12:09AM
Review - TuneRanger
I have a confession. I’ve had iPods for years and own more music than I care to admit. While I did get it all ripped into iTunes a long time ago, I’ve never really been an iTunes power user. That has been changing the last few months though. Recently I’ve started making smart playlists and autosyncing lists to get more out of my music library. This is great but it has also exposed a problem. Fancy playlists depend on good metadata like how you’ve rated a song or when the was the last time you played it. Since I have portions of my library on my laptop and a big library on the family desktop (not to mention an iPod and iPhone), keeping all of this data in sync could be a real chore. This problem gets magnified when my wife and kids get involved. I like Hannah Montana as much as the next dad, but that doesn’t mean she gets to share space with Thelonius Monk and Debussy on my iPod.
While at Macworld this year I found a small company named Acertant Technologies that had a booth right behind the Apple area, that section where all of the best little developers seem to land. Anyway, I met Manny Menendez who showed me an application he developed for precisely my iTunes problems called TuneRanger.
TuneRanger connects all of your iTunes libraries. It then compares the libraries and allows you to share data between them. This doesn’t just include the music files but also all of the metadata.
When you first open TuneRanger it gives you a window that shows your local iTunes library and any other libraries on your network. It then gives you drop down lists of playlists on both libraries and gives you several options. When choosing what to sync you have a variety of filters available including duplicate files, license IDs, file types, genre, artists, album names, and song titles. You can also instruct TuneRanger to trash files marked for deletion or move them to a different folder for later review and deletion.
You can force one library upon another or synchronize them. Once you give TuneRanger its instructions it does a preliminary analysis and gives you a dialog telling you what it is going to do and offering you a chance uncheck any specific action. Once you tell it to go, TuneRanger then does the syncrhonization. This doesn’t just work with other computers in your network. It also works with your iPod. You can actually pull music off your iPod and place it in your iTunes library with TuneRanger. TuneRanger is also multiplatform so if part of your library is on a Vista or XP box, you still can synchronize. Since I’ve purged all PC’s from my home, I was unable to test this feature.
Before using TuneRanger, I treated our desktop computer as the source for all iTunes music. All music had to be ripped on that machine and all iTunes purchases had to be made on that machine. I then had to manually copy the stuff I wanted over to my laptop usually losing all metadata. TuneRanger has really liberated me of this whole process. I can now finally use the iTunes button on my iPhone or buy music on my laptop. It is no trouble to then later upload it to the desktop computer with TuneRanger. It really is that easy.
The application costs $29.99 and includes 5 single platform licenses so you will have no trouble getting it on all of the Macs in your household. There is also a free trial available at www.acertant.com. You should be warned though, since getting TuneRanger on my Mac, I’ve spent a lot more money downloading music.
Reader Comments (66)
Nice review - thanks! I saw elsewhere that Tune Ranger (1) was incompatible with iPhone, and (2) included only 4 licenses which were limited to 2 for Mac + 2 for PC. Your review suggests otherwise -- which I like! Can you please confirm that iPhone is supported and that the license is indeed 5 per platform (which I interpret as 5 Macs OR 5 PCs). Thanks again, this is the most useful review of Tune Ranger I have found -- much appreciated.
Hi Donovan,
The answer is that both licenses exist. When you buy at www.acertant.com you get a "5 for 1 platform" license for $29.99. When you buy through our retail distributor (Smith-Micro) or any of their resellers (Apple Stores, Amazon, Buy.com etc.) you get a 2+2 license and a nice box for the same price. In the next month or so we hope to offer more license combinations from our website in order to meet the needs of more users.
Unfortunately, the iPhone and iPod Touch are not supported at this time. We depend on an iPod feature called "Enable Disk Use" to gain access to the files on the iPod. Unfortunately Apple does not offer this feature in these devices. We are currently looking at the iPhone SDK as a way around this.
Just purchased Tuneranger (smithmicro version) and we are syncing our itunes libraries on 4 macs. I'm not quite as pleased with the problem as I had hoped. Instructing it to say, just sync or copy one playlist with the songs in the playlist is not very straightforward. I'd also like to be able to just copy empty playlists from one machine to another...is there a way to do that? Unchecking all the music entries doesn't seem to do anything, or do you need to uncheck completely the library, and then just check the playlists you want? Again, what if you want playlists without the songs in 'em. This software is a great idea, but it seems a little unpolished. I hope there are updates coming soon, as we need this type to software to manage the itunes between our 4 macs! Cheers, Don in Chicagoland
Thanks Manny, the clarifications are most appreciated.
