TMO Quick Tip - Fixing Compilation and Gapless Settings in iTunes 7

by , 7:30 AM EDT, September 13th, 2006 - Digg This

iTunes 7 is the sleek, new version of iTunes that Apple released on Tuesday. For the most part, it looks like a nice upgrade to the already powerful music and video management application, but it doesn't seem to be correctly tagging some albums as compilations or as albums that should play each track without a gap when updating your iTunes 6 library.

For this example, I'll use the sound track from High Fidelity. In iTunes 6, it properly displayed as an album. In iTunes 7, each track appears as its own unique album.

iTunes 7 doesn't catch many compilation albums.

• Start by finding the album you want to modify. I like using iTunes' browser. You can open it by choosing View > Show Browser.
• If you are using the iTunes browser, albums appear in the right hand column. You can trim down your album list by selecting a genre from the left column, and an artist from the center column.
• Once you select the album you want to modify, choose File > Get Info, or use the Command-I keyboard shortcut.
• When you select more than one song to edit - in this case by selecting an entire album - iTunes checks to see if you really want to edit the settings for multiple tracks. Click the Yes button to dismiss the dialog window that says Are you sure you want to edit information for multiple items?

iTunes confirms that you want to edit an album instead of individual tracks.

• If you are tagging an album as a compilation, choose Yes from the Compilation pop-up menu. If you need to tag an album as gapless, choose Yes from the Gapless Album pop-up menu.

Tagging an album as a compilation...

... and another as gapless.

• Click OK.

iTunes will update the tracks in your selected album so they appear and play correctly. Now the songs in the High Fidelity sound track all appear together, just as they should.

The same album, but correctly tagged.

Terminology check: What's a gapless album? A gapless album is one where each track plays back to back without any break between songs. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is a perfect example of a gapless album.

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