the keytar handled excellently. Much more fun to play than on my normal RD-700sx.

The Yamaha keytars are a bit limited compared the their obvious Roland counterparts, and it took a little getting used to. The keys are mini-sized things, and so are a bit fiddly to play, but once you're used to them you can play long bass runs without moving your hand too much. Useful.

The Yamaha beasts are not touch sensitive, which looked like it was going to be a real limitation. However, it turned out not to matter that much at all; in the majority of the songs you wouldn't have noticed anyway. This was only really a problem in quiet parts, when I had to modify what I'd play slightly. It did require some handling care, though: being small, light keys, it's also very easy to hit notes by mistake, or with your palm.

I only used the device as a MIDI master, and run the sounds from my normal rig. This is a serious retro instrument, and 80s FM bass honks would not have been appropriate!

All in all, it was great fun to play the thing live.

Keytars are going through a bit of a revival right now. I don't know why. Let's be honest, they're wrong in almost all important respects. They look silly. Any they make people squint at you like you're a lunatic. Using a keytar is just another way of asking for ridicule. But playing one is a very dirty kind of pleasure.

For those dull enough to care, more interesting keytar porn can be found here and here.

DisplayLink video adaptor on the Mac

At the ACCU conference this year I was lucky enough to pick up a DisplayLink USB video adaptor (the beast is pictured here). This was particularly interesting as the guys at DisplayLink have just released a beta Mac driver for their products, and these days I'm a big Mac weenie.

For some time I (and the rest of the world) have been impressed at the technology they've produced; you can get DisplayLink technology wrapped up in everything from a laptop docking station to a USB monitor itself. And - up till now - it's worked on PCs very well indeed. There's clearly some clever stuff going on under the hood.

But how well does it work on the Mac?

The answer is: pretty darn well. Considering this is a beta driver, it's a fairly polished beast. The install went very smoothly (although, unfortunately, this is one of those few installs that requires a MacOS reboot). The Mac has always coped gracefully with multiple monitors, and the DisplayLink adaptor appears like any other USB monitor - plug the device in and MacOS detects another display. It just works!

I have had no stability issues with the driver, it works over all colour depths and screen sizes, and it's a really useful extension to have. My MacBook pro now has three displays: the LCD screen, the VGA output, and the DisplayLink card.

There are downsides...

• The driver doesn't work on PPC machines, which is understandable, but a bit of a shame.
  
• And it's not particularly well accelerated at the moment (there's no 2D or 3D acceleration). Dragging windows has noticeable tearing and video playback on the USB screen is somewhat shaky. But it's perfectly usable given those constraints. Naturally, DisplayLink will be working on the acceleration (it requires some close work with Apple to get at the relevant MacOS crown jewels and so, knowing what it's like trying to get info out of Apple, this could take a while to appear).

If you have a mac and want more screen real estate, I'd heartily recommend a DisplayLink device. The technology is very exiting, and the ability to add an arbitrary number of monitors to one machine is very compelling.

I can't help but be excited about what the future holds for DisplayLink products. They have some very clever guys working there, and will most certainly be looking far out into the future to work out what they can do with the technology. I can't wait to see a wireless USB monitor, for example - imagine placing your laptop on a desk, switching it on, and your three monitors wake up and appear as extra displays with no plugging or button pushes required.

It can't be far off...