Don, thank you for the additional insight. How easy is it to use your consolidated libraries after TuneRanger works its magic? Are there any unexpected hurdles?
Gents,
I wish it was more straightforward. We got our largest library (several thousand songs) to finally copy to a machine that did not contain most of them. Once we had both machines on ethernet instead of wifi (airport extreme N with N laptops) it went well, taking a couple of hours. However, when I want to send, say the Sinatra playlist to a computer that does not have either the playlist or the songs, I find it confusing. If you just choose the playlist on the sending machine, you either have to create a new playlist on the receiving machine, or the songs will just go to the receiving computer's library. What I want is an easy, intuitive way to just copy a playlist, including it's name and songs contained therein, to a different computer's itunes. When we did the big move, thousands of songs and dozens of libraries, the receiving machine's itunes worked fine. I'd also still like to be able to create new playlists on one computer, without songs, and share them with the other computers on our network, and then move the songs separately.
Also to add:
I've had to force quit Tuneranger dozens of times so far. It hung up my mac mini (an old machine, but running Leopard) so bad I had to do a hard restart.
Don .. are you getting an error or is it just hanging? I have never had it crash or hang up on me. The way I use it is to transfer specific playlists over to the remote machines. We have one Mac with everything on it and then I'll pull individual playlists to my remote machines and then sync them on a maintenance bases. When I first started using it I would set it to sync the large playlists before going to bed because it takes awhile to move large amounts of data over Bonjour. Since then it is much easier because my transfers now are usually just pulling a few songs over form the main library or uploaded a few songs back to it. Maybe Tuneranger needs to do a screencast to make it easier.
If it is hanging I would suggest getting a log or perhaps talking with the developer. I'm sure they would be interested in sorting out problems of that nature.
Hey Guys,
I am really interested in this product, but after reading the review and comments I have some questions. First: Does anyone have any experience with using TR on a MAC and PC network. Our XP PC contains all of our music/meta data, but I would like to be able to use my MacBook or PC to make iTunes purchases. Second: Can anyone expand on the iPod Touch/iPhone incompatibility issue? Does it work at all or is it just limited? I would like to sync my iPod touch to my macbook, which as stated in the first question would be synced (word?) with the XP PC. Third: What happens to songs purchased directly from iTunes on the iPod touch?
Thanks for the help!
Alex
Alex,
We are all macs on our home network, so unable to help on your mixed network issue. You might check directly with the TR developer on the iPhone/Touch questions.
It is easy to test the Mac to PC compatibility - just download our free 30-day trials, one for each platform, at www.acertant.com! No obligation to buy.
As for the iPhone/Touch issue, it don't work ;-)
TuneRanger's main value proposition is iTunes to iTunes sync over a network. The iTunes to iPod support is great for emergencies to use your iPod as a backup and restore your iTunes library or if you want to sync with more than one computer. This of course assumes you can fit your entire music and video library on your iPod. For normal use however, iTunes does a good job overall.
I'm not sure why Apple removed the Disk Use option from these devices and we can't guarantee for certain we'll find away around this but we'll try.
I have an external drive holding all my ripped iTunes music connected to a G4 desktop via USB2. I also have 2 Mac laptops on the wireless network. I'm very interested in TuneRanger's possibilities, but I have a couple of questions:
1. Does TuneRanger sync/copy all of the audio files, or just the iTunes library file? Or, does TuneRanger only copy over audio files that correspond with selected playlists?
2. Can I use the external drive/desktop as the main repository of all audio files, and use the laptops as "remote controls" (for syncing iPods, ripping CDs, downloading music, etc.) for this main library?
3. Can I use TuneRanger to manage what files are (or are not) on each laptop's hard drive? Laptop hard-disk space is limited, so I might need to take stuff off to put new stuff on.
Sorry if I'm missing the point; any info would be helpful. Thanks!
@Josh
My set up is an iMac with the library on an external drive and I sync particular playlists over to the laptop with no problem. For instance I have one call "Monk" that has a limited list of my favorite Monk music. I sync that to the laptops and it comes over fine. In that sense I manage the laptop library by selectively pulling playlists over. When I buy music on my laptop (or iPhone that syncs to the laptop) I then TuneRanger sync it back up to the main iTunes computer with Tune Ranger. Hope that helps. There is a 30 day free trial. Just give it a go.
How does Tune Ranger handle different accounts on the same computer. We have three Macs, 1 PC laptop. Each member of the six people in our family has a different account. Can I use Tune Ranger to create basically one master iTunes Library that all the computers, accounts and iPods and use?
I have tried to get Tune Ranger to work properly and am afraid it truly is a version 1.0 product. I can sync individual playlist at one time but not the entire library. Frustrating.
We'll see if they respond, I have filed a bug report
The concept is great, price is affordable, but it needs to work.
Oh and one other thing , it has my Intel 2.8 Ghz pegged at 130% of cpu. Makes my machine almost unusable while syncing.
Interested to buy TuneRanger from what I read and all the comments here. A questions:
Can I get confirmation that I can sync iTunes library on my different Macs over the internet? I don't have a fixed IP ISP account. As I'm presuming the syncing macs need to be switched on, any suggestions how I can find solution to sync the my different macs if they are in different locations such as home, office, vacation home, etc..?
Thanks.
@Andy
You got me with that one. I have no clue. I would contact the developer direct with that question.
I have a huge number of music files spread out on two Macs, but also residing on several different external hard drives hooked up to the two Macs, since I've run out of space on my original start-up drive. Will Tune Ranger consolidate these files and eliminate duplicates (i.e., when the iTunes files are on different drives but all hooked up to the same computer)? I've been bedeviled by the fact that iTunes always claims it cannot find various files ("this cannot be played because the original file cannot be found") and I have to do manual searches for the music.
Alaskan,
There is a feature in iTunes that does some of what you need. It's called "Consolidate Library" and it will copy or move the files to the location specified in Preferences->Advanced->General->iTunes Music Folder Location.
Once Consolidated, TuneRanger has a nifty Remove Duplicates utility that can automate the process and save you a lot of time.
TuneRanger also has a "Remove Orphans" utility that removes those pesky (!) entries into your library for files that no longer exist.
Then there is also the "Add Disconnected Files" utility that does the opposite. It scans the default iTunes music Folder for files that are not listed in the iTunes Library.
Hope this helps.
-manny
I tried the "consolidate library" feature in iTunes, but it actually made a mess of my files by creating duplicates, which then used up so much disk space that my start up drive become full. So I have a mess on my hands now because my iTunes library is so big (mainly due to duplicates) that it won't fit on a single hard drive (it's more than a terabyte).
So this sounds like maybe Tune Ranger can fix that problem, anyway.
Just tried working with this product and found some major flaws in the way it works. We have two laptops, both with more or less the same files on it, and I want to sync them. Thoughts TR would be great. But here's an example of the problems I've encountered: We both have the same Astor Piazzola album -- the songs are identical, the file names are identical -- but on my computer the artist is "Piazzola, Astor" and on hers its "Astor Piazzola". TR wants to put both on both laptops. We have dozens of albums like this. So what ends up happening is that TR wants to create hundreds of duplicate songs (actually about 1000) on BOTH computers -- exactly the OPPOSITE of why I purchased it. Very frustrating!
TuneRanger, like iTunes, will not recognize “Piazzola, Astor” and “Astor Piazzola” as the same artist. Same with Album name, Song Name, etc. if they are not the same, they are not the same. iTunes, like TuneRanger, completely ignores filenames - that's what tags are for.
If you and your wife want to sync your collections, manually or using TuneRanger, you need to pick one naming scheme and standardize on it.
hi all:
TuneRanger sounds like it might solve a problem I have. I've used a PC to manage my music library for years. Now I'm fully switching to Mac and would like to move my music library over. That isn't much of an issue, but what is an issue is losing about four years of play data and rankings. TuneRanger states that it ports metadata from one library to another; does this include the play count data, date added to library, etc?
Thanks,
--Bryan
-b, Right now it transfers ratings, playcounts, last played date, EQ Settings and comments - in addition to all the tags embedded in the files themselves of course. Support for more iTunes metadata will be added in the future.
Thanks for all the info! One question, also asked by Josh: Does Tune Ranger work on all audio files, or only purchased music? I have many files of my own work that I need to restore from my iPod to my new hard disk after a crash, and can't afford to lose them! I don't even need to sync computers